Hitch is quite correct in that flying schools have been dying out for many years. I ran my flying school for about thirty years and can attest to the costly and completely unnecessary changes wrought by CASA in it’s unending regulation churning with ever increasing complexity and parallel fee gouging.
When I handed over to a husband and wife team who had come in with their own aircraft and had been working under my Certificate for some time CASA made them go through the hoops, including fees of several thousand dollars. Same CFI and instructor, same aircraft, airport, training area and premises, books, training aids. Six or eight months of pain, and money down the drain, for no safety or administrative improvements whatever.
This is the CASA modus operandi of many years standing. The only difference in the last twenty years being that the system is even more unworkable and expensive, hence in the last thirty years hundreds of flying schools and charter operators have disappeared. With the looming next tranche of rule changes, Parts 135 & 91 for example, more operators will give up and quite a few of their aircraft will be sold into the USA.
The graveyard spiral continues and worse safety outcomes are already apparent, not to mention our airlines having to recruit pilots from overseas.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, a supposedly first world country killing off an industry, with the loss of thousands of jobs, in a field that is most valuable to a large sparsely populated continent and where we can excel and be earning rivers of foreign money to boot.
Don’t worry anybody CASA is looking into it with consultants, wonder who they are and how much money? More waste of time and money, as AMROBA says (much thanks to the tireless public spirit of Ken Cannane) “Who cares?”
When I handed over to a husband and wife team who had come in with their own aircraft and had been working under my Certificate for some time CASA made them go through the hoops, including fees of several thousand dollars. Same CFI and instructor, same aircraft, airport, training area and premises, books, training aids. Six or eight months of pain, and money down the drain, for no safety or administrative improvements whatever.
This is the CASA modus operandi of many years standing. The only difference in the last twenty years being that the system is even more unworkable and expensive, hence in the last thirty years hundreds of flying schools and charter operators have disappeared. With the looming next tranche of rule changes, Parts 135 & 91 for example, more operators will give up and quite a few of their aircraft will be sold into the USA.
The graveyard spiral continues and worse safety outcomes are already apparent, not to mention our airlines having to recruit pilots from overseas.
You couldn’t make this stuff up, a supposedly first world country killing off an industry, with the loss of thousands of jobs, in a field that is most valuable to a large sparsely populated continent and where we can excel and be earning rivers of foreign money to boot.
Don’t worry anybody CASA is looking into it with consultants, wonder who they are and how much money? More waste of time and money, as AMROBA says (much thanks to the tireless public spirit of Ken Cannane) “Who cares?”