– Steve Hitchen
This week’s LMH is coming to you from the city of the north: Darwin. There’s no doubt about the unique nature of aviation up here, with the defence force, civil heavies and GA training and charter all featuring in the daily movement list, coupled with weather that is enough to scare the headset off the average southern-state pilot. I remember early in my aviation career that young CPLs were all told to get themselves up to the north where there was plenty of work if they were prepared to put in the hard yards and didn’t mind operating essentially alone even on the most challenging missions. The advice was Australian GA’s version of “Go west, young man!” But it seems that times have changed. There are aeroplanes now sitting around the GA apron at Darwin that once didn’t have the luxury of sitting around: they’d all be in the air. And their idleness is nothing to do with maintenance, nothing to do with demand and it’s even nothing to do with CASA. It’s all to do with a lack of pilots prepared to fly them. It seems that in the current training environment that encourages young people to spend a Rajah’s ransom fast-tracking themselves to the airlines; Darwin and almost unlimited hours flying into and out of some of Australia’s best goat tracks is no longer appealing. There is still much to be said for doing the 200-hour CPL course and hoarding hours and experience before you knock on the airlines’ doors. GA experience still counts for a lot because it means you’ve made command decisions by yourself and can think on your feet; something that the industry tells me is lacking in graduates from the academies. So it seems to me there are career starts going begging up here, and aspiring CPLs would do well to consider the hard road. As is evident, those aeroplanes aren’t going to fly themselves.
CASA this week announced they were going to chop $10 off the top of the Class 2 medical processing fee where the DAME elects to issue the certificate themselves. That was followed-up by a promise to review the fee again if further reforms allow. The news has brought to the surface greater issues, and the largest one is that DAMEs are not required to issue the certificate themselves; they can still opt to have CASA do it if they wish. Even the regulator has pointed out that pilots need to ask their examiner first if they are set-up to issue the certificate before presuming it will just happen. What the aviation community is asking now is whether or not this is real reform. Under the old system, DAMEs already had that choice by joining the DAME2 program. So if an examiner wasn’t a DAME2 before, why would they suddenly choose to take on that role now? But this is all second-guessing. We really won't know how the whole thing is going to pan out until the complete reforms are cemented in place.
Cirrus Aircraft has added another feather to a cap already brimming with plumage: the Collier Trophy. Let me tell you this is no mean feat. The Collier is desirable treasure in the US aviation community, and Cirrus beat out some very heavy hitters like Boeing and NASA. This is recognition of their efforts in bringing to market an innovative design; one of very few products from the very light jet surge in the mid-2000s that has made it onto the showroom floors. And even the SF50 spent its share of time swinging in the breeze, and if it wasn't for the new company owners believing in the jet and persisting with the program, it too might have been consigned to the mini-skip of failed prototypes. Certainly the design and the company deserve their spot in the history of the Collier Trophy.
I have been told that an announcement about the date and location of Airventure Australia 2018 is coming soon. It is missing from the aviation calendar at the moment whilst the organisers make some changes to the format. My guess is a September date, but the location may still be a bit up in the air. With the SAAA no longer actively involved as an organising entity, the pull to have the show at Narromine has weakened somewhat. Even when the event was known as Ausfly, people were wondering if having it at such a remote airport with such limited accommodation was the wisest thing. It made sense for the SAAA because it was where their centre of energy was, and they may have been hard-pushed to make the event work at another airport. That is not the case now, so RAAus may be looking at a larger airport probably closer to or inside Australia's J-curve geographic feature. There I go second-guessing again. Hopefully we'll know soon because Spring weekends are like gold in the general aviation world.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch