walrus

Now I know `why Michael Smiths Searey was N registered.

I found out the hard way that you can’t hire an aircraft from some organizations without a current ASIC.

Turbo, I have a ppl and did the training. but $800 for a bfr and then a medical on top of that, just so I can “go coastal” once a year is crazy. Have you ever flown into LAX as a passenger in daylight? You would have seen all sorts of aircraft from a C172 upwards, mixing happily in that airspace, but not here.

Turbo, I’m sure you are right. What you are saying, it seems, is that RAA pilots have no rights. That said, my point stands. With no rights, then the 60%+ of Australians living under CTA on the East Coast should not be flying RAA. You can fly suitably equipped RAA aircraft in CTA with a ppl, bfr and medical certificate). ‘’That begs the question of medical self certification for GA, if that happens then the floodgates are open for the RAA pilots with a PPL as well.

Why even fly the East Coast? It’s just a series of road blocks. Jervis Bay, sydney, Newcastle, Coffs, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast. Seven of them - and not one of them makes a provision for RAA pilots or a sensible fuel efficient corridor. How many Light Aircraft pilots and pax have been killed because they couldn’t plan or get clearance through these toxic zones?

No point commenting. They don’t listen and don’t care. All you are doing is providing window dressing.

Too close to CASA Head office?

While it doesn’t affect my flying, on my travels in outback Australia I have occasionally been given advice about camping places to go, or to avoid, from local Aboriginals which is based on the spirits inhabiting various locales. I have great respect for that advice. Some locations are beautiful but downright spooky for no apparent reason. Others are somehow welcoming, I know not why. I once ignored that advice and ended up leaving as fast as possible next morning, such was the feeling of dread that hung over this otherwise perfect spot.

Spenaroo,regarding boats, I see plenty of $150k wake boats bring pulled by 100K+ of trailer and Dodge Ram 4WD. Most of these appear to be owned by young tradies. The hourly running costs are stratospheric. The question remains - why aren't aeroplanes maintaining market share of the Australian toy market? Judging from american youtube flying videos there are plenty of young folk in the American GA scene, why not here? ..But we know they are unsafe! Why, they even permit children to touch the controls! ...And the takeoffs and low flying! Suicidal!

Thruster, Turbo, you both make relevant points. Like Thruster, I too am lucky to be able to fly and am left alone. I also note Turbo’s statistical evidence that not much has changed. I agree. However this doesn’t change the conclusions I have reached. There are two of them: - While statistically not much has changed, that begs the huge question of whether it should have changed by increasing in line with the rest of Australia’s economy as measured by GDP. Australia’s GDP has almost tripled from 2000 to 2019 (from roughly 0.5 to 1.4 trillion). Has the activity of the GA sector tripled even allowing for RAA? I don’t think so. Is there three times the investment, jobs and activity? No. For anecdotal evidence of what a thriving GA sector would look like, visit New Zealand. Clearly we have a problem. - While I am lucky to be left alone to be able to fly, I think it is selfish and dangerous not to be interested and a contributor even in a very small way to policy development. If you don’t do this, you risk being overtaken by events. Furthermore without active scrutiny and robust discussion of industry policy settings, there is a tendency for regulatory sub optimisation - regulators may avoid hard decisions in favor of the line of least resistance or worse, decide to regulate in favor of their own self interest. There is ample evidence in the form of the Forsyth review, the current RRAT work and numerous previous reports as well as the alleged treatment meted out to Glen Buckley and APTA to suggest that there is, euphemistically “room for improvement”. ‘’It is axiomatic that unless regulatory activities are scrutinised and challenged the standards of regulation will deteriorate. That ultimately leads to inefficiency, regulatory failure and ultimately corruption. In other words, third world standards. So yes, “I’m all right jack” and not much has changed in my neck of the woods but I can’t help wondering if we are in a fools paradise. If we don’t critically evaluate and instead do nothing we risk our survival.

My sense of the current state is that GA is on an irretrievable downward spiral. GA has no supporters and plenty of detractors. You can start with local government who see airports as prime development land. Then there is the RAAF and RPT crowd who look at anything smaller than a B737 as air pollution. Then there are the nimby/green/ left wing types who hate the idea that anyone should even be able to afford to fly an aircraft. GA has no friends. It is therefore ripe for sacrifice as well as a convenient whipping boy for the public service.’’You can’t win. it’s over. ‘’But what about recreational aircraft’? Give them time. They will #@%@ them too.

Agree with Jackc. Very few kids have the faintest idea about salesmanship. Having said that, those that do understand won’t be working for office works.

The other day I had to explain to a twenty something what a crank handle was, then how to use it to manually start a diesel engine, including use of decompression lever and the finer points of removing crank handle before it goes into orbit, breaking arms, etc. I felt very old having to do this. ‘’Fast forward - I need a new iphone, I asked twenty something about the new iphone 13…… “no need - you won’t use very much of what is in there” was the reply.

Ignition, you raise very valid points. I’m past 70 but I wanted to fly from age six. I don’t frequent aero clubs for exactly the same reason you don’t. Mentally I’m still a 20 something in love with aviation. I offer my kids free rides anytime - mostly too busy, always on their phones. Grandkids? Their mothers won’t let them. ‘’What I personally think is missing from aviation these days is the sense of wonder and pure joy in becoming airborne! That spirit has been rung out of the activity and flushed down the sewer by over regulation - hence a suggestion that aviation is now a guilty pleasure. There are plenty of us who love flying but we can’t share that joy with you on youtube for fear of the regulator. My observation of the young these days still stands: you have been conditioned by marketing and technology to require instant gratification. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in popular culture that extols patience and delayed gratification. Even cooking and eating ferchrissake! Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Menulog exist because people won’t even invest time in travelling to a fast food restaurant to pick up a ready to eat meal! What hope has aviation got to attract kids with those priorities? Aviation requires careful thought, practice and deliberate actions to fly let alone build, that requires faith and diligence which is hard to come by especially since CASA has crushed the joy out of flying. ‘’That said, look at youtube and the likes of Trent Palmer, Gravity Knights, etc. to understand that there are young players who are having a great time, not only in the USA but places like NZ. It’s just Australia that is so gloomy. There appears to me to be a growing RAA STOL aircraft movement - aircraft that fly low and slow and don’t need expensive and limiting airports., pretty much any paddock free of stock, wombat holes and power lines will do.

What, I think originally got my attention was the pprune posters opinion that: "Is it just me or is there a real decline in the people using these forums and therefore the amount of information we are sharing ? To me, it looks like everybody is just losing interest". Ii thought that this was relevant because perhaps coincidentally, The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee of the Senate has apparently commented on the scarcity of submissions to its latest aviation review compared to the previous forsyth review. In my opinion, there are two reasons for a lack of engagement: either things are going so well that everybody has nothing to complain about, or, the industry has given up believing that meaningful change will result from engaging with Government. Given the volume of reviews and reports over the years which appear to have been ignored, there might be some truth in the latter. If that situation is correct - that industry has given up hope, then that is dire because it presages collapse in investment, innovation, growth and jobs. As for a rosy future for RAAus, I would hope so and technically at least there is ongoing investment innovation and growth. However, we exist at the whim of the regulator and we live hand to mouth, so to speak on time limited exemptions. We are unimportant fringe dwellers -rather like illegal immigrants on protection visas. We exist at the whim of the regulator, all CASA has to do to crush us is a small act of omission - decline to renew exemptions for whatever reason and we are toast.

One track: I think this is close to the mark. I have two stepsons. Both doing important jobs for six figure ++ salaries. One likes getting his hands dirty, the other mirrors Onetracks mates son. He works twelve hour plus days talking to everyone from houston to london, has the latest sports-car and his view of manual labor is “why? I make enough money per hour to buy new rather than take the time to learn to fix things”. His idea of aviation is seat 1A business class. Given the pace and remuneration of his job that is understandable. What little free time he has is spent on me me me me behaviour. ‘’The other likes working with his hands, currently with timber and with as little skill as I had at his age. Me? Parental expectations consigned me to University and intellectual pursuits when I would have liked to be a tradesman. I’ve compensated for that now. I know a few other professionals who have done the same. I get a real kick out of flying something I built but today such delayed gratification is not popular. ‘’Furthermore the amount of red tape and administrative BS is a major barrier for new entrants.

This post on Pprune caught my eye: “ Are we loosing interest ? What's happening ? Greetings, as a regular visitor to this forum over many, many years I am noticing a real decline in what is available for me to read. Every morning without hesitation, I log online and look at a couple of forums that I have an interest in and try to keep up-to-date with all things aviation. Is it just me or is there a real decline in the people using these forums and therefore the amount of information we are sharing ? To me, it looks like everybody is just losing interest, have got too old and are not flying or they have changed to other interests and hobbies. Hopefully I am wrong and it is just a "slow period" in the life of the forum but what do others think ? Should I be looking at other avenues to feed my obsessions.” I can think of two reasons for this state of affairs……… 1. Pprune is now owned by an American Internet brands conglomerate. In my opinion, they have no interest in “colourful” topics or postings and their moderators act accordingly to remove anything or anyone controversial. The result, to quote an American author, is that reading Pprune is like drowning in maple syrup. 2. The presence and prior behaviour of CASA has a continuing “chilling effect” (to use the US Supreme Court term) on the discussion of a lot of aviation topics and subjects by Australian pilots on internet forums. Anything you write can and will be discovered and used against you if you are prosecuted or could trigger. an investigation. This is also the reason, in my opinion, for the paucity of Australian aviation content on Youtube and suchlike - CASA trawls through it looking for offences to prosecute. This is the reality of Australian Aviation: - a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed in secret.

Marty is right. Furthermore, there doesn’t appear to be any time stamping so if joe covid was there at 9.35am and left at 951 am, but you were there from 9.20 to 9.29, then you still cop 14 days for you and your whole family - with no compensation .

Good points ARO, in particular in my opinion iit is bad form to do precautionaries without permission.

I used to shake my head when reading about middle ages history and the belief in witchcraft……..until Covid came along and with it thousands of publications containing utter BS about vaccines in general and Covid19 in particular. ‘’Please get vaccinated ASAP.

Aro, if pilots were dropping out of the sky scaring the horses, wrecking your cornfield or rose garden every day you would have a point.. For most of rural Australia a landing is a red letter day. I have four undocumented strips in my “paddock” and would not hesitate to use any of them if I. thought it advisable.

By definition, PPR can only apply to marked strips contained in ERSA or suchlike. If it’s an unmarked, undocumented strip or just a paddock then there can be no argument that you didn’t land without permission, unless the law says “you can’t be anywhere without permission” which it doesn’t. It’s a bizarre situation. Furthermore the i closed lands act looks to me as a device to keep drovers out of other peoples properties(an issue during drought) and also out of events and public facilities like hospitals. ‘’The fact that something is inclosed begs the question of whether it is legally inclosed as well. There are fences everywhere in the bush for all sorts of reasons, some legal, some not. To put it another way, you would have to be unlucky in the bush to find someone who objected to a request or even a landing after an attempt was made to contact the owner. Most people understand the concept. of “a fair go”.

“nobody else around, so no need to broadcast” Gold!

Why don’t people have radio and perhaps transponder? Are they the same idiots who refuse Covid vaccination because…..freedom? At least can the non radio crowd by relegated to 500 ft circuit height…..or could they be required to have a sky echo in operation in the vicinity of airstrips so that we have some chance of alerted see and avoid?

Understood from a business use point of view although I am aware of one Cirrus pilot who flies between his network of country businesses. For social use it’s one hour flying vs. four plus hours in the car ( 2 x country miles, 2 x city traffic) each way to visit a relative. That was what I was thinking.