The loss of John Glenn last night has severed the last connection to a time of great heroism and exploration. Glenn was the sole surviving member of seven Project Mercury astronauts that pioneered space flight in the USA and laid a solid foundation for a trip to the moon. Whilst their great rival, the Soviet Union, was taking risky short-cuts to beat NASA to milestones, Project Mercury was following the time-honoured path of progressive development and learning. Even so, when NASA put John Glenn into space in 1962, they had a total of 30 minutes of manned space flight experience, and 40% of the Atlas boosters had exploded on the pad up to that point. Still, each one of the Mercury Seven would have climbed over the others to get into the command seat. Test pilots all, they knew the risks and it was probably that very risk that fueled their desires to go higher, faster and further. But there was something different about Glenn: despite his A-type personality, history has recorded him as one of the nice guys; loyal and honest with a heavy work ethic. Whilst several of the other Mercury astronauts adopted the playboy lifestyle of Corvettes and young women, Glenn was devoted to his stuttering wife Annie for his entire life. His childhood sweetheart was beside his bed when he died last night. If you were to draw up a set of criteria to define the great American hero, John Glenn's checklist would be covered in green ticks to the point where it makes you wonder what came first: the stereotypical hero character or John Glenn. In the words of his capsule communicator Scott Carpenter, "Godspeed, John Glenn."
AOPA this week confirmed they would work with Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party to develop an aviation reform policy. This came at the same time that Dick Smith aired his public support for Hanson, predicting she would ride a "Trump-like" wave of support. AOPA CEO Ben Morgan justified their statement by saying they would work with all sides of politics to get a GA policy that revitalises the industry. Any lobby group worth their spot at the negotiating table knows how important it is to get on-side with just about everyone in Canberra, but there is a greater risk in an open connection to such a divisive character as Senator Hanson. Although she may soon ride a "Trump-like" wave, that particular wave is yet to demonstrate any level of stamina. People like Trump and Hanson tend to be "crash through or crash" types, whose fall is often as spectacular as their rise. The problem is that their crash is often their associates' crash as well, so AOPA needs to make sure any mud she may land in doesn't stick to them.
Whereas many people will be quick to question Dick Smith's support of Pauline Hanson, it would be a hard-nosed Scrooge who didn't stand up and applaud his decision to donate over $4 million to charity after the sale of his Citation. Such people may label this a "stunt" (to steal the hackneyed political jibe) because it is connected to the ADS-B requirement and onerous regulation; however, most stunts don't result in such a windfall for charities such as this one. Had Dick and Pippa sold the plane and kept the money for themselves, no-one would have given it any thought. The same can be said of Dick's move to finance a network of weather cameras by giving Airservices Australia a cheque for $160,000. This is a fantastic idea, one that Airservices and the Federal Government should bulldoze through the bureaucracy and just get done. Why would they not? It's a fully-financed project that has a direct nexus to aviation safety. Yes, politics may get in the way, but I have been told that at the moment Airservices is "considering this in a positive light" and plans to consult the industry to ensure any cameras installed will deliver a real improvement in safety.
One thing that stood out from my first pass through the ACIL Allen report on regional airports is that we may have a lot fewer of them in 10 years than we do now. Local councils that inherited them via the Aerodrome Local Ownership Program (ALOP) are struggling to find the money to maintain them, and the constant pressure applied by housing developers may soon see several regional airports go under the bulldozer. Even though the federal and state governments have given out grants to many regional airports for infrastructure upgrades, there is still a lot of work to do to reverse decades of under-funding and neglect. A collegue said to me during the week that he thought the problem was that handing over the airports to the councils caused the federal government to no longer consider them important national assets and part of our critical infrastructure. If he's right, then ALOP has been a massive failure that was likely designed solely to hand-ball costs onto councils that could never afford it.
The table tennis match between AOPA and CASA over industry consultation continued this week with AOPA CEO Ben Morgan launching another blistering serve into the court of CASA Director of Aviation Safety Shane Carmody. Replying to Carmody's last note, which effectively said "we did so consult!", Morgan accused CASA of playing politics and again issued a call to meet with AOPA to talk about the ADS-B issue. One of the things Morgan has placed on the table is compensation for aircraft owners who have been forced to install ADS-B under new regulations. This goes all the way back to the original project, which included subsidies to be funded by not upgrading the en route radars, although no promises were ever made. Once the en route radars had to be done anyway, the subsidy idea went the way of the dodo. Now AOPA is trying to resurrect the idea post-mandate. If they get this done, I will be happy to laud this as AOPA Australia's greatest ever achievement; however, I am not polishing my soapbox just yet.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch