DonRamsay

If all RAA required the ACR for was "for registering the new owners particulars" then the only thing required would be the new owners name & contact details. The form is intended to tell the purchaser the Aurcrafts condition. Aircraft sales may involve crash damaged aircraft so the concept of a RWC does not apply.

So Keith, you've read the new V4 of the Tech Manual from beginning to end and formed a considered view have you?

I appreciate your restraint Kasper. I even understand your frustrations. When I was on the outside looking in I didn't like what I saw and spent 6 years doing something about it rather than continue to offer valid (to me) criticisms. My unhappy post above was probably provoked by having just read the post you made about the Tech Manual (v4). You know how bad the old Tech Manual was and how out of date it was. Can you imagine how much work Darren and quite a few Board Members (not so much me) put into the rewrite? And then to just read all negatives about the new Tech Manual and proclaim everybody is now "screwed" may have pushed me into that intemperate post you reasonably took exception to.

Iirc, both the seller and the buyer have to fill stuff in on the form. If the ACR is meant to be for buyer protection then it makes sense for the buyer to get it done and personally supervise the work. That's what I would want if I were buying an aircraft. If there is a contract between the person buying the aircraft and the person preparing the ACR then buyer has contractual rights against the preparer of the ACR. If the ACR is a contract between the seller and the person doing the ACR the buyer has no contractual rights against the preparer of the ACR.

Who is authorised to do the four inspections during the build?

So, I had had a look through the election statements and resumes yesterday but just had another look now. I say again, this is an outstanding group of people and we are truly fortunate to have these people put themselves forward to serve the members of RAAus. Firstly I would mention the two flying school owners, Rod and Eugene. Both are well known to me personally and I have a very high regard for both of them - personally and as aviators. Both have earned the title of "Fathers of Recreational Aviation" for their extraordinarily long service to RAAus. Secondly, there are Trevor Bange and Tony King. Also both well known to me and outstanding contributors to the RAAus Board. Thirdly, I would group Luke Bayly, Lorenzo Mazzocchetti and Andrew Schox. These three are not known to me personally but have very impressive resumes and election statements. The combination of Business Administration, Engineering, Legal and Director knowledge and skills these three possess will bring great advantage to the Board Room. Finally, Allinson, Finlayson and Bretland. Again, none of these three are known to me personally. To their credit are achievements like MBA, Bachelors of Science, Doctorate of Atomic Physics, Institute of Chartered Directors, RAAF Pilot Instructors . . . . Anyone who is not impressed by what all these men have achieved would be very hard to impress. Having given it some thought, I would like to recommend to you all that you give close consideration to voting the following five people onto the Board of RAAus Limited: Tony King Trevor Bange Luke Bayly Lorenzo Mazzocchetti Andrew Schox I think it is time for Rod and Eugene to be recognised for their enormous contributions in the past but time for them to stand aside from the Board. Neither were in favour of the future for RAAus that was the subject of the big referendum that saw more than 80% vote in favour of the new direction. Both were Board members in the period that saw RAAus go into decline and suffer severe financial losses and harsh criticism from members who suffered in the registrations debacle. The problems of the last few years should though be kept in perspective with decades of growing RAAus and winning progress despite strong opposition from the regulator. Finlay, Allinson and Bretland all have reasonable claims for election to the Board of RAAus Ltd and it is only a matter of comparison that I think Bayly, Mazzocchetti and Schox are the better suited. Don

Frank, I thought your brief time on the Board was very valuable for RAAus. Your contributions on the Ops and Tech Manual revisions had special value and contributed to very important improvements on what might otherwise have been delivered. Also, you held a perspective that was different from a few of us regarding where RAAus should be going in the future. We might not have agreed but you sharp questioning was an important test of the ideas that were being floated at the time. Personally, I was afraid that we may have set the bar a bit high and might have a shortage of candidates for the coming election. However, as it turned out we have unearthed some very talented and competent people. I could not be happier with the candidates who have been nominated. They are a diverse group of people with high level skills that, in the business world command very high fees and these people are going to be working hard for the members of RAAus at no charge. A Board that had Tony King, Mick Monck and Trevor Bange as members would make 3 out of 7 well experienced pilots and maintainers. Add in Barry Windle (Trike Flyer) who is not up for election this time and you cover pretty well every form of flying done by RAAus pilots. It is critical that we get Trevor Bange and TOny King re-elected to the Board for the sake of continuance and because both Trevor and Tony have been high performance Board Members and are committed to RAAus being the best that it can be. I'll make a few comments about some of the other outstanding candidates in a separate post but let me leave it now with the comment that I am very confident of our future in that we have the basis of a highly professional Board.

Hang on to your hat Nev but I think Hilary might be a closet atheist too. And as for Mr Trump . . . he believes in himself (and that he is GOD!)

I still fail to see why in a system where you pay to have an aircraft registered that you would want to register an aircraft that cannot leave the ground. What CASA do is often a mystery for me and I am happy to add this one to the list. If there is no money changing hands then whether something is registered or not hardly seems to matter. As I stated earlier. And why would RAAus want to involve itself in a commercial transaction between two consenting adults? If a person is "aviation ignorant" is of no concern. If they are not commercial ignorant then they will appreciate caveat emptor and have the aircraft evaluated by somebody who they trust that is not "aviation ignorant." Again, there is no role for RAAus in that process. RAAus is there to register aircraft that are fundamentally airworthy (leaving alone issues like overloading or out-of-balance loading, etc.). Nothing was changing hands in this example from docjell - he was just trying to re-register his own aircraft that he had allowed to the registration to expire. RAAus sees a role for itself in insisting that aircraft it is asked to register are fundamentally airworthy. They were using the ACR (incorrectly in my view) to be assured of the condition of the aircraft prior to accepting it fro registration. In the end a sensible solution was arrived at.

I think Obama hides it well but pretty sure he's godless.

The protestants used to say that about the Catholics . . . until the pill was invented and the Catholic Church said no.

Oddly I have a great admiration for her devotion to what she sees as her duty. Trouble is she has children who will one day be entitled to call themselves King of Australia. We have to draw the line somewhere. Possibly her choice to be "nice" has something to do with the fate of Charles I. You have to give them that . . . they are quick learners.

What is fascinating to me is that the DNA studies support the theory that homosapiens all came out of Africa and are now up to about 5% Neanderthal. I saw a fascinating program where Eddie Izzard's DNA was examined and they were able to trace his ancestry from when they were pygmies in the Congo through the migration to Europe and eventually to England. Try explaining that to a racist and see what sort of a gun he points at you.

Not sure how something can be worth more but cost less to insure.

Theoretically, Australia is governed by the heir of the self-appointed head of the Church of England who was the conqueror of Wales, the scourge of Ireland and the patron saint of marriage and beheadings. The current heir happily acknowledges having been appointed by GOD to rule the United Kingdom of Britain. She also happens to claim to be the Queen of Australia. By a kindly inclination, this theocratic head of state (sound like the Ayatollah in Iran?) allows a form of self-government in Australia that was initiated by an Act of the UK parliament to which her forbears gave Royal Assent. In the 21st Century this is no way for Australia to exist. We need to dispense with the medieval and religious trappings and have Her Royal Majesty and her offspring confine their graciousness to Great Britain or, preferably, just England. While they are at it they should give Ireland back to the Irish and apologise for the genocide they inflicted on the Irish. The government of a democracy should not depend on the goodwill of one foreigner.

Canon law exists for Catholics everywhere and possibly for Church of England as well but I wouldn't count on a repetition of the Inquisition any time soon. There are people in Australia now who live now by Sharia Law by their choice but I'm fairly sure that 1% of the population who are Islamic will find a rather large amount of resistance to stoning adulterers and homosexuals or cutting off the hands of thieves. The NDIS would collapse trying to look after one-handed former thieves.

Continental drift has nothing on thread drift here

Col, Leaving aside whether the "Christian" loonies on the far right of the coalition are as unhelpful as the (insert your own derogatory adjectives about the unbalanced power of the 15% unions) on the left, it comes down to a matter of arithmetic. I personally favour the UK "first past the post" system. For that community (electorate) there can be only one representative and that should be the person who gets the most votes. I can barely tolerate optional preferential but a system where I am required to indicate a preference for a political view that I abhor is, well, abhorrent. Back to the arithmetic. Surely the aim should be that government reflects the will of the majority of electors. How can it be representative of the majority will when 3 xenophobic nutters can have more say than 50 or more democratically elected persons? Of course it has always been at the disposal of the major parties to invoke a pairing arrangement like the one they use to allow for absent MPs to make the minority riff raff irrelevant. But, now that the ALP will never again have enough votes to govern in its own right, they would never agree to such an arrangement.

When you have a situation that three xenophobic wackos from Qld could hold the balance of power in the federal sphere then they are both swill and unrepresentative of the vast majority view. Col, I hope you understood that by red room I was not referring to the left (where I usually cast my aspersions) but to the bastard descendent of the House of Lords otherwise called the Senate.

OK, so I need to clarify my brief comments earlier. I have no interest in commercial aviation and never will have. How it is regulated, I'm happy to leave that to CASA and the commercial aviation industry to work out. They are the big boys with the big toys and can all look after themselves. For everyone who is not flying for reward from the general public (up to, say, 5,700 kg MTOW) there should be a common form of regulation and licencing that is appropriate to what they are doing. The art and science of flying aircraft is a base that all pilots have to master (or at least be competent at). Then for specific types of aircraft you need to prove your proficiency. Then for the types of flying you do: in or out of CTA, on land or water, VFR/IFR you need to prove your competence. Maintenance of aircraft should be based on a sensible safety case not the same rules for a B737 and a C172. Regulation for non-commercial aviation should be minimised, set at a high level of summary, be in plain English and thereby made accessible to part-time pilots. Medicals should be of the real world and be risk based. Essentially, we allow cars to be driven at closing speeds of 200 km/hr centimetres apart from a head on collision . . . with a genuine driver's licence medical. It should be a matter for GPs and where essential a Specialist opinion. It should require no involvement of a CASA Medical team who are less qualified than a Specialist physician but happy to ignore the more qualified view. The recreational end of GA should end up looking much more like RAAus. There would be no need for any more onerous regulation on the currently RAAus pilots and aircraft. For simple aviation in simple aircraft in Class G airspace it will be even simpler than the current level of detail regulation found in the current RAAus Ops and Tech Manuals. Maintaining a C172 I would suggest would require less expertise than maintaining a Jabiru engined aircraft or a Rotax 912iS. Your freedom to maintain your aircraft should have to do with demonstrated capability rather than whether you have letters or numbers painted on your aircraft. There is a level of support for this type of thinking at top levels in CASA and the political arena. CASA have proved to be not very good at regulation the non-commercial sector to the detriment of the industry. They see non-commercial GA as a pain in the rear and would love to see the back of it. Aviation has been bogged down for decades due to over-regulation and the unjustifiable expense of bringing innovations into the industry. At the top end there can be innovation because the big boys have billions to play with. There has been progress on the very light end because the cost of innovation has been affordable. In the middle it has been a gradual death by starvation of ideas.

RAAus will be there as will the world's leading producer of brilliant RA registrable aircraft (. . . The Airplane Factory and their Slings 2 & 4 )

If I mention the NAZIS could this discussion be closed? I fear we should stick to aviation and the things that unite us and leave politics to other fora (and religion to the humour section.) Don p.s. can't help myself . . . Hockey's budget might have saved a few $$$ but for the unrepresentative swill in the red room.

So, back to Kasper's worries from post #1. RAAus Ltd exists and the election process will continue. It was commenced in line with the Constitution that should govern the process and and will be completed following the process dictated by the Constitution of RAAus Ltd. Kasper said This is both true and perfectly clear in the Constitution. Kasper went on to assert How can something be both false and not there? This is a simple misreading. Nowhere are the "skills" stated to be prerequisites for standing for election. All that is required is that a candidate informs electors of their personal skills and experience against certain matters so that electors can make an informed comparison of candidates and thereby an informed choice. What could possibly be unfair about that? Surely an informed electorate should produce a better election result?

FIrstly, any time a staffer at RAAus gives you an answer you are not comfortable with, do the obvious thing and take it to the next level - to the Board if you absolutely have to. In any organisation there are people with different levels of knowledge and discretion. You need to make sure your enquiry is handled at the level where the right level of knowledge and discretion are applied to the issue. Clearly taking that approach this time provided a sensible answer for docjell. Secondly, the Board of RAAus voted to get rid of the ACR back in 2012 but was stymied by CASA who demanded its reinstatement. That fight should have gone further at the time but it didn't as RAAus descended into chaos under the registrations fiasco. The current Board still have the ACR in their sights even if it still exists in V4 whose release is closer than imminent. RAAUs should never get involved in commercial transactions between two individuals. Thirdly, I recently managed the sale of an aircraft and of course was required to have an ACR done as part of the transfer of ownership and registration. Cost for an aircraft in sound airworthy condition is typically is around $250 depending on the work required. The seller paid for the ACR and it ends up with RAAus and the purchaser. Fourthly, the ACR is no guarantee of airworthiness as has been mentioned above - it is merely a report on the condition of the aircraft. For that matter an aircraft being registered does not have to be airworthy. If I were shelling out $20k for a used car, I would seriously consider getting the car checked out by a competent person for a fee. If I'm coughing up $75k to $100k for a used aircraft I most certainly want it thoroughly evaluated and, as I would be flying it home, I would want a guarantee from a competent person that the aircraft was airworthy. Simple prudence. Caveat Emptor applies and if I were buying the aircraft I would choose to pay for the ACR and/or airworthiness guarantee. Before an aircraft can be first registered it must be airworthy. It seems reasonable to me that an aircraft to be registered after a period of not being registered should be airworthy. If not airworthy why register it? As to how you prove to the registration authority (RAAus Ltd) that the aircraft is airworthy I'll leave to others better versed in the regs than I am. Don p.s. I am no longer a Director of RAAus and so of course my views continue to be my views and not those of RAAus Inc or Ltd.

To be honest, the Cri Cri probably involves admiration from a distance. I doubt I have the huevos to ever get in one.