– Steve Hitchen
Re-appointing Mark Binskin as Chair of the CASA board is probably the easiest decision that minister Catherine King has had to make since she began her tenure. "Bini" is possibly one of the most hands-on board members CASA has ever had and works well with Director of Aviation Safety Pip Spence. The result is that the current bureaucracy is infused with aviation culture from above. There have been several Chairs in the past that have had aviation in their blood, but never to this extent. Bini goes "above and beyond" the traditional role, trying to understand what the regulations are trying to do and providing a guiding hand when it's needed ... and it is needed often. However, regardless of the ambitions and drive of the Chair, they can only do so much, because the CASA board is not part of the aviation safety regulatory hierarchy. That buck stops at Pip Spence. How much influence Bini–or any other chair–has is totally up to her personally. So, with a strong alliance at the top, should we be expecting marvelous things from CASA that solve all the festering sores in the GA community? Yes, and no. There are some things that CASA just will not grant no matter how much we plead for them, usually because CASA's remit is strongly skewed towards protecting the general public from the risks of aviation. So, whilst having a pure aviator as Chair is a booster for the aviation community, the regulator beneath will always carry the day in any conflict of opinion.
CASR Part 43 is becoming a very sore point with the GA community at the moment; once-lauded regulation that has become tarnished somewhat since it was first mooted. When it was announced that it would be based on FAR 43, people smiled and starting thinking that at last CASA was getting the idea of simply adopting the US regulations instead of re-inventing that which had already been invented. But according to AMROBA, the proposed CASR 43 will relax maintenance regulations for private and airwork aircraft too far, permitting a situation that regulation was once penned to eliminate. AMROBA is running for the silver bullets over the idea that an independent AMTC Class 1 should be allowed to overhaul an engine, something that is barred in FAR 23. The advantages to having an AMTC do overhauls is that they would be removed from the expensive and over-bearing rules that surround Part 66 organisations, which are geared-up to maintain passenger-carrying aircraft. As I see it, this could be a great thing because, by most MROs own admissions, their priorities are biased towards money-making aircraft. If a school or a charter company has a machine on the ground, the MROs give priority to that over a privately-owned aircraft. Private owners can find their aircraft stuck at the back of a maintenance hangar for months as it keeps getting duck-shoved down the pecking order. And furthermore, they are expected to accept the situation. Having an AMTC 1 being able to maintain aircraft including overhauls gives them a chance of getting back in the air sooner. As no other viable solution for private aircraft has been put forward to any effect, this may be the only way.
Hobart has always been a problematic destination for GA; Cambridge being the one and only airport other than Hobart International. There is a quasi-alternative at Sandfly near Kingston, but it's private and only 500 m long. Without Cambridge, Hobart International would need to accept a long more GA movements than it is now; the GA pad there is miniscule and looks like it could hold around five aircraft at the most. Cambridge airport has been listed for sale freehold, and after the Hoxton Park experience, the GA community is feeling a bit nervous about the outcome. One feature to hang our hats on is that the Wells family, which owns and operates Cambridge, is selling on the proviso that the airport is leased back to themselves through Par Avion Aviation. That lease is described as "short term", which not exactly encouraging for the long-term future of Cambridge. Any potential buyer won't do so because they want an airport, they will be salivating over the land the airport is on. This is actually not a new situation. When the Federal Airports Corporation divested themselves of Cambridge in 1992, they sold it freehold with no proviso that it continued to be operated as an airport. It was only that the buyer was involved in aviation that kept Hobart's GA airport on the charts. What of the future? We'll know only when Par Avion's lease runs out.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch