Im feeling like Michel de Nostredame today....my prediction

[fly_tornado]

Wayne is up to 42 aircraft registrations per week on the last report. That's come up from the 17 he was doing same time last month. That's 2100 a year if he can maintain that pace. He needs to be able to process 65-70 to be able to get ahead of the backlog. Again I think you can say that the RAA have underfunded the registration process at the members expense.

 

I understand Andy's pessimism as its easy to see that the looming CASA pilot audit could take years and years to resolve if the plane registrar is anything to go by.

 

 

[cooperplace]

Wayne is up to 42 aircraft registrations per week on the last report. That's come up from the 17 he was doing same time last month. That's 2100 a year if he can maintain that pace. He needs to be able to process 65-70 to be able to get ahead of the backlog. Again I think you can say that the RAA have underfunded the registration process at the members expense.I understand Andy's pessimism as its easy to see that the looming CASA pilot audit could take years and years to resolve if the plane registrar is anything to go by.

looming CASA pilot audit???

 

 

[fly_tornado]

My understanding is that the plane audit is the first step in cleaning up the RAA.

 

 

[Guest airsick]

It's not hard to see how bad this problem really is. Let's start with a few simplifying assumptions.

 

Assumptions

 

There are 3500 aircraft with RA-Aus.

 

Registration renewals are evenly spread across the year. With 52 weeks in a year this equates to about 67 aircraft renewals per week.

 

We'll assume that since the first week of December RA-Aus has renewed rego's at the current rate of 42 aircraft per week (clearly incorrect but stay with me).

 

Conclusions

 

This means we have had a shortfall of about 25 aircraft per week since December.

 

Including this week there has been 24 weeks since the beginning of December meaning the shortfall is some 607 aircraft (I have used actual numbers to estimate this, not the rounded numbers presented above).

 

Now, let's consider this. By the boards own admission there's been a period of time where we were registering way less than 42 aircraft per week. There was also a period where renewals were completely stopped. There's also new aircraft registrations.

 

(Note: aircraft renewals are not spread evenly across the year. I've heard there's two main peaks, one around Christmas time and another mid year. I'm not sure how accurate this is but given we have covered almost 6 months since CASA said enough is enough it's probably OK to go with an average.)

 

I'll leave it to you to figure out if there really is 600 odd aircraft stuck in the backlog.

 

Let's make a few more assumptions.

 

Assumptions

 

From now until September RA-Aus will increase the rate of registrations by 2 per week. That is, next week they will register 44 aircraft, the week after that they will register 46 aircraft and so on.

 

Conclusions

 

This means that by the end of September they will have the capacity to register 82 aircraft per week. At that time they will still be receiving 67 aircraft renewals per week so there will be an excess of capacity and the backlog will be shrinking. Keeping in mind that for the near term the backlog will still be growing, at this rate of increase, there will still be a shortfall of 690 odd aircraft at the end of September.

 

To get the backlog to zero by the end of September we would need to be increasing the rego renewals by a rate of 5 per week. So 47 next week, 52 the week after and so on. By the end of September we would need to have a capacity to register almost 150 aircraft per week.

 

There are some flaws here. Firstly, the rate of increase might not be linear. For example, this week we register 42 aircraft, next week we do 43 aircraft, the week after we do 45 and then maybe 50, etc. If the rate of increase is not constant then the backlog numbers will vary accordingly. Secondly, this still relies on the assumption that 42 aircraft have been registered every week since December last year.

 

So I won't pretend to think that these numbers are accurate but it does show one thing - this problem is not small and it's not going away any time soon. It will take considerable effort and skill to fix. Mark Clayton seems to be aware of the magnitude of the problem but you have to ask yourself what is truly required to make this work. Is one man enough? What do we need to do to enable him to truly fix the problem?

 

In the first audit report dated 21 December 2011 a Request for Corrective Action was issued. This action stated that the Tech Manual has not been updated since 2007 "despite this being identified in previous audits". What? We had audit findings that said we were deficient and didn't do anything about it? The lack of action in repsonse to adverse audit findings is systemic within our association. Clearly we haven't cared what CASA tells us for sometime. While it doesn't state the date that this was identified but we can safely say that it was prior to 21 December 2011. Is there a re pattern here?

 

This problem is not one of process, procedure, CASA being unfair, or anything of the like, it is one of culture. Our board (and previous management) has been asleep at the wheel since god knows when. We have some serious issues to deal with right now and while I don't know if Andy's predictions are true I do know one thing - if we continue on the current path with the current lackadaisical attitudes then we will all ensure that Andy is spot on.

 

So ask yourself this question. How much rope do you think CASA is willing to give us before they let us hang?

 

 

[facthunter]

IF ft is correct, ( and I would like him to give us some idea of what he knows and why it is good gen) this is only going to be more of the same which is "death by a thousand cuts". If CASA want to go down the audit path to destruction of the RAAus I ask them now to declare what THEIR long term PLANS are.

 

There is no certainty whatever in the present situation. I personally have lost over 50K at least because of changed rules and the people who are getting hurt are not BAD guys, and don't DESERVE to be treated this way.

 

CASA have to let all of us into the picture. Is there some agenda here? IF so, and I am starting to believe it more and more, lets have their concerns out in the open and we can more be masters of our own destiny. Just bumbling on and on( and it's not Waynes fault. HE and perhaps others have an impossible task) is no solution at all Nev

 

 

[Admin]

I can remember a board meeting when Steve Bell first advised of the failure of the Tech Manual. One little thing I remember was that AUF was used instead of RAAus. At that board Meeting, Middleton stood up and got a motion passed that a sub committee be formed to handle the Tech Manual audit failure. He also put his hand up to head up that sub committee.

 

Steve Bell rewrote the Tech Manual several times and passed it on to Middleton for approval...BUT, nothing was done from there which is why it kept coming up in the Audit Failures and then to add absolute insult to injury, the very man who was supposedly heading up the sub committee, and did nothing, and made the Tech Manual fail audit after audit, had the audacity at the Feb 9th meeting to point the finger at Steve Bell...I, with what I knew first hand, was absolutely disgusted with that behaviour especially when you add to that the "I am the great President and you can't stop me" attitude from someone else there who isn't even our President because he resigned, and not 1 person...NOT 1 PERSON, actually elected him on to the board in the first place...there should be a law against that in which you need to at least have had votes to hold the President position.

 

Now on to aircraft registrations...one thing that we have to also consider is yes we do have a backlog however once the whole drama has gone past 1 year, that backlog will diminish rapidly as those aircraft that have gone through all the checks and balances during the first year will have a simple registration when they come up again. This is why I predicted that the whole drama would impact RAAus for at least 1.5 years so I feel it will continue for nearly another 12 months before everything is caught up

 

 

[fly_tornado]

At the current rate of 40 a week its going to take 87.5 weeks to clear, less Christmas holidays 89.5, less Public holidays 91.5, less staff vacations 93.5 weeks.

 

That's pretty close to 2 years but of course they won't do 40 a week.

 

The upside is that a lot of dust catchers will get dropped off the registry and a few bargains to be had for those with an eye for an unregistered plane.

 

 

[Bandit12]

There is no certainty whatever in the present situation. I personally have lost over 50K at least because of changed rules and the people who are getting hurt are not BAD guys, and don't DESERVE to be treated this way.

CASA have to let all of us into the picture. Is there some agenda here? IF so, and I am starting to believe it more and more, lets have their concerns out in the open and we can more be masters of our own destiny. Just bumbling on and on( and it's not Waynes fault. HE and perhaps others have an impossible task) is no solution at all Nev

Sorry to hear that the changes have hit you so hard Nev. It's a bugger of a position to be in, and I feel for anyone with dollars tied up in businesses/aircraft.

 

I agree with what you are saying about Wayne too - sometimes the task just is too big for the resources. The market will take care of that for RA-Aus/CASA, as disgruntled people give up, sell up (maybe with big financial losses) and walk away very bitter indeed. Airsick's hypothetical is as good a projection as any I have heard, and Andy's post should be real cause for concern. The true costs of all of this won't be seen for a couple of years, and with a bit of hindsight members may be able to look back and say "gee, I hope we never let it get so bad again" but that will be little comfort to those who are losing now.

 

 

[rhysmcc]

At the current rate of 40 a week its going to take 87.5 weeks to clear, less Christmas holidays 89.5, less Public holidays 91.5, less staff vacations 93.5 weeks.That's pretty close to 2 years but of course they won't do 40 a week.

The upside is that a lot of dust catchers will get dropped off the registry and a few bargains to be had for those with an eye for an unregistered plane.

Would make sense to implement a 2 year registration as has been suggested, at least then we shouldn't be in this same position in 12 months time as they will be able to focus on the backlog rather then new renewals coming in.

 

 

[Admin]

Would make sense to implement a 2 year registration as has been suggested, at least then we shouldn't be in this same position in 12 months time as they will be able to focus on the backlog rather then new renewals coming in.

They couldn't get the books right with 2 year Pilot Certificates which is why they were scrapped so I would say 2 year registrations just wouldn't even be considered

 

 

[Guest Escadrille]

"So ask yourself this question. How much rope do you think CASA is willing to give us before they let us hang?"

 

Aaah CASA ..The place the where RAAF guys go to retire.. "we are not happy until you are not happy....

 

 

 

[Guest airsick]

In the first audit report dated 21 December 2011 a Request for Corrective Action was issued. This action stated that the Tech Manual has not been updated since 2007 "despite this being identified in previous audits". What? We had audit findings that said we were deficient and didn't do anything about it? The lack of action in repsonse to adverse audit findings is systemic within our association. Clearly we haven't cared what CASA tells us for sometime. While it doesn't state the date that this was identified but we can safely say that it was prior to 21 December 2011. Is there a re pattern here?This problem is not one of process, procedure, CASA being unfair, or anything of the like, it is one of culture. Our board (and previous management) has been asleep at the wheel since god knows when. We have some serious issues to deal with right now and while I don't know if Andy's predictions are true I do know one thing - if we continue on the current path with the current lackadaisical attitudes then we will all ensure that Andy is spot on.

The lack of a date on the Request for Corrective Action was bugging me as I was sure I had seen one earlier. Anyway I went back and re-read the document again this afternoon and sure enough there is a date - 2009.

 

To this day we still haven't seen a revised Tech Manual, we are still working from the July 2007 version. This means that over the last three or more years we have basically ignored the direction given by CASA.

 

I would like to revise my statement of sleeping at the wheel. It appears they have been comatose...

 

 

[turboplanner]

Forgive me for stating the bleeding obvious, but you just never know whether CASA, having taken four audits to act on the registration status, might see this as something else worthwhile to have a go at.

 

 

[facthunter]

Wheel ... WHAT WHEEL? Are we supposed to be steering this thing? Nev

 

 

[503]

What is the fine for flying with out of date rego ?

 

 

[kaz3g]

What is the fine for flying with out of date rego ?

Death...( grounded)!

 

Kaz

 

 

[metalman]

What is the fine for flying with out of date rego ?

A whole sh1t load of penalty points(why can't they just call it money) a holiday with three meals ,lotsa friends to shower with and perhaps a special friend ,,,,,,,not worth it I'd say.

 

 

[503]

If one was flying from home for eg ,I've never been asked to pull over yet ,and without crashing on a primary school,if by chance my rego was out by a day or two what is the worst that could happen? $$$$$$$$$ how much?? It could be a really nice day to fly,chance of being found would be next to f...all. ,,,just asking ,,,,like to way up risk/reward,,

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

A whole sh1t load of penalty points(why can't they just call it money) a holiday with three meals ,lotsa friends to shower with and perhaps a special friend ,,,,,,,not worth it I'd say.

Like I keep telling our friendly Crims, Its only Gaol sex, it doesnt mean your Gay...gesh!

Scotty

 

 

[winsor68]

To this day we still haven't seen a revised Tech Manual, we are still working from the July 2007 version. This means that over the last three or more years we have basically ignored the direction given by CASA.

If I recall wasn't there a big fanfare about the former CEO being bought in to the organization on the basis that he was just the man to re-write the tech manual?

 

 

[Admin]

If one was flying from home for eg ,I've never been asked to pull over yet ,and without crashing on a primary school,if by chance my rego was out by a day or two what is the worst that could happen? $$$$$$$$$ how much?? It could be a really nice day to fly,chance of being found would be next to f...all. ,,,just asking ,,,,like to way up risk/reward,,

503, posts like that will get you removed from this site...this site does not, absolutely and completely does not, support any kind of suggestion of any form of illegal flying and will not assist you in any way in this area...please refrain from making such posts again

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Just to play devils advocate for the moment if 503 has a fully serviceable aircraft & has sent in full payment, photos, all necessary details and forms with every 't' crossed and every 'i' dotted who is at fault here, who is failing to do the right thing?

 

We had a situation over here where a guy was fined thousands of dollars as they tried to claim he was driving multiple times unregistered when the relevant department simply hadn't processed his payment cheque (which was sent on time but had sat on someone's desk for weeks). Needless to say the fines didn't stick. So is it reasonable to conclude the only difference here is that 503 is not dealing directly with a government department in this case? Bottom line RAA needs a bit of a whipping no? Especially for instructors and schools with training aircraft grounded, that is outrageous.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Election coming up soon and very good chance we will have a new transport minister. I'll be writing to them requesting a full investigation of both the RAAus and CASA over all of this mismanagement.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I doubt that the Libs will give that any consideration. They're the party of no government.

 

 

[rankamateur]

Does this http://www.recreationalflying.com/threads/runciman-resigns-again.63353/ have anything to do with prediction two, above? Is Andy really psychic?