Soar Aviation Out Of Business

[jackc]

https://australianaviation.com.au/2021/01/we-wont-take-your-call-says-collapsed-flight-school-soar/?utm_source=AustralianAviation&utm_campaign=05_01_2021&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1&utm_emailID=8c4a71ec6b93302e0644d75c5cdfa5b2a6d0a1a07610338fb363584d13d0d567

[Jerry_Atrick]

Reviving a very old thread, but some students look like they will get something back.. Box Hill College of TAFE will pick up the bill, though.. Privatising profits, and socialising losses, and all that: https://www.australianflying.com.au/latest/soar-students-in-line-for-33-million-payout

 

[Marty_d]

Still, I reckon they're sore.

[facthunter]

Costs "soared". Hopes crashed. Nev

[onetrack]

So, essentially, the Victorian Govt has coughed up $33M of taxpayers money to keep aggrieved parties quiet, and to ensure there's no investigation into the competence of the Box Hill Institute, as regards setting course structures?

And the BHI continues on its merry way, in its time honoured manner, taking students funds, and accepting no responsibility for stuffed-up course arrangements and schedules, nor any examination of the value of its operations.

I guess it's so easy to come to this arrangement, when it's not your personal money, and taxpayers money is there to be thrown around with gay abandon.

[old man emu]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

taxpayers money is there to be thrown around with gay abandon.

Does that mean that the dollars went "poof"?

[turboplanner]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

So, essentially, the Victorian Govt has coughed up $33M of taxpayers money to keep aggrieved parties quiet, and to ensure there's no investigation into the competence of the Box Hill Institute, as regards setting course structures?

And the BHI continues on its merry way, in its time honoured manner, taking students funds, and accepting no responsibility for stuffed-up course arrangements and schedules, nor any examination of the value of its operations.

I guess it's so easy to come to this arrangement, when it's not your personal money, and taxpayers money is there to be thrown around with gay abandon.

That's about it. Same in several different areas: Planning development, Flood avoidance etc. The good ol boys make the money and the taxpayers pick up the pieces.

[Thruster88]

When Soar was at their apogee RAAus member numbers exceeded 13,000, they have now  fallen back to 11,120.  Coincidence?  or did "our" company do alright out of this sorry mess?

[Marty_d]

5 hours ago, Thruster88 said:

When Soar was at their apogee RAAus member numbers exceeded 13,000, they have now  fallen back to 11,120.  Coincidence?  or did "our" company do alright out of this sorry mess?

Might have something to do with this quote from the Flying article:

• tried to persuade or require students to join RAAus and get a pilot certificate and then convert it to an RPL, bypassing CASA's minimum standards for RPL

[Jerry_Atrick]

17 hours ago, onetrack said:

So, essentially, the Victorian Govt has coughed up $33M of taxpayers money to keep aggrieved parties quiet, and to ensure there's no investigation into the competence of the Box Hill Institute,

I think the main reeason for coughing up the $33m as a settlement is to minimise the payment that will have to be made rather than to cover up anything. The lack of admission of liability is common in these sorts of proceedings is common to minimise further potential liability. There have been cases where liability was admitted and additional "victims" who would not have been able to claim have successfully lodged claims, and those that agreed with the settlment have been able to get more.

 

No one would settle unless, on the balance of probabilities they would lose.. and they would only lose because, on the balance of probabilities, they are liable.

 

Given the Supreme court have to approve the payment, If the government don't look into this, they are derelict in their duty... There are some farily serious assertions which have not yet been legally tested.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Jerry_Atrick

[facthunter]

 Court action causes delay and money that could go to the disadvantaged/injured party is delayed.. It's important that aspect be  addressed. It was. Nev

[walrus]

Universities and colleges are regular easy targets for lawyers because academics, while absolutely scrupulous about research ethics, are brainless commercially..

 

 

[jackc]

Sadly, I am not so sure about research ethics in Australia, no matter what the organisation. 

[turboplanner]

25 minutes ago, jackc said:

Sadly, I am not so sure about research ethics in Australia, no matter what the organisation. 

I agree; unfortunately in a few areas academics have become the used car salesmen and women of the 21st century. The spot light on them shows that most get their degrees by being very good at reading and retaining what they read, then instead of going out into the workforce, stay in the academic cycle, often attached ti Universities and earn an income based on canvassing for Grants. On receiving grants there's a natural tendency for the research to find in favour of the benefactor.

[facthunter]

Yes the source of the grants should be declared and can often cause justified doubt about the conclusions. Who pays the Piper calls the Tune.  Nev

[RossK]

Academics study more and more about finite theories.

Eventually, they get to know everything about nothing.

[kgwilson]

Or nothing about everything.

[turboplanner]

Then of course there was the one who drowned in a creek of average depth 1 metre.

[onetrack]

The biggest single problem with academia, is the often large disconnect between research studies, results, and figures, and their application in real-life practical terms. There's a lot to be said for getting academics out into the workforce, and the real world of practical problems, that are often solved simply by pragmatic people. 

 

I used to run into this problem with tertiary-degree, highly trained mining engineers, who, despite their good mining engineering knowledge, thought that mining engineering knowledge translated into practical earthmoving equipment and principles knowledge.

As a result, they would insist on trying to control the operation and methods of the wide range of earthmoving equipment used in shifting ores and waste - with the result that major inefficiencies and higher costs involved in moving the material developed - simply because they failed to understand the basics of earthmoving equipment principles and operation - but they thought their university-acquired mining engineering knowledge covered that area.

 

I read a book about railways by one Ron Fitch, who was Western Australia's first tertiary-educated railways engineer - in 1929. Prior to that date, there was not one single tertiary-qualified railways engineer, in any West Australian railways construction project, or railways operation!

But virtually all the railways in W.A. were installed between 1886 and 1917 - by people with no tertiary education! These railways were also all operated successfully by thousands of men with no tertiary qualifications!

These people constructed and operated railways on the basis of time-honoured basic calculations, and on-the-job training by older men, who possessed a vast store of practical, on-the-job experience and knowledge.

[facthunter]

It's not possible to be on top of everything as we do more and more complex and highly developed things we do need specialists with access to  the detailed knowlege of the special materials and construction methods we get involved with these days. In the old days it was IF it looks right , It is right ruled. There's still some room for that logical feel  for things but in the end it's the computations and materials selection and handling that you must get right. Efficiency is not building it like brick $#1thouse any more. Nev

Edited October 26, 2022 by facthunter

[Jerry_Atrick]

True, but when I was running market risk projects, I gave up on the maths PhDs.. they knew the theory alright, but applied it to the wrong data.. with a lot more cost than you think, and more risk to boot. I don't want to be sitting on teh poop-house that falls over as the inputs were wrong; or the airlined that runs out of fuel because they used kgs in the calcs when they put in lbs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider)

 

Obviosuly, tolerances are built in... But when I fly, I never fly to keep the costs down. I prefer the brick poophouse approach

[onetrack]

The British de Havilland DH.106 Comet jetliner was designed and built by engineers, and fell out of the sky multiple times. The first two production aircraft blew apart with explosive decompression in normal flight. Out of 114 Comets built, 26 crashed - an abysmal safety record.

 

Yet, hundreds and hundreds of aircraft have been designed, built, and flown successfully, by people who possessed little official aeronautical and engineering qualifications.

 

Selby Ford was the Beverley (W.A.) powerhouse manager with a modest level of electrical training - but no official aeronautical or engineering training. Yet he built a "home-built" aircraft (the "Silver Centenary") that survives to this day, and it has never crashed.

 

Yet, Captain C. H. Nesbitt, who did the largest portion of the flying hours that the Silver Centenary accumulated - without incident - was killed when the almost new, "professionally-built-and-engineered" de Havilland Puss Moth he was flying in, had a massive wing spar failure in normal flight. 

In a short space of time from initial production, nine Puss Moths crashed, killing numerous skilled aviators - including Bert Hinkler. An Aeronautical Research Committee had to be assembled to determine the cause of the regular Puss Moth wing spar failures, and what could be done about it. So much for highly educated engineers and aeronautical designers!

[turboplanner]

17 hours ago, onetrack said:

The biggest single problem with academia, is the often large disconnect between research studies, results, and figures, and their application in real-life practical terms. There's a lot to be said for getting academics out into the workforce, and the real world of practical problems, that are often solved simply by pragmatic people. 

In engineering it's usually the engineers being taught the equations but not knowing the coefficients which take for a few to a lot of years to learn from real experience. e.g. in the stransport industry.

 

On the other hand there was a study done on Monash University which found 40% of what they were teaching was not useable in Industry/business.

[facthunter]

The DH Comet was in the vanguard of pressurised jet transport  and the failures were due to fatigue which took a while to show around the window frames. Hydraulic fatigue testing was used to determine the cause of the inflight catastrophic failures. The test results were made freely available to builders like Boeing etc .  Nev

[old man emu]

6 hours ago, facthunter said:

The DH Comet was in the vanguard of pressurised jet transport

It's usually the blokes in the vanguard who step in the poop.