Australian Helicopter Industry Association

General stuff that gets thrown about when Helicopter Pilots shoot the Breeze.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby AHIA » Fri Dec 4 2015, 09:50

Check out speech by Warren Truss on 3 Dec '15. About their progress with Forsyth thing. See speeches on his website.

In conclusion, he asked for the industry to co-operate with the regulator; almost assuming we may not (maybe?).

Hopefully, it will be clearer after all the meetings in a week or so ....... but 2016 will be a hard work year because we have to help what was the TLSIC populate the new industry working groups; one for maintainers and one for guys on the flight line.

Have a great weak-end ...

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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby AHIA » Sat Dec 12 2015, 06:25

December is "D" day - for CASA's plans during 2016


CASA boss Mark Skidmore: safer skies a long-haul process

Article by award winning aviation writer Steve Creedy. Published in Aviation Section of The Australian on 11 December 2015.

Civil Aviation Safety Authority boss Mark Skidmore has urged the industry to keep working with him as he moves to restructure the regulator by the middle of next year, addresses problems with existing rules and introduces new regulations.

As he heads to a crucial meeting with an industry advisory panel next week, Mr Skidmore told The Australian this week that his first year in one of aviation’s most controversial jobs had involved a steep learning curve that had seen more flak than his time as an RAAF pilot.

“It’s a rather interesting environment to be operating in — exciting and challenging at the same time,” he said. “I’ve found over the course of this year that there’s a lot of very passionate people out there, which I really appreciate — their passion for aviation safety.

“What I need to do is try and make sure that my organisation knows how we can help those people actually comply with the aviation regulations more than anything else.”

CASA has been under fire in recent months for failing to act more quickly on the flawed introduction of regulations promulgated under Mr Skidmore’s predecessor. It also has been criticised for the pace at which it has adopted recommendations by the Aviation Safety Regulation Review chaired by industry veteran David Forsyth.

Criticism continued even after Mr Skidmore announced last month that CASA would streamline its operations into three groups — aviation, stakeholder engagement and sustainability — in a bid to improve its regulatory services and better promote interaction with the industry. The reforms are due to be completed by July next year with the stakeholder engagement group the first cab off the rank.

Defending his track record, Mr Skidmore said he had been travelling extensively to listen to the aviation community’s experiences and this was shaping what CASA would do in the future.

He said people arguing the authority was not taking action were “not seeing what we actually do” and the authority had completed about 11 of the 32 ASRR recommendations that applied to it.

He pointed to developments in the past year that included the renewal of the CASA board, new reporting arrangements for the industry complaints commissioner and the establishment of a memorandum of understanding with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

He also had announced a new regulatory philosophy that would look at issues such as the cost to the industry of safety regulations and issued a directive about the need for consultation in future regulatory reform.

“So I get disappointed when I hear that we haven’t done anything. I think we’ve actually been working quite hard; perhaps a lot of it is behind the scenes,” he said.

And it hadn’t just been criticism: Mr Skidmore said there had been feedback from some within the industry indicating they were seeing changes in how the authority consulted and engaged.

“I know we still need to fix some of our communication, I know we still need to fix the time limit in regards to our response on some things,” he said, noting it took time to make cultural changes and likening CASA to a turning aircraft carrier.

CASA also has set up a 26-member internal group, the Part 61 solutions taskforce, to address problems with new regulations already introduced.
Mr Skidmore said the solutions taskforce would sit down with the industry panel to prioritise what actions needed to be taken to address problems with the new rules, although he warned he would not be able to do everything straight away.

He said CASA would issue exemptions to help the industry if they were needed and would move towards legislative change, if needed, by the end of next year.

“If I’ve got priorities for the next year, my priorities are fix up (parts) 61, 141 and 142,” he said. “Let’s make sure we‘ve got those resolved.”

At the same time, he said, there were still 12 regulations out of 55 that needed to be implemented and CASA had been asking industry about a timeline and priorities.

There was some low-hanging fruit with new regulations in areas such as Part 129 (foreign air transport operators) and Part 149 (self-administrating sports organisations) and Part 138 (aerial work operations) that could be rolled out.

“My hope is that we’ve learnt out of this and we’re doing the right thing by consulting with people and actually working through the process better,” Mr Skidmore said, adding that the Part 61 taskforce would look at existing processes to make improvements and ensure mistakes were not repeated. “Part of that is making sure that we get the right education process for ourselves, for CASA, before rolling out regulations, and that potentially we test run a regulation with some industry folk.”

Mr Skidmore inherited many of the problems upsetting industry and said it took him a while to understand the extent of the problem and what he needed to do.

“And it was a case of finding resources for me to do that as well because you can’t just suddenly set something up — you’ve got to know where you’re going to get the resources from and how you’re going to apply them,” he said.

“I haven’t buckets of money; in fact I’ve got a big hole I’m trying to dig myself out of next financial year.”

Asked to summarise the major thrust of his strategy, the CASA boss said it was to have “a more effective, efficient capability in CASA engaged with the aviation community in understanding how we can work together on the future of aviation safety”.

The message to staff was that CASA was going to be a modern regulator that would engage and educate people and only enforce the rules when it had to.
He said he wanted to find a carrot “more than use a stick”.

“And basically, let’s work together,” he said. “Let’s not be adversarial in all of this — if there are problems let’s talk about it and work together to resolve (them).”

“So I want to set safety regulations that allow you to operate within a framework, a safe framework, and if you step outside we’ll have to do something. But let’s define that framework so that we can all work within it.”
And while cost pressures could tempt some people to take short cuts, he had found in his travels that operators wanted to comply and understood that they were carrying the risk.

He said CASA needed to be aware of this and help operators by driving complexity out of regulations and communicating better. But will that mean reaching the long-held goal of simple, easy-to-follow regulations?

“If I can crack the code I’d love to,” Mr Skidmore said. “But it is one of those things. We get caught up in the complexity of the regulations whereas it would be nice to come out with something pretty simple with regards to understanding and … and I will work towards that.”

END

Decision time! Planning for 2016.
Note for AHIA Members. As there are a number of meetings with CASA during the week to develop an industry/regulator strategy for the enormous amount of troublesome legislation commencing week 14 December 2015. We will keep you informed of the progress. Hopefully, the review and rectification of Part 61 will be completed by July 2016 (CASA estimate). CASA leadership will have a Herculean task as their major restructure plan is also scheduled to be completed by the same date.

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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Yankee » Sat Dec 12 2015, 13:55

He said CASA needed to be aware of this and help operators by driving complexity out of regulations and communicating better. But will that mean reaching the long-held goal of simple, easy-to-follow regulations?

“If I can crack the code I’d love to,” Mr Skidmore said. “But it is one of those things. We get caught up in the complexity of the regulations whereas it would be nice to come out with something pretty simple with regards to understanding and … and I will work towards that.”


Here's a hint Mr. Skidmore... you want something simple??? how about just getting rid of the regulations all together.
Start from scratch and allow the industry to come up with its own solutions on how to regulate itself.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby hand in pants » Sat Dec 12 2015, 19:58

Yankee, Yankee, Yankee, settle down mate, these people don't have a clue what simple is. They obviously haven't looked in a mirror.

Simple would put most of them out of a job. I seriously doubt they have any idea of actual safety. The rubbish they have pushed on us in the form of Part 61, 141 and 141 are screaming examples of how they think "simple" looks. It is typical of the stuff you get from academics and lawyers these days, full of trendy catch phrases and long winded sections that are undecipherable on their own and even worse because they are not linked in a logical order.

As you said, they need to go back to CAR 5 and if they feel they need to rewrite it, start again and do it properly and don't shove it onto us until it is a workable, sensible and logical set of rules that we can use and understand.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Birdy » Sun Dec 13 2015, 00:28

Gees H I P, how long you expectn to live? ;)
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby hand in pants » Sun Dec 13 2015, 02:06

Yeah Birdy, good point, but I could Still be flying in ten tears and they won't have come up with anything better than CAR 5.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Jabberwocky » Sun Dec 13 2015, 03:04

HIP, do you think CAR 5 was a good enough system on its own, or could do with a tweak here and there itself? Serious question, not having a go. You've been around the block quite a few more times than me so interested to see if you thought the old system had its faults too.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby hand in pants » Sun Dec 13 2015, 04:36

Yep, CAR 5 was good enough, but does have some holes in it. I do think that we should have to do a NVFR flight review, maybe do it this year and the Day VFR review next year. I have no problem with doing a flight review as such and every year is okay, but just ONE, not the 5 or six they think I need now. Another thing I don't understand the need for me to do an instructor rating renewal every two years, especially if I'm doing it for a living. Yes if I have instructed in the last two years, otherwise it should be permanent.
Fire fighting endorsement and currency, who are they kidding. How many blokes have been killed on a fire because they hadn't flown a bucket in the last 12 months? I really don't like the fact that we have been deemed as too dumb to know weather we are capable of doing a job we have been trained for or have experience in just because some meathead who hasn't EVER flown a bucket thinks it is a good idea. Low level currency is another one. I'm not the sharpest knife in the draw, but, I'm smart enough to look after myself when flying in the weeds, it's self preservation. Get checked out at your flight review but currency, rubbish.
We are not as dumb as the authority and the academics and lawyers think we are, some people will step on their dick at some stage during their career, the vast majority won't. Part 48.1 is another bun fight, gone from a workable, understandable, almost sensible, but usable to a document that again assumes we are too stupid to know that we are too tired or worn out to fly safely and are too scared to tell the boss. All they have done is given us reason to find ways around it, either by cheating or creative accounting. No addition to safety at all.
I could go on, and I do after a couple of beers but I seriously think CAR 5 just needed a tweak and that's it, not chuck it in the bin and hand out the garbage that is Part 61.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Birdy » Sun Dec 13 2015, 07:15

Unfortunatly mate, all the authoritys, laywers, pollies, OH&S morons and other assorted tax tics only want to baby sit the dumbest bastered in the camp. You know the one, the one thats always lookn for a novel new way of getn hurt.
Apparently we are all as thick as that brick.

To hell with him, let Darwin do his thing and let us do ours.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Jabberwocky » Sun Dec 13 2015, 08:41

Haha, well there you go, and nicely put. It will be interesting to see if any major hanged do come from all of the surveys etc that are popping up.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Evil Twin » Sun Dec 13 2015, 09:29

hand in pants wrote:Yep, CAR 5 was good enough, but does have some holes in it. I do think that we should have to do a NVFR flight review, maybe do it this year and the Day VFR review next year. I have no problem with doing a flight review as such and every year is okay, but just ONE, not the 5 or six they think I need now. Another thing I don't understand the need for me to do an instructor rating renewal every two years, especially if I'm doing it for a living. Yes if I have instructed in the last two years, otherwise it should be permanent.
Fire fighting endorsement and currency, who are they kidding. How many blokes have been killed on a fire because they hadn't flown a bucket in the last 12 months? I really don't like the fact that we have been deemed as too dumb to know weather we are capable of doing a job we have been trained for or have experience in just because some meathead who hasn't EVER flown a bucket thinks it is a good idea. Low level currency is another one. I'm not the sharpest knife in the draw, but, I'm smart enough to look after myself when flying in the weeds, it's self preservation. Get checked out at your flight review but currency, rubbish.
We are not as dumb as the authority and the academics and lawyers think we are, some people will step on their dick at some stage during their career, the vast majority won't. Part 48.1 is another bun fight, gone from a workable, understandable, almost sensible, but usable to a document that again assumes we are too stupid to know that we are too tired or worn out to fly safely and are too scared to tell the boss. All they have done is given us reason to find ways around it, either by cheating or creative accounting. No addition to safety at all.
I could go on, and I do after a couple of beers but I seriously think CAR 5 just needed a tweak and that's it, not chuck it in the bin and hand out the garbage that is Part 61.



Couldn't have put better myself. :shock:
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Skywork » Sun Dec 13 2015, 21:47

One of our biggest threats as I see it now, is the fact in the old regs WHEN they had penalty points attached to a regulation it was a range between 10 and 20 from memory, Now it is 50 on every single regulation , which means if you have forgotten or have had trouble remembering one in the many pages you can be prosecuted.
This effectively has made it that all pilots will become, or have the chance of becoming a criminal every time you go flying as I sure as hell know I will not be able to remember every paragraph of the new regs. If it is not this flight it will be one in the future. The first thing they need to do after everything else is decriminalise the Regulations
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Evil Twin » Tue Jan 12 2016, 21:37

So, any new news on this debacle................?
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby hand in pants » Tue Feb 16 2016, 11:37

Now half way through February and the silence is deafening.
The only movement I've seen is an amendment to an instrument about something. All this means is they can't even get the instruments right.
I suppose now that the minister has been flicked, we are going to suffer another fool in the job and it'll be months before he is even told about the crapfest that is part 48, 61, 141 and 142. And then nothing will happen.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby County » Tue Feb 16 2016, 21:47

I would like to think that the new minister might take an interest in this débâcle.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Evil Twin » Wed Feb 24 2016, 06:58

Think I just spotted some tumbleweed rolling past this thread. Further proof that we are going to be lumbered with this ill thought out, over complicated crap that is Parts 61, 141,142 among others.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby JohnHopkins » Wed Feb 24 2016, 09:40

So what have you done to help Evil Twin? All you seem to do is whinge.
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby Evil Twin » Wed Feb 24 2016, 09:44

JohnHopkins wrote:So what have you done to help Evil Twin? All you seem to do is whinge.


Am I taking money from people and stating that change is coming?
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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby AHIA » Thu Mar 10 2016, 19:59

11 Mar ’16. Australian Register Update.

Register – 7 March 2016. The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s aircraft register totals 15,313 aircraft. Of this number 11,506 were aeroplanes, 1,003 gliders, 256 motor gliders, 397 manned balloons 2,151 helicopters, the latter make up (14%) of all registrations.

The helicopter fleet consists of 1,325 piston (61%) and 826 turbine (39%) powered helicopters. A closer look shows the turbine powered group has 573 single engine (69%) and 253 multi-engine helicopters (31%).

Location of operators. QLD – 788; NSW – 450; WA – 348; VIC – 269; NT – 177; SA – 59; TAS – 54; ACT – 5. Number crunchers and job seekers will note percentages are: QLD – 37%; NSW – 21%; VIC – 16%; NT – 8%; SA, TAS and ACT all less than 3%,

Past year’s growth. Overall registrations (March to March) grew from 15,267 to 15,313 or 46 aircraft. Not a good result at 0.3%. In brief; piston helicopters from 1,304 to 1,325, up 21 (1.6%); SE turbine from 563 to 572, up 9 (1.6%) and ME turbine from 247 to 253, up 6 (2.5%).

In summary, CASA Register’s growth has flat lined when the GDP has increased by 2 to 3%. Overall helicopter growth is very slow at 37 or 1.7%,

Global rating. It is believed Australia has the second largest listing in the Western World and that we are closely followed by Brazil.

A report soon on the Indo-Asia-Pacific Region’s growth.

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Re: Australian Helicopter Industry Association

Postby hand in pants » Fri Mar 11 2016, 06:43

And another month has gone by and no word on what's happening with 48 - 145.
Surely there has been some progress towards sorting the crap out.

Or are we just throwing out handing in the air and copping it on the chin......................
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