Almost walked away

[derekliston]

I am 65yrs old and have been around aeroplanes since I was 10yrs old but last weekend I came very close to saying "shove it" and walking away. Why? well if you bear with me for a bit of personal history I'll tell you. At 10yrs old I used to ride my bike to Edinburgh airport to watch aeroplanes, at 16 I served an apprenticeship which included working on Meteor, Canberra and Buccaneer. At 21 I joined BA, BOAC in those days as an aircraft engineer for 13yrs finishing as a supervisor. Leaving BA I worked for Personal Plane Services servicing Pipers, Cessnas and working on Spitfire Mk IX, Dragon Rapide and SE5A. Moving to Australia I was the sole engineer at ATC which became Arena for almost ten yrs then to Rosebank at Amberley for 6yrs before retiring 3yrs ago. So what pissed me off? I had to do a maintenance procedures course followed by an exam which I now have to complete in order to maintain my own aeroplane. Even that wouldn't be so bad but the answers for the most part have to be sourced from CASA's website which has to be the most "User unfriendly" site I have ever used. Sorry, major whinge but I needed to get it off my chest and I don't know where else to do that. Point out that my aircraft is VH experimental.

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

That was your mistake Derek....should have kept it 19 rego...less casa crap

 

 

[rankamateur]

No recognition of prior learning avenue obviously?

 

 

[biggles5128]

Yep, see where your coming from but just jump through the hoops because you would be regretting your decision if you walked away. The cake eaters that make all these decisions up the line never talk to each other to ensure common sense prevails.

 

 

[Guest Yampy]

I know exactly where you are coming from , having very distinct parallels to your situation . I will be 60 yrs old this year , been around aircraft since I was about 10 yrs old , spotting at Birmingham though , and migrating like you from the UK ..

 

I've held a Pilot cert with Pax and XC endorsements for 8 yrs , however , my frustrations are unlike yours in that I'm just peed off with all the crap from RAAus , and I'm also on the brink of saying " shove it " ..

 

You have done yourself a great favour in airing your feelings here . Getting it off your chest is a great way to starting the path to recovering your drive ..

 

 

[Guest sunfish]

Derek, I had to do the course too. I agree its mostly the dry and depressing legalese and the theory of maintenance strategy and all the rigamarole CASA inflicts on us, but..........after you have your certificate you can maintain your aeroplane and more importantly issue a maintenance release.

 

 

[djpacro]

No recognition of prior learning avenue obviously?

or of other qualifications - that is CASA unfortunately.

[rgmwa]

I agree about CASA's unfriendly web site. They are well behind the times when it comes to decent search engines, and there is no doubt that the MPC course is fairly dry stuff as it's all about procedures, rules and regulations. However I see that as a small price to pay for having the right to maintain my own aircraft. While I can understand your frustration you're also fortunate, as very few of us who have had to do the MPC course have the skill and experience you have when it comes to putting that legal right into practice.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[metalman]

I had to do the course, although I don't have the background you do, I found a lot of the info on the FAA site and through out the AC43-13 to be heaps easier to deal with and they seemed to accept my answers , I still had to trawl through the CASA sh1tfight but I passed the test, I'm now "legal" to do the maintenance , the end! It's crap but what isn't nowadays!

 

 

[cscotthendry]

CASA will always be CASA (read: a Big Bureaucracy). Tick the boxes, jump through the hoops, fill in the forms and magically you'll be safer, or at least the bureaucrats will be safer from responsibility if you actually do anything. Remember: Zero flying means Zero accidents!

 

 

[Yenn]

it would be possible to ace the course, but no know the difference between a spark plug and a drip tray. It is all about knowing what to do to please CASA. I've done it and now I can maintain my own plane. It showed me how to do the paperwork, and while we may think paperwork is boring, it is necessary to be up to date if you ever want to sell your pride and joy. I also find the CASA requirements are better than the gobbledegook of RAA maintenance manual workings.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

This isn't a political comment, just a fact.

 

Blame Bob Hawke, ever since his "Clever Country" and certification required for everything, the darn Country has become 40% dumber.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

CASA funding should be reviewed annually and tied to the number of flights taken in Australia within that year. No reason why they need to grow if aviation is shrinking.

 

 

[boingk]

Yeah that's the modern world, certs for everything. Not a terrible idea if you ask me, they generally improve the standard of whatever they're applied to.

 

As a ludicrous example, though, my father (an experienced doctor/surgeon with decades of experience) was recently asked to renew his CPR rating. You know, the rating for the thing he uses on a daily basis to KEEP PEOPLE ALIVE??? Yeah, uh, right. He sure didn't think it was funny, I can tell you.

 

- boingk

 

 

[planesmaker]

Yes the CASA site is really difficult to use, hopeless to find what your looking for, can waste a lot of time!!! Sometimes it works better to google it and let google find it on CASA website, it's worth a try. Tom

 

 

[metalman]

Even the CASA guys use google to find their own stuff, got given the nugget at one of their seminars

 

 

[Yenn]

One thing for sure, even if you know the name of what you want on CASA site, their search engine will not find it. All it will find is their legal dapartment.

 

 

[facthunter]

Boingk. airline Pilots do a full check every six months. Why shouldn't other 'skilled' people do something similar.? ( perhaps not so often BUT.....)

 

An interseting thing .. Recently a group of surgeons were examining the way things get mucked up sometimes in theatre situations, reckoned they would be better off looking at airline crew methods of doing it applied to their situation. They have a point there. nev

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Yenn use the Google site-specific search function -

 

In Google type "site:casa.gov.au" followed by the term you are looking for. So if you are looking for the 'Zombies eating aircraft' report on Google type

 

site:casa.gov.au "zombies eating aircraft"

 

(or leave out the quotation marks if you are not 100% sure of the exact article title).

 

 

[boingk]

Boingk. airline Pilots do a full check every six months. Why shouldn't other 'skilled' people do something similar.? ( perhaps not so often BUT.....)An interseting thing .. Recently a group of surgeons were examining the way things get mucked up sometimes in theatre situations, reckoned they would be better off looking at airline crew methods of doing it applied to their situation. They have a point there. nev

Point taken but its an entirely different situation. I do agree on the airline crew vs theatre team analogy, though - my father (generally supervising head on duty) is forever commenting on how so-and-so didn't follow procedure or such-and-such wasn't done properly and he had to intervene.

 

Gnarly Gnu - How did you know I needed to search for that??? Thanks!

 

- boingk

 

 

[kgwilson]

Phew, I am glad this thread is about boring bureaucracy. When I saw the title I envisaged someone crawling away from a wrecked aircraft.

 

 

[derekliston]

Finally managed to achieve answers with which I am happy, to all of the questions, haven't submitted it yet, so I hope they will be happy too! The major frustration is knowing the answers but having to find an acceptable source from which to quote which involved hours on the computer. I put in 47hrs of computer time to achieve what I hope is an acceptable result, with 40 questions that is averaging over an hour per question although one in particular took almost a full day and from three sources came up with three different answers. AC43.13-1A (superseded) AC43.13=1B(current) and CASA website Flight Safety Magazine archive maintenance quiz Nov/Dec 2004 which gives the answer which I believe to be correct but follows up with a total bullshit explanation which bears no resemblance to the multichoice answers. Most of that time was spent wading (no other word for it) through the CASA website.

 

 

[jakej]

An observation - I wonder how many 'qualified professionals' would pass the MPC ? & why aren't they now required to do it too ? Maybe the uproar would make CASA re evaluate, on second thoughts I must be dreaming:im stupid: