– Steve Hitchen
RAAA CEO Steve Campbell has called for the government to start importing aviation engineers to correct a skills shortage that has now reached the critical level. It's not an ideal situation–training our own is preferable–but the knowledge and skill base in Australia has lost a lot of mass and it may be too late for self-recovery. The previous government conceded the situation was dire and recognised the need to bend training pathways into more efficient shapes, but that relied on them continuing in power, and as that didn't happen, all their plans and innovations are now redundant policy. Consequently, general aviation doesn't have the luxury of excess time and the MRO industry needs solutions right now rather than have to wait for the new government to put us through another review process; a process which I have no doubt will do nothing but tell them what they already know. The short-term fix is to get qualified engineers from overseas and get them on the job as soon as possible. It's not a perfect solution, but it will check the downhill slide whilst the new minister works on long-term initiatives.
More definite is the future of CASA's GA workplan, as reiterated last week by DAS Pip Spence. Whilst speaking to the airports association, Spence took the opportunity to slip in some comments about wider reforms and the workplan. The workplan is a cornerstone document of any GA revitalisation because it recognises several crippling issues and pieces of illogical regulation that the industry has been railing against for too many years now. We can hope only that the DAS continues to enjoy the approval of the government to get on and get this done. For it is not only GA that needs the reforms; CASA itself has for many years suffered from self-inflicted injury that it always had the power to heal, but chose to listen to obstinate voices that refused to believe in the wound. Those voices are still there, but are weakening as Spence and others who drive the bandwagon wield their own stubborness as a weapon for reform. The GA community still has those who think belief in internal reform is quixotic. To those people we must extend respect for the traumas the regulator has put them through, but to blindly deny the possibility of genuine reform is to kill it dead before it has a chance. When the dragon wants to wean itself off eating people, let it.
Scouts NSW's Air Activity Centre at Camden turned 50 years old recently, which is a mightly effort in a GA industry that has so very few organisations and companies that have lasted as long. The Scouts flight training programs have launched hundreds of aviation careers, including mine. I did my ab initio training at the Victorian Scouts centre at the now sadly missing Casey Airfield, and at the time it was the only possible way I could ever have become a pilot. It is now what I am and it is now what I do, and the Scouts made it so for me. The volunteer flying instructors meant dual rates didn't exist, which halved the cost of training. But it was the mentorship of instructors that weren't flying just to build hours that proved invaluable to me. In those days at Casey the instructors were Dick Humphrey DFC and David Thomas, and I draw on my experiences flying with them more than I do any other instructor. It was a perfect start to my aviation career in so many ways, and it wouldn't have happened for me had the NSW Air Activity Centre not pioneered the way for the Victorian centre to model itself on. Well done, Scouts NSW, like me, there are many pilots out there that owe you their careers.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch