The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is reportedly very happy with industry feedback on the medicals reform discussion paper.
It is believed around 180 submissions were made before the deadline of 30 March 2017. Previously, CASA had expressed concerns over the lack of feedback on the issue.
Of those responders, about 50% have consented to have their submission published on the CASA website, which is scheduled to happen as early as the end of this week.
The next step, according to a source in CASA, is for the responses to be collated into one summarising report for senior management to consider.
CASA's discussion explored all aviation medical standards, not just Class 2, and proposed six options for consideration:
- do nothing
- re-assess the risk tolerances in the context of industry and community expectations
- examine and streamline practices for all classes including the approach to incapacitation
- extend the RAMPC so that it applies more widely in the sport aviation sector as well
- develop a new certification standard for the sport and recreational sectors
- mitigate the risk of change by applying operational restrictions.
Several large organisations including Recreational Aviation Australia and AOPA Australia made strong submissions to the discussion paper.