Change almost always bring with it winds of optimism, and the zephyrs in the aviation industry at the are all about a new minister in Canberra. Any change is generally seen as good change, and growing frustration over a perceived lack of progress with the ASRR reforms is gaining momentum; analyst and rantist alike are preparing to hit Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester with gale-force lobbying to adopt their view of the way forward. Many of those will no doubt arm themselves with David Forsyth's reform scorecard that shows there is still a lot of work to be done. That's one way of reading it. Another way is to compare the reform progress made in the last 22 months against the progress made in the last 22 years. By that measure, we're not doing so bad. Mr Chester is about to be bounced around by opinions coming from the industry, CASA, his own department, ATSB, experts, wannabe experts and, yes, aviation journalists. He's going to be faced with choices, and I fully expect he will do nothing. There's a Double-D election in the wind also.
As AMROBA boss Ken Cannane points out, Australia's safety regulation mess is probably historical. With successive regulators failing to simply adopt international standards (which sort of defeats the reason for having international standards) we find ourselves choked with regulations that were unworkable from the very beginning. The aviation community is no longer accepting the old excuse about "Australian conditions"; a catch-all phrase that has come to be understood as a defence mechanism for CASA. OK, there may be some "Australian conditions", but are they really the imperative given the cost and energy required to regulate especially for them? That cost and energy would be better put into trying to revitalise GA; but that's not CASA's brief, is it?
Good to see Wings over Illawarra coming back for another crack; after the last two shows were almost complete busts due weather, you couldn't really have blamed Bright Events for getting disheartened. But they're staying the course, and WOI is on again. The line-up of planes is looking like one of the best you'll see in Australia. And being so close to Sydney, Wollongong and Canberra there's a solid population base to draw an air show crowd from. This year, let's hope for good weather that enables a full showcase to go ahead.
Matt Hall didn't make the start to the 2016 Red Bull Air Race series he'd hoped to. For only the third time in his career, he didn't get past the Round of 14 in Abu Dhabi, clipping a pylon and being slapped with a three-second penalty. Hall is the sort of bloke to put it behind him almost as soon as it was done and just knuckle down for the next round. The good news is that before his mistake, he was the fastest in track, qualifying first. Obviously the speed is still there, and he'll unleash it all again in the next round.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch