Mike Borgelt

Once again, with the lack of urgency, we see on display CASA's real concern for aviation safety. ZERO. The only concern for safety is the safety of their jobs and nobody will ever get fired or sanctioned for dereliction of duty at CASA.

There was lead free Avgas available in Sweden some years ago. 93 octane I think. Just take the lead out of ordinary Avgas100LL. Never heard of any problems. The old 80/87 usually contained lead but did not have to if the feedstock met the octane rating. I've read that the "lead protects valves" is also a furphy.

All he had to do was say" Earthquake. Tower Closed, CTAF procedures apply". Funny how people think aircraft won't fly without ATC and paperwork.

Pre start or during warm up AND immediately before takeoff as a last chance check. Flaps setting, trim, fuel ON, sufficient, correct tank , mixture, last full and free controls check, transponder on, runway clear and wind check, co-pilot happy (wife) is what I do before opening throttle for takeoff. I'm open to additional suggestions.

Don't know anything about parachute ops but gliders can get a clearance in Class C or Restricted Areas provided properly equipped which means a transponder. Quite a number of gliders have them. Operations not necessarily NOTAMed and you may be lucky and things are quiet and you'll get the clearance. Examples may be coming back to Gawler on a big day from the north or east. You are right about the "I just want to fly" mob. You can hide in the trench and not stick your head up but they'll come and find you in the trench anyway. This is why Australian GA and sport and recreational is the shambles it is. Australia just isn't a serious country. ICAO rules aren't compulsory. The only requirement is to notify ICAO of differences. Apart from the airline ops, Australia can do what it likes in GA/sport/recreational as international ops are an insignificant part of them and mostly those aircraft that are are operated more like airline aircraft anyway in the IFR/Flight levels system.

storchy neil Nobody even noticed. It was done so slowly. A little history. GFA was started in 1949 in response to a DCA (Department of Civil Aviation - a predecessor of CASA) proposal to regulate gliding the same as GA. Up until then there was NO regulation of gliding in Australia (aka "the good old days"). They called a meeting of leading gliding people from every State and laid down the law. With the model of the British Gliding Association in mind (after WW2 the BGA people told the Brit CAA to go away and the BGA would look after themselves the same as they did prior to the war) the gliding people had a meeting during the morning tea break and decided they would tell DCA the same thing. Somewhat surprisingly DCA agreed (not all that unreasonable given the state of gliding at the time. There were a very few people with high performance gliders who had licences anyway and the rest of the rabble were flying primary gliders from winch or auto tow. I have a nice short video of gliding at Caversham in the late 1940s and early 1950s and I personally knew some of those people including the guy in the video test flying the club's new T-31b in the mid 50s - he later took me for my first glider flight in that glider . I was nine years old. However the GFA never managed to keep the same separation that the BGA achieved and gradually various aspects (particularly registration, airworthiness and certification of aircraft - they are VH registered ICAO recognised aircraft) was dictated by DCA. Eventually some of these things were delegated to GFA around 1982 (first of type approvals etc). Early (mid 70s) ultralight activity in Australia was illegally done. Being unwilling to actually stop it (god knows why), the Regulator instituted some rules about operations such as the infamous "not above 300 feet" "not across a major road" etc. The subsequent death toll came to the attention of Parliament and there was the HORSCOTS enquiry. I met this bunch one day at Gawler and I'm sorry to say you would be hard pressed to find a bigger bunch of dills if you randomly took a bunch of people off the street in a low socio-economic area. I guess that's why they are in Parliament. This led to the formation of the AUF which was explicitly modelled on the GFA model of self administration which was held up as an example of acceptably safe operation (amazing how people can be deceived). Now - how to take over. Gradually give the organisation some of the powers of the State including decision making, not just administration of the Regulator's decisions. The people running the organisation like this as they see it increasing their power and revenue through their ability to force people to join the organisation. Keep doing this and promise them they will have even more power in future, we'll introduce Part 149. Note the necessity of something like Part 149 has never been debated. Convince the organisational people they must change the way they do business in order to be ready for part 149 EVEN THOUGH IT ISN'T LAW YET. In their greed for power and money the people will be blindsided but they spend the money and effort to do this. Once Part 149 is written and ready to be implemented present the Manual of Standards which is written by CASA. At this point the organisations, which started out as members organisations for promotion and encouragement of the activity are, suddenly and irrevocably, merely CASA subcontractors with expensive and onerous, explicitly legal, obligations. Now look at the public roads. The government makes the rules for operations on them including licencing of drivers and cars and also enforces the rules with random checks. The exact nature of these checks is open to debate although the usual stupid cry of "safety at any cost" usually prevails, resulting in driving no longer being being any kind of fun and eliminating any judgement. The inflexible rules may also be more dangerous as in being unable to get to your destination before dusk when the roos come out. Note however that you do not have to be a member of a Part 149 approved State driver organisation like RACQ, NRMA, RACV etc in order to operate a car or have a driver's licence.

Now what was I saying about low trust societies? Does anyone sensible want to live in one? We now have the technology for the complete surveillance society and each encroachment on freedom is done in the holy name of "safety". George Orwell's 1984 was written as a warning, not an instruction manual. If you have not read it, I suggest you do so, soon.

“Australia is known as one of the best producers of pilots globally, so why can't we do more?” - SMH CASA. But the number of training hours being flown in general aviation fell 43 per cent between 2008 and 2015, according to the most recently available government data. But the number of pilots Australia produces is falling, from about 1700 pilot's licences issued annually a decade ago to 1200 last year. CASA and predecessors - proudly wrecking the Australian aviation industry since the year dot.

You need to understand how Australian tech companies operate. They usually have no goal to develop, make and sell stuff. They are designed to harvest government grants and fold when the money runs out. There are people who will write your grant application for a small cut.

Let us go back to basics. Damage to people on the ground is likely proportional to kinetic energy which is proportional to stall speed squared and mass and you multiply that by the probability of a mishap and probability of actually hitting anything of value which in turn depends on the ground density of valuable targets. So we have Risk = k *mass * stall speed * stall speed * prob mishap * density of ground targets. If you fly outside very populated areas the last factor gets small which adequately describes the vast majority of Australian land mass and the risk is demonstrably very low indeed, approaching zero. Historically RAAus aircraft and gliders suffer higher rates of mishap. One of the mishap causes may be medical but there is no evidence of that being significant and most are from other causes, mostly pilot stupidity and yet this is regarded as acceptable by CASA. Whether an aircraft is in a defined class or not, risk analysis says if it is under 600 Kg and 45 kt stall the risk of the pilot not having an aviation medical is the same as if it is in a class so there is no RATIONAL basis for not allowing a RPL or PPL holder to fly such a VH registered aircraft if his medical lapses (NOT is rejected for cause) and he can still drive a private motor car. Note his aircraft is maintained either by the builder or a licenced workshop so prob mishap may be lower due to maintenance errors (that is the reason for licenced workshops). Risk to other airspace users would appear to be just due to your presence in the airspace and has nothing to do with stall speed or mass. It may have to do with prob mishap if pilot training is poor ( a PPL does much more training than does an RAAus or glider pilot) and is proportional to air traffic density. Again this last factor is low in most of Australia. Note that the 61 knot max stall that most certified light aircraft and the vast majority of amateur built comply with has less than twice the kinetic energy due to speed and is still less than a factor of three typically when small aircraft weights are taken in to account. Most in fact stall around the 50 knots or so so really a factor of two overall is likely. So yes, Mr Carmody - show us the actual formal CASA risk analysis. Bet somebody just plucked it from their nether regions. I'm glad Ben Morgan and AOPA have realised that Australia's private pilots got shafted over the medical non reform and that RAAus had a hand in this is shameful. They might also realise the dangers of Part 149 from this "force RPL and PPL holders into a private business (the Recreational Aviation Australia Limited) that exposes them to unregulated monopoly fees and charges?"

Everyone needs to remember - CASA has no interest in aviation safety. CASA is there to provide jobs and a very comfortable living to those who are incapable of providing value in the real world. The longer they spend writing voluminous and useless regulations the longer the jobs exist. It is a sheltered workshop. The DAMP policy is just another useless regulation. Everybody should know not to do safety critical things under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If you insist on keeping checking up on people we become a low trust society where we used to be a high trust society. Good examples of low trust societies are found in the middle east. That is where it ends up.

Turbs, I doubt you have been around aviation all that long. RAAus grew out of the AUF which used the GFA model of self ADMINISTRATION (note not REGULATION). Internally things are somewhat differently organised but the orgs have the same basic concept at the core. Any body that requires CASA approval of its existence and requires CASA to approve its ops manuals and has a contract with CASA can hardly be said to be self regulating. Nor can CASA claim it has off loaded any liability at all. In the sport and recreational aviation world several court cases have now established that anyone who flys a recreational aircraft is taking his or her life in their own hands and claims against instructors, supervisors, organisations etc will be very unlikely to succeed. They are recognised as dangerous activities. I don't think this is entirely fair but there it is in case law. CASA actually doesn't care what we do to ourselves. They assume that recreational aviation is indulged in by "informed, consenting adults". Their concern is innocents on the ground and other airspace users. Part 149 has NEVER been publicly and properly debated, mainly because nobody ever knew what it would look like. It was in train since 1998 and only less than a year ago was a final public form put up as a "fait accompli" by CASA. It will not be operative until organisations sign up to it and are approved as Part 149 organisations. I have it in writing from CASA that organisations will not be forced to be Part 149 organisations but if they wish to operate as present must apply to have current exemptions extended. CASA also admits it has no idea what will happen if for any reason an organisation ceases to exist or is unable to carry out its contract with CASA. Now imagine what happens if a RAAus aircraft or glider collides with a Dash 8 or Saab 340 near a regional airport. 20 or more dead. CASA, RAAus(or GFA) get sued by relatives of the deceased. The first thing that will happen is that the organisation's insurance company will refuse to pay on the grounds that the law or regulations were broken, which led to the accident. The very next thing is the org will have nobody to run it as its executive decide they need to spend more time with the family or claim medical incapacity to carry on. If these people are dragged in to court they will claim that they were operating in accordance with their manuals (approved by CASA) and their agreement with CASA. CASA will then have to admit this and as CASA was charged by parliament with administering the safety of civil aviation in Australia, guess where the buck stops? BTW put in enough detail into the RAAus or GFA manuals and you will find that is used against you because it will be nearly impossible to comply in every detail.

Bruce Tuncks is right. Private pilots do not have to fly if things are not to their liking. Which can include feeling unwell, tired, weather marginal etc. I have often been happy not to fly or to get on the ground at a destination and be relieved that I don't have to fly any more that day. This helps minimise the medical incapacitation incidents.

Once more - there is no need for RAAus or GFA to have any regulatory powers and indeed they should not have any. It leads to misuse of these powers by private people to carry on nasty little vendettas against other people. Seen it all too often. It is CASA's responsibility to regulate civil aviation in Australia and any fond hope CASA may have of offloading liability (why anyway, as nobody in CASA will ever be personally liable for anything and nobody ever loses his or her job in CASA because they are incompetent) is in vain as by approving ops manual etc, CASA makes the regulation its own. The whole debacle, including Part 149 can be avoided by some simple additions to existing licencing, medical and maintenance requirements in the main body of CASA regulation for a class of aircraft under 600 Kg and gliders and motorgliders. BTW motorgliders are simply utility aircraft under ICAO standards, as for example in Germany where all gliders with engines (even the sustainer type) are given D-ABCD rego and gliders without engines are D-1234. We could also end the farce of pretending that RAAus aircraft are not Australian civil aircraft and give them VH-rego and put them on the ONE register CASA is required to maintain for Australian civil aircraft. There does not seem to be any ratioanle for the GFA maintaining part of the VH register either. CASA registration can hardly be run off their feet if they did it all. Pilot licencing can be rationalised too and then it will be simple to move between under 600Kg aircraft, gliders and GA to the benefit of all.

Forget it Facthunter. There is far more bs in gliding than almost any other kind of aviation in Australia. You need to join GFA, a State Gliding Association and a gliding club. Count on $1000 out of pocket before you pay for a launch and an hour of flying. No matter what your other experience you will then be "under supervision" for a long time before you will be allowed to make your own decisions to go flying. If you like being bullied by rather stupid people, gliding may be for you.

Not only that, they can operate in Class C also if the glider is suitably equipped and the glider or motorglider can weigh up to 850Kg. Some of the motorgliders are of the "traveling motor glider" class as opposed to self launching sailplanes. The TMG is actually a high L/D powered aircraft with a flight manual that says you can turn off the engine in flight and many of them are simply used as powered GA aircraft would be. Between the GFA pilots and RAAus pilots there are probably more pilots flying privately in Australia with Private car/self declaration medicals than there are with Class 2. This experiment has been well and truly done. Those who saw the CASA consultation on the medical "reform" (in the end there was any, it was a CASA fraud and sham) will have seen the ATSB list of medical incidents and accidents in aviation in Australia for the last 20 years or so. They were drastically lower if you took out Commercial/ATPL who were poisoned by the caterers and eliminated such nonsense as a first officer who broke his arm during a practice emergency evacuation and the bloke who fell asleep because of carbon monoxide in the cockpit (that one was NOT a medical incident but a MAINTENANCE issue). It really left very few actual incapacitation in flight incidents and most of the pilots involved in those had a Class 2 or Class 1 medical. meanwhile of course their were many hundreds of accidents and incidents with other causes. This has been looked at in the UK and USA over the decades and the result keeps coming up the same - the formal aviation medical for private pilots is ineffective, does nothing measurable to lower the accident rate( medical causes get lost in the statistical noise), is expensive and wastes everybody's time.

Facthunter, thanks for that very accurate and succinct summing up. That is the problem with GFA and RAAus. Once CASA makes an agreement with them they cease to represent the interests of their members and become CASA suncontrcators. As you say, subject to audit by CASA and CASA approval of their technical manuals. That makes those manuals CASA manuals. It would be easier if CASA just did its job and the normal aviation rules applied to ultralights and gliders with the proven and necessary relaxations of the standard rules written in to the regulations. Making people join organisations should be against the law. For the professional maintainers and instructors it amounts to compulsory unionism, something I didn't think we had at present. Membership requirements also present opportunities for thuggery and bullying, of which I've seen enough in the GFA. For that clearly selfishly self interested response to the medical reform proposal, RAAus members should consider expelling and firing the CEO for "bringing the organisation into disrepute". This is the standard phrase used in RAAus and GFA when someone does something the hierarchy doesn't like. I know people in both organisations who have been threatened with this for things that had nothing to do with aviation. Even the bak teller running GFA ops had the very small sense to not even put in a response to the medical proposal.(This from an organisation that needs tug pilots - his comment to a query about this was " they can do the RAMPC which goes to show he knew nothing at it as the RAMPC is only slighter cheaper to get and has the same medical standard as a Class 2.) kiwi, I'm pleased that you aren't interested in politics and just want to go flying. However even if YOU are getting what you want spare a thought for those who are not and remember, you may not have an interest in politics but politics does and will have an interest in you. It is such as you who are a large part of the problem in Australian aviation over the years. If you cannot back those who are fighting for a better deal for private pilots at least remain quiet. If you don't like what AOPA is doing just resign from the organisation. It will not do anything to your flying. Unfortunately that isn't an option for those forced to join RAAus and GFA.

The hostile takeover was by CASA. RAAus and GFA are merely CASA subcontractors. CASA likes this because it gives them "plausible deniability". If some thing goes wrong they will deny responsibility and shove in on to RAAus and GFA. Part 149 is intended to cement this in place. It is a sham of course and the organisations aren't smart enough to say - "Look we aren't going to do this anymore. We are member organisations and it is up to CASA to simply make appropriate regulations for these different classes of aircraft. We already have somewhat simplified regulation and it needs to be put in the main body of CASA regulations."

So add some youtube links showing the actual procedure. Combined with the written stuff that would be pretty good and receive wider distribution than factory hands on be physically present courses at significant expense in time and money.

While a factory engine course is a good idea, why isn't this published on line? Most of us can read and having the factory "bible" on line would dispel a lot of misinformation out there. When some "expert" is spouting off with rubbish, just refer him to the Jab website.

There is a reason certified single engines aircraft have a 61 Kt stall speed limit in landing configuration. During WW2 there was plenty of data available on forced landings and when the survival rate vs stall speed was plotted there was a "knee" in the curve at 61 knots. Pilot survival then decreases rapidly as stall speed increases. This does limit the cruise performance of single engine aircraft as the wing is too large for efficient cruise. Fighters do not have this limit as it was all about performance to kill the enemy. Pilot survival was not a particular consideration as there were plenty more people wanting to be fighter pilots. Yes, the military does think like that, particularly in wartime. You could also bail out instead if high enough. For the last 30 years or so western militaries have been bombing 3rd world peasants and suffering low attrition. Going up against a near peer adversary will result in horrendous casualty rates. I wonder if the pilot had a parachute and how high he was? These WW2 warbirds were flown by pilots wearing parachutes ( see the recent Grumman Avenger crash in Arizona where the guys bailed out and lived). If you are in the forces they are happy as they get a trained pilot back and the taxpayer buys another aircraft. If you own the aircraft there is a chance you can land it successfully with minimal or repairable damage. If you bail out it is a writeoff. If you are not wearing a parachute you must land it. Nasty choices.

Perhaps stall spin while attempting forced landing after engine failure? 170 knots would be fine for a Mirage.

stevron, "registration" of gliders in the GFA costs over $200. The requirement to join a club is of questionable legality (called "third party forcing" by ACCC) and after spending the best part of $1000 or more (some clubs have $600 annual membership) each year BEFORE flying you get to enjoy being told what to do and how to do it by a not very intelligent bunch of pretty nasty people. CASA at least is usually a long way away, as far as day to day ops are concerned. Experimental VH reg is the way to go.

Can we all stop using the term "privileges", please. A "privilege" is an unearned right. As our Australian government is not (nominally anyway) a totalitarian one, you have a right to do anything that doesn't impinge on the rights of others, subject to some regulation or restriction to keep that to a minimum. Getting a pilot licence involves jumping through quite a few hoops. Once successfully done, you have a right to aviate. Must be the convict mindset that is all too prevalent here. Don't let the enemy govern the language.

Why do you need an EASA licence?. The medical for a UK one is much, much easier now. If a Basic Med costs $330 you may as well get a Class 2. They are good for 2 years after age 40: Classes of medical certificates