– Steve Hitchen
Australian aviation's night-of-nights was given extra sparkle this year when the Australian Women Pilots Association (AWPA) showed up in numbers to see their organisation carry off the 2024 Southern Cross Award. It all happened on Saturday night at the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame induction dinner. This event is already a who's who of aviation, attracting everyone within the industry considered a mover and shaker. But I don't think the AAHOF dinner has ever been moved or shaken like it was when the AWPA rocked up. Their enthusiasm for their organisation, for aviation and for each other is infection and–unfortunately–completely unmatched by any other aviation association in this country. That was pretty obvious from the cheers and applause when Flt Lt Sarah Hume stood up to accept the award. But it's not only the membership that should be applauding, the entire aviation industry in Australia should join in the ovation: the AWPA deserves it. The night also contained some classic Aussie humility from George Morgan, who admitted he didn't know how to take his induction. A hard working bloke who's not used to accolades, he nevertheless regaled the attendees with stories of GippsAero and his fellow inductee Peter Furlong. It was a masterclass in understated pride from George, but everyone there knew how much it was really deserved.
I had a very enlightening conversation with Gabriel Massey from Pipistrel last month. Massey is a Textron man at heart, dropped into the Slovenian LSA and glider manufacturer when Textron bought them to best leverage Pipistrel's expertise in electric aviation. One of the things that Massey hinted at was their ambitions for a four-seat, practical electric GA plane aimed at the private market, for the post-avgas era. He did admit that the current Pipistrel airframes were not the ideal thing to carry forward and that a completely new design was needed. Or not. Naturally, that got me thinking about an electric C172, but the issue with that is the all-metal airframe may prove too heavy to pioneer electric aviation with the capability of extant technology. So that turned me in another direction. Who remembers the Cessna NGP? This was the composite Next Generation Piston that buzzed Oshkosh in 2006 as an introduction to the world. It got nowhere; a bit over a year later Textron bought Columbia, which had the desired composite expertise, and the Cessna TTx became the prime composite offering. The TTx went into production, but wasn't the "Cirrus killer" that Textron was after. The NGP, a high-wing composite, exists now as only the answer to a trivia question, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it, or a derivative, emerge again as a platform for developing practical electric aviation. Of course, all of this is guesswork, but isn't that the way so much innovation starts?
Navigating Aviation's workplace culture survey is probably something that needed to happen. One thing we know about the commercial side of GA is that it's high-pressure and asks a lot of engineers, pilots, students and administrators. It has proven many times to be the cause of broken hearts and broken dreams. For many, the costs is high, perhaps too high. Whether the pressure comes from employers, passengers/customers or regulators, at times it takes its toll. There is, shall I say, a degree of reticence within the GA community to engage with this survey. That comes from a natural fear of honest feedback coming straight back at you like an ugly headwind. That in itself is probably an indicator of a cultural problem that needs some attention. Another cause of trepidation, ironically, is that the survey may expose cultural issues that GA operators will need to foot the bill to fix, leading to more stress. Sometimes surveys asks more questions than they can answer, but that doesn't mean you don't ask them anyway.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch