– Steve Hitchen
We are now in what I term the "gravitational pull" of Oshkosh. That's the period in the immediate run-up to the world's largest air show and exhibition when manufacturers and marketers stop talking to you. The silence is generated by a desire to save new announcements for Oshkosh itself as a lure to have people come to the company stand. Sometimes it's a new aircraft concept such as the Cessna NGP concept at Osh in 2006 (it went nowhere), but mostly announcements are about upgrades and interiors to existing models. Some manufacturers will be showing off a type at Osh for the first time this year, such as Honda's Elite and the Piper M700 Fury, but one aircraft that will be glaringly absent is Cessna's C408 SkyCourier. As the latest clean-sheet design to come from Textron Aviation, you would think Wichita would pull out all chocks to get one there. But it's not only Oshkosh, the C408 wasn't at Sun 'n' Fun either. In fact, No C408 airframe has been used in marketing and promotional roles. The reason? Textron has such a backlog for this twin turbo-prop utility that they are busy filling customer orders and don't have an airframe spare to show off. With the Combi version certified in May, an example at Osh would have attracted a swarm of admirers, but it looks like we're going to have to wait a while before we can get close to a tame one.
Feedback to the new airspace design at Ballina-Byron is divided along very predictable lines: GA is dismayed and RPT is applauding loudly with cheers of "you can never have too much CTA!" It's a familiar story, CTA goes in and GA self-ejects from the airspace. See also Avalon. And I'm talking strictly GA here rather than recreational. Holders of Recreational Pilot Certificates that don't also hold PPLs will be pilot-non-grata in CTA until such time as CASA gets the Part 103 MOS straight. Understanding why GA pilots shun CTA falls into the easy/not-easy category. Private pilots have a training path that not only teaches them operations in CTA, but also the benefits of talking with controllers. Still, Josephine Average VFR PPL often adopts a "thar be dragons" attitude to ops in CTA. Is the training inadequate? Are the instructors inadequate? Are the controllers inadequate? No, none of those things. The reason is that the culture of CTA is not one that welcomes a relaxed form of flying. It increases rather than decreases pilot workload and too often private flights are rebuffed at the boundary to facilitate an RPT arrival. The side-effect of that is PPLs becoming rusty on CTA procedures because they don't use them as much as they should. Knowing that, they shun CTA even more. The situation at Ballina is more dire for recreational pilots and operators of aircraft without transponders. The proposal ignores their plight and presents no solutions, like they are second-class citizens told to eat cake. If the sky is for everybody, then everybody needs to be facilitated to use that sky.
Nominations for the 11th year of the CASA Wings Awards are now open. Personally, I am looking forward to seeing what the GA community does with them this year perhaps more than any other year. We have been able to honour some very deserving people and organisations over the past decade, and we know there are so many more out there that warrant this level of recognition. Our centrepiece is the Col Pay Award for a Lifetime of Service to General Aviation, and the category we get the most nominations for. It is, in some ways, disappointing that we can present only one award every year because it means so many still go unrecognised. For that reason, Col Pay nominations remain in the hat for five years, so if your person (or you!) doesn't come up immediately, it doesn't mean you've been forgotten. For 2024, we have managed to bolster the awards thanks to the ongoing support of CASA and David Clark, Bose and World Fuel coming on board to help us recognise the worthy. Although nominations close on 10 November, don't wait until the death knock to get yours in; spend time getting it into winning shape and give yourself every chance to impress the judging panel.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch