– Steve Hitchen
There was a forest of papers tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday, but the aviation white paper was not among them. As the last joint sitting of both houses before a long break, I predicted that minister Catherine King would drop the white paper yesterday, but it seems I was not reading from the same strategy paper as she was. So right now, I am out of ideas as to why the aviation white paper has not been made public. Legitimate ideas, that is. There is always political chicanery going on in the background designed to ensure as much glitter from the white paper as possible rubs off on the government . That presumes the paper actually glitters, which may be the reason why we haven't seen it: it contains not enough gold. The white paper may be going through the spin cycle at the moment to make sure it gleams as brightly as possible before the minister holds it up like Excalibur. In the meantime, the general aviation community has to wait. But there is something different this time compared to the last Labor white paper. This time, rather than stalling, the aviation community is getting on with the job because it expects–like the last time–that the white paper will actually have little bearing on the future of the GA industry. Yes, I find it ironic that we are waiting impatiently for a document that we don't want anyway.
Airservices and CASA's Office of Airspace Regulation will be asking next month for the aviation community's feedback on new VFR lanes for Bankstown. These lanes will connect the airport with new training areas to be created to the south-east around Engadine. We'd probably scream at them if they didn't consult, but in reality feedback from the GA community is not likely to unearth anything that Airservices and the OAR don't already know. No line of violet dots on a map is going to address the underlying issue, which is the need for the training area to the south. This has been caused by Bankstown and Camden being swamped by the needs of Western Sydney International; their training area sacrificed to the needs of the heavy jets. Connecting Bankstown to a training area that is over inappropriate terrain is no solution, and has been imposed on operators in the Sydney basin regardless of the results of consultation. The WSI monster is hungry for airspace and must be fed, even if it means only scraps are left over for everyone else. The overwhelming feeling in the Sydney GA community is that Bankstown Airport is done for; it can't continue to operate as a healthy GA airport under the conditions that have been thrust upon it. In truth, nothing has changed since the announcement that a new airport would be built at Badgerys Creek. Governments were told then that a second airport built in the west would have very dire consequences, yet feedback was not listened to then. It really will be hard for the Sydney GA community to believe they are going to be listened to now.
Delaying the Class 4 medical until well into next year is not going down particularly well with pilots. CASA's reason for the delay is so they can gather data about the Class 5 medical to determine what operational restrictions are going to apply. Currently, both Class 5 and the Class 2 Basic have operational restrictions that are applied because the regulator considers only an examination by a DAME can render those operations safe. CASA wants to use the Class 5 experience to determine if a full DAME medical really is needed for some flight activities. It's not easy to see where their data is going to come from: if Class 5 pilots can't fly those activities then how will the experience be of any value to CASA? How can a pilot provide feedback on the safety of something they are not allowed to do? An enigma, but perhaps not. What I believe CASA is after is data on the integrity of those applying for Class 5. The self-declared medical is open to abuse, and I feel the regulator wants to be able to trust pilots not to abuse it before they let their guard down completely. As someone who went through the Class 5 process, I saw several points where lying would have been the easier option, but doing so could jeopardise our chances of having some restrictions on Class 5 and Class 4 removed. If CASA thinks people are lying to them, they'll fall back on a higher level of safety to compensate for that.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch