This week took me to Canberra for a sit-down chat with the new Director of Aviation, Mark Skidmore. Now there's a bloke that has jumped enthusiatically into the hottest aviation seat in Australia. Fortunately, Mark seems to have the determination and thick hide needed to beat the regulator into a more reasonable shape. We talked about some of general aviation's woes including CASA's culture, AVMED, the problems with recruiting good staff, whether or not we should adopt US or NZ regulations and, of course, his brilliant little Globe Swift. There was one thing he managed to impress me with: the willingness to say "I don't know" rather than try to sound authoritative with an answer constructed to sound like he does know. That makes you tend to take him at his word when he says he wants above all to display honesty and integrity.
The news seems to be all about airports this week. Firstly, it's good to see CASA is going to review its airport regulations to try to ease a bit of the burden on operators. The only weak point in all this is that Acting DAS Terry Farquharson has said the aim is to remove "unnecessary regulatory burden". My question is: who gets to decide what is and isn't unnecessary? And if there is unecessary regulation, how did it ever get in there? Airfield operators are under significant regulatory burden, of that there is probably no question, so any news of a review will likely be greeted with applause. A more enthusiatic welcome will greet a review that brings about real change and real cost relief.
Real change also seems to be the theme of the metro GA aerodrome study released by the Australian Airports Association this week. By "metro" they mean the big seven, the six former GAAP airports and Essendon. The common thing that ties all these airports together is that they are all former federal airports now leased to private companies. They come under a lot of artillery fire from pilots and other airport users regularly, so I can imagine some of their woes will fall on deaf ears from tenants who will likely do what they can to oppose some of these airports' desires. It's another one of those Catch-22s of which aviation in Australia seems to have plenty: we need healthy airports so we can use them, but to do that, some of the government controls needed to constrain them may have to be relaxed. Damned if you do ...
The clock now ticks for Jabiru. With the deadline for public consultation on the proposed restrictions now expired, they are in the position where they have to await their fate. In the meantime, the company has released a heart-felt response calling for the proposal to be scrapped. No doubt founder Rod Stiff will be doing everything possible to stave off what will be a disaster for his company.
Red Bull Air Race has released a calendar with a different look for 2015. Goodbye Croatia, Poland and Malaysia; hello Japan, Hungary and Russia. Good things: the race back in Hungary where the whole thing started and the return of the two USA rounds. Bad things: the loss of both races where Matt Hall scored his best results this year, and no Australian round. Most interesting is the gap of nearly three months between rounds One and Two. You could squeeze another round in there, which makes me wonder if a ninth race is yet to be announced.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch