– Steve Hitchen
CASA's move to centralise regulatory functions and do away with certification teams was greeted with great spirit. It showed that CASA recognised there was a problem with inconsistent advice that the aviation community just couldn't work with, and this was a decent solution. This week, CASA performed a partial about-face and will send some regulatory functions back to the regional offices. According to Pip Spence, they've found some things are better served by people who know the local industry. The central office will still deal with most admin stuff, but complex issues of oversight and surveillance are back in the hands of the regions. Is anyone surprised by this? The national oversight model was excellent on paper, but in the real world the industry struggled to get answers because centralising the system resulted in centralising the overload. Not even the local CASA offices could get through. Something had to give. But the problems of inconsistency are most critical around the functions that have been dispensed back to the regional offices. Surveillance and operational issues have the greatest impact on AOC holders. In the past, that inconsistency has seen operators sent to the wall for no good reason. The challenge for CASA now is to devise a mechanism to ensure inconsistency in advice doesn't once again thrive.
AOPA Australia and SkyFuel/Viva Energy have embarked on a very ambitious project: a trans-Australia air race reflecting the 1976 Australian Air Race. That event was a classic that captured the nation to the extent that the start at Jandakot was televised. It was a shot in the arm for general aviation in the form of exposure to the Australian public. Reviving the concept for next year is an absolute blinder, but no-one should go into this thinking it's going to be easy. AOPA CEO Ben Morgan has made it clear that this is all about wanting to be involved in something fun rather than the dry, hard slog of advocacy, and that's a sentiment that I endorse with waving banners. AOPA has been focused on advocacy to the point of neglecting the other stuff a pilots' association needs to be. Advocacy is good, but the membership figures have been on the decline, because, I suspect, the reasons people sign-up are the very things the association has let slip. Aviation has a fun side; it's the reason most pilots actually get into the game, and AOPA Australia is showing an awareness of this and a desire to get involved. Hopefully for all those that are putting in the hard yards to get this off the ground, the general aviation community will embrace the adventurous spirit in which the 2024 air race has been conceived. Is it a crazy and outrageous idea? Yes! The best ideas almost always are.
Airservices Australia has released a draft Community Consultation Standards document, aimed at getting feedback about the way Airservices consults with the general public and aviation community. It covers mainly flight path and airspace change proposals, both of which have courted controversy in the past. Airservices consultation has become combative several times in the past, largely because of a perception of undue influence exerted by the airlines, usually to the detriment of general aviation. The big one is yet to be sorted out: the airspace design around Western Sydney (Lady-Bird Walton) International Airport. It has been decades since change of this magnitude has been forced on the aviation community, and there are so many stakeholders putting pegs in the ground that the airspace design could very well come out looking like a camel rather than a horse. The impact on both Bankstown and Camden has the potential to strangle GA operations at both those airports, especially if the voice of GA is not powerful enough to carry through the cacophany. Regardless of the best intent of this Community Consultations Standards document, it will be interesting to see how much it is adhered to when the final airspace design comes out.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch