aplund

That's for sure. Given how much documentation matters to bureaucracies, there must exist something that shows where that number came from and not say (let's just pull a figure out of, I don't know, this poll) 750kg MTOW? There are factors which decrease risk with increasing weight (e.g. higher turbulence resistance), so it'd be good to know the exact reasoning behind the number as it stands today. PS Just out of numerical curiosity, the Sling 2 holds 150L of fuel (the C172 I trained in had 189L usable). At maximum weight, that's the same energy as dropping your plane from ~2x10^6 feet with no air resistance. Of course in reality most of the energy in the fuel goes into overcoming drag also there's no air up there to give you any lift, so I wouldn't try requesting a climb to that altitude. But the point of this is to remember that most of the potential energy in your plane is in your fuel. To have an order of magnitude less risk from an uncontrolled decent, you need an order of magnitude less fuel, and I'm not sure how many planes have anything over the 45 min fuel reserve with just 15L of fuel.

Due to the likely-hood of "skill" errors? Yet the Part 61 RPL (which is, it must be said, very similar to a RPC), is more skilled? What about those "student" pilot licenses that fly C172s solo over my house out of Archerfield most days? Should I be more concerned than I actually am? Also, I would think that the internal energy of the fuel you hold is going to be more important in assessing potential damage than the max weight. Maybe I don't understand the quantitative risk argument here.

But yet, ultralights did get exemptions, presumably on the grounds of being so far away from professional that they couldn't argue out of it. I'm a bit to new to know anything of the history, but presumably there would be some argument that could be made in a similar vein to what ultralights did. But the line would have to be pushed. Clearly RAAus has put an enormous amount of effort to getting the procedures, rules and documentation right. It'd be all much easier, and creative "solutions" wouldn't need to be found, if the regulator wasn't so blind to the situation.

It seems to me that there is a mismatch here. The reasons for these problems, and it's obvious to 90% of participants and 0% of the regulators, is the way CASA operates. The CAO which exempts "recreational" planes from the CAR (is it CAO 95.55?) is a big part of the enabling of RAAus to operate a much better operation than CASA could. GA operators see this and want a piece of the pie, hence the whole weight/CTA thing. Really, what is required is another set of exemptions for GA operators to break free of the CASA dungeon without troding on the exemptions won by the ultralight community. So some "other" set of exceptions for 600-2000kg, 3 - 4 pax, VFR private operators? The problem will be that, even if CASA agreed to something like that, is that it'd be far too much work for all 5 people left in GA to deal with. None of this would be required if CASA didn't bloody mindedly drop the ball for GA. But given that they have ruled out changing direction (as everything is perfect), I don't see any other way. It's funny (or rather devastating) how the head honchos of CASA point to the number of members of RAAus and the quantity of operations in the same breath as saying that GA is alive and well in Australia.

The other option that I can see is to train overseas then try and convert to an Australian license. But is this really the future for ATPL holders in Australia? It seems that the route via GA in Australia, the path cultivated by CASA, is the path of least possibility. I see all these posters up about increasing demand for RPT pilots and I cannot help but think that Australian trained pilots will not be filling those jobs (if the predictions are close to accurate).

I am interested in your progression to getting the highest level of license. After calculating the costs of my PPL I tried estimating the rough costs CPL and ATPL. I came up with roughly $70,000 for CPL and $400,000 for ATPL given _current_ costs for General Aviation. This is just an estimate of the money spent on gaining hours of experience. Additional costs of landing/airways fees, medicals, maps/charts/software, theory courses, briefings, etc. I did not estimate. Granted once you get a CPL you can make money and someone else will pay for much of the plane, but anecdotally it's not massive salary by any means. So I'd be interested in clarifying any of these anecdotes. It's interesting to note that for tertiary level education for Australians eligible for Commonwealth places you are looking at about $50,000 for your undergraduate degree (one rough source: Courses and Programs - The University of Queensland, Australia). Are these costs a new thing? What was it like 30 years ago? Are there ways around the costs of gaining the requisite experience? Are there other ways which don't involve engaging in General Aviation? What is unclear in my mind is how in the future Australian pilots are going to achieve the highest levels of achievement in Aviation if the lowest levels are as dysfunctional as it appears at the moment.

I would like to understand more why decommissioning an air-frame isn't something that happens more often. With motor vehicles it becomes a no-brainer when you are driving scrap metal and having to pay through the nose for maintenance to just keep the thing running. For aircraft this same decision making process doesn't seem to work. Perhaps the depreciation is completely different. Never-the-less, the desire to extend the lifetime of aircraft is wrapped up with the issues outlined from this report. If you have an expected return on investment, then the hidden costs of regulation increase more than expected over time, you will want to try and squeeze more out of the original capital outlay. But just as a symptomatic exercise, compare the percentage do you see of 40+ year old cars on the road vs the percentage of 40+ year old air-frames departing you local GA airport.

It's still unclear to me what CASA's MO actually is. It feels like it's safety at all costs, hence the making of rules without regard to the costs both monetarily and not. They really need some objective quantitative measure for the success of their operations. Under the current system, if CASA makes some rule that puts huge costs on operators then it will only ever be a good thing from their point of view as it will mean less GA/Recreational flying hours hence less "risk". But the proper metric should be the risks per hour of flying, or per cycle, or some other normalizing factor. Its interesting to note in the report the huge reduction in aviation activities on the east coast major cities (not sure why Adelaide has maintained their activity). But has this reduction in operations improved the risk per hour of flying? I'd love to know. (I can see another weekend research project brewing.)

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. A very common modern anti-depressant which works by increasing serotonin levels by blocking the pathways in which it is naturally absorbed. Side-effects are very mild compared with other drugs except perhaps on starting and stopping the medication. There are other common types of anti-depressants like SNRI, which work on a broader array of neurotransmitters. GPs aren't psychiatrists. But they should know when medication isn't working and to refer someone. The concern in when psychologists try to act as psychiatrists and GPs just sign off on the prescriptions.

Well, not being driven to finish training, I managed to sit down and read the Project Eureka report that AOPA Australia put out almost one year ago (reference: http://aopa.com.au/assets/587/EUREKA_130416.pdf). At the time it seemed to have the effect of widening the gap between General and Recreational Aviation (at least that was the impression on these forums). But me and my hip pocket, just currently, cannot help but agree with at least the spirit of the document. I'm not 100% convinced about the quantitative benefits of some of the recommendations in the document. I'm also unsure as to the rationale of the some of the recommendations (such as privatizing the monopoly services of ASA). But the content in it has helped me understand the reasons behind the enormous difference in aircraft costs between countries. Also, the bit about the evolution of controlled and uncontrolled airspace in Australia is actually a great read. The question though is has this "project" made any difference in a positive way over the last year? From my point of view all I see is more inertia than ever.

Oh good. It wasn't just my personal incompetence when I tried to parse such a lengthy document. I don't understand fundamental differences between the USA approach and here. Are we somehow safer (the S in CASA) with such unparsable rules. (Also, the interrelationships between the CAR and CASR still confuses me.)

Well, just looking at the flight schools, the variation for a C172 (any model really) is quite low. You get $260-$290/hour wet (ex. landing/airways fees and tax) just about everywhere in the city. Maybe if I drove 3 hours somewhere it'd go down to $240.

Thanks for that. It's really useful to think about these things. I'm really in no position to spend much money at the moment (as outlined above). So what actually interests me right at this moment is figuring out the whys behind things. The whole maintenance costs thing is all over the place. I get one person saying they usually have $600 annuals. I tried to figure out what it might cost given the "market rate" for C172 hire and I came out to somewhere between $5k-$10k. And then I get someone saying that $10,000 is an underestimate for the costs of an annual as it's more like $15k-$20k and most places loose money off private hire. This huge variation is _confusing_ to say the least. Let's say it really is $20k per annual/100hourly. Where does that money go? Clearly there is the labour costs. But many people give examples of equipment costs and talk about "aviation grade". But in so many situations "aviation grade" equipment seems to just mean 50 year old technology which has a short lifetime compared to what is possible using modern materials. Yet you pay a premium for that "grade". But it's not actually clear to me that this would explain the majority of such a high cost. One day I may get to the bottom of this, but at the moment it's all totally opaque. My personality cannot help but pursue questions like, why is this the case, and is there a better way? There are so many different things to ask these questions of here and there is a factorial more opinions out there, all wildly different.

Just to answer my own question, seems to be price. Sling 4 seems to go for closer to $200,000 USD.

I'll take the liberty of hijacking my own thread. Why a J430 and not something like a Sling 4? Sheesh, if the MTOW for Recreational a/c was 950kg then recreational registration would be very attractive indeed.

We called up and deciphered the "not certified" message. The issue is my ASIC was issued by Aviation ID Australia and hence I had not actually submitted a passport photo to CASA. The JP certified copy of my ASIC was not of sufficient quality for their system so they wanted me to put in a separate form with a recent photo for their records. Good luck figuring that out from the wording I pasted above. (I'll note that I just used less words to describe the problem then they used in the entire message they sent me.) This is another situation where it seems like the system is broken. Why can they not get the photo from Aviation ID and be done with it? It was JP certified and they issued me with an ASIC. Seems like a whole lot of wasted time and effort (and money) for what benefit? On the plus side, I'm making a new friend at work who is a JP.

I was aware of both of these. But there can be exclusions that come into force from other orders, hence the question about where RAA is mentioned in the legislation. So I've read over the exemptions in part 3 of CAO 95.55 and it is still unclear to me of the interaction between the CASR Part 61 license, the CAR and this CAO. For example, given that the aircraft is permitted under CAO 95.55 to not satisfy all the regulations under the CAR, does this mean it isn't an aircraft for the purposes of the CASR? Hence you cannot log the time and then cannot count it towards the take-off and landing requirement for a part 61 license. As an aside, and I'm no legal expert, I find it interesting they have to separately specify 3 take-offs and 3 landings. I'm trying to imagine a situation where you do 3 landings and 1 take-off. 1 landing and 3 take-offs sounds particularly bad :(

Thanks for the information. As I said above, I'm clearly very green. I have no feel for numbers or the requirements at all. I think I'd actually really love to be part of doing a 100 hourly. Just by my inquisitive nature, just before I started the basic IF briefing, I got and invitation to take the cowling off one of the 172s at AAA. I must have spent 2 hours just asking questions and learnt heaps about the systems. What exactly stops 152s getting to TBO? Are you saying something else writes off the plane apart from the engine? On reddit I was advised that basically you have to buy an entirely new engine at overhaul, but I prefer to take most things read on the internet with a grain of salt. The thing I'm having difficult resolving at the moment is the vast array of numbers floating around out there. I've had advice that 100 hourlys should cost around $1,000 to $5,000 to $15,000. That level of uncertainty makes it impossible to make a decision. Now, I know there are fluctuations in the costs, but surely it's possible to put an "average" figure on it, and even a "standard deviation" to know how much you may need available in the worst case. It would take a bit of digging through records but it's surely possible to do. Most comments seem to be made on the basis of recollections and feelings about the quantities, not hard numbers. In trying to resolve this I made a rough guesstimate using how much the "market" rate for wet hire of a 172 is, and the maintenance costs should be between $5-10k, probably the bigger number, which seems like a lot. At the moment, I really do need to let my bank balance recover whilst trying to keep things as current as possible. I guess that means I have some thinking/research time. But I do also need to spend time on other things which I have neglected over the last 12 months. As well as trying to have fun.

Thank you for your post. This information is fairly up-lifiting for me. I'm sorry if this ruffles feathers, but the state of GA in Australia is very sad indeed. Somehow the operators in Australia are required to put in an order of magnitude more time, effort and money than those in the USA and gain little if not loose out a bit over what is possible in the USA. Is there any evidence that compares these costs across different countries and the safety outcomes? It'd be nice to know if this order of magnitude effort results in an order of magnitude improvement in safety. When you say "current", do you mean to do 3 TO&L within 90 days in a VH- aircraft or just the 24 month flight reviews and do the TO&L requirement if you want to take PAX? I did read that CAO 95.55 for RA-Aus and it seems there is some interaction with Part 61 licenses particularly about CTR/CTA. It'd be great if the MTOW for CAO 95.55 was 500kg higher. I don't quite understand why the exemptions apply for light aircraft as I would have thought (as you say) that control of them could be more difficult in some situations due to a lower mass. It's being revoked next year it seems. I don't quite understand why that sunset clause is in there. I need some time (and hence money) before I commit to things. But from what I've read over the past couple of days, I'll be seriously looking into the RA-Aus Certificate. Oh, and the 5 hours, is this done at ~$200/hours dual time?

Oh and just to add to the fun of all this, CASA sent through a letter claiming my application is incomplete. In the application process had included a copy of my ASIC and had the copy JPed and their response was: If CASA won't allow a JP to certify photos, then who the hell is meant to? I'm getting assistance from the flight school on this. But I think the best reaction to this is "WTF"? (And when they say I need to send through the "entire application", I hope that's not some CASA code for me to pay the application fee a second time).

On reflection last night, I think I'm just a bit burnt out from the whole experience. It seems to feel like climbing to what you think is a summit just to find an unexpected 100m cliff-face above you. It'd be awesome just to have some fun with things now and hopefully allow some time for money to come back to me (hopefully). Is anyone going to the Straddie fly-in this month with a spare seat or two?

What I'm really after is where organizations like raaus are mentioned in the CASR and also which section describes the rules for non vh registered aircraft. I've tried to pin it down by going through it systematically but cannot find it.

Someone outside. It's funny how the brain works. During the flight I couldn't help but fixate on what might be an "automatic" fail, but on reflection, the things that I thought went wrong were quite minor and/or dealt with. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to do 100hrs/year, I just don't see how it's financially possible. As you say, ~$270/hour for a plane means your up for ~$27,000p.a. in flying costs (+ taxes, landing fees, maps/charts, medicals, etc.) That's somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of our household income and just not possible.

Thanks for the pointer. Sorted that out. (AAA _really_ stuffed this up before they went bankrupt). The reference document is here: Services Agreement

"Noddy guides"? Is this bush-slang or an actual document? The wording in the VFRG is this: Private pilot licence | Civil Aviation Safety Authority "As the holder of a private licence (aeroplane) you are authorised to fly an aeroplane as pilot in command or co-pilot while the aeroplane is engaged in private operations (see page 1.14) or as pilot in command in flying training operations." The VFRG doesn't seem to say anywhere that this only applies to VH registered aircraft. In-fact, the whole VFRG doesn't mention the distinctions between RA-Aus registration and VH registration anywhere. Given that this seems like a significant limitation you would have thought it would be mentioned. PPL achieved, but it feels like the "real" learning has just begun.