– Steve Hitchen
Although the phrase "do as I say, not do as I do" is most often attributed to sergeants and flying instructors, it can equally be applied to government departments. This week the department opened consultation on the Australian Airspace Policy Statement (AAPS) with all the fanfare of a muted kazoo; the minister sent out no press release and the news appears on neither the CASA nor the Airservices news feeds. Do they not want us to know about it? If you flick through the AAPS it is full of motherhood statements about making sure airspace is managed fairly and efficiently, which is a complete contradiction to what they are really doing as evidenced by the new airspace design proposals for Sydney. To look at the Sydney proposals and compare them to the AAPS you would swear the two weren't produced by the same government. The AAPS says one thing, the Sydney proposal does another. That's nearly impossible for the GA community to reconcile whilst simultaneously giving fair and balanced feedback. But are we expecting too much from something that admittedly is only policy? Policies are good until they are inconvenient, then they are discarded quicker than a losing Tattslotto ticket. So in the end, the aviation community is being asked to comment on a policy that may or may not be put into effect, which is why it contradicts so much with the Sydney airspace proposals.
One of the key pillars that supports the GA section of the 2024 aviation white paper is the government's stated aim of keeping the Airport Leasing Companies (ALC) honest in terms of the Airports Act. This week the department made it very clear they won't be approving master plans unless they guarantee continued access for general aviation and make sure everything clicks with the lease conditions. But there's a loophole: whilst the minister can control to a certain extent what the ALCs do, they have no ability to intervene in who the ALCs lease aviation infrastructure to. What this means is that an ALC can designate facilities for aviation use in a master plan, but lease those facilities to non-aviation organisations. If an ALC can get more for leasing an aircraft hangar to an engineering or storage firm rather than a flying school or MRO, then they are free to do that. This reduces access to the airport for GA companies, which the language of the white paper would infer the minister is trying to stop. The minister can influence and write letters about "good faith", but it seems they don't have the power to stop the ALCs gaming the system. Sometime between now and 2030, some of the ALCs will be wanting to exercise their options to extend their leases by another 50 years. I suspect that the GA community almost without exception will be asking for none of the leases to be renewed. Although the minister will be reviewing the airports act and including the metro Class D airports in the next Productivity Commission inquiry into airport regulation, I can't see them refusing lease extensions and reversing privatisation. The airports will continued to be leased, but their future use as airports is going to be reliant on tighter controls over non-aviation use.
There are several companies in Australia working on the problem of future propulsion for GA. This week Brisbane's Stralis updated the GA community on the progress of their hydrogen-electric fuel cell technology, which is being developed as a retro-fit system in two Beech Bonanzas. They're anticipating a piloted flight next year; a major milestone on the long highway of finding a new power source for practical GA aeroplanes. If Stralis can develop a practical drop-in replacement powertrain for avgas-powered airframes, they will have achieved something fantastic. It will be even better than fantastic if they can retain most of the airframe performance once a conversion is done. Aircraft like the Bonanza, Cessna 206 and Cessna 210 are legendary performers in terms of speed and loading. That's why we love them. It will be difficult to accept a hydrogen-electric conversion if the aircraft's characteristics are depreciated by the new technology. That leaves two options: make a better powertrain, or mate the existing one to a less demanding airframe. Stralis' two Bonanzas are test-beds, not prototypes, so there is opportunity to develop airframes specifically for hydrogen-electric technology rather than putting a 2025 system into a 1948 airframe. We'll know a lot more about the impact of Stralis' system after the first piloted flight next year, which should give the GA community more information about where it's going.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch