CASA is on the consultation trail again, scheduling a forum in Mildura to collect ideas about aviation safety needs over the next 15 years. This idea has raised more than a few hackles within the aviation community. I suppose we can't blame them for wondering why DAS Mark Skidmore is concerned about the future when the present is still not fixed. However, calls for a boycott of the forum is, in my opinion, counter-productive for aviation. I have said it before, if we refuse to engage CASA we forfeit the right to complain that they never asked us.
The Colour Vision Deficient Pilots Association (CVDPA) has been subjected to yet more frustration with both CASA and the NZ CAA not seeing their point of view. Put simply, the CVDPA hates the new CAD test used to check colour perception because they say it doesn't represent an operational situation. I agree. I can't think of any operational situation where a pilot would have to follow an erratic moving coloured light against a changing-contrast background. Perhaps there's some argument that military pilots would have to do this, but we're talking about civilian pilots here. I wonder what the Federal Court is going to say about all this.
Aerospace giant Airbus has also been dodging brickbats this week, accused of deliberately torpedoing Pipistrel's plans to fly an electric plane across the English Channel, just so the Airbus E-Fan could claim to be the first to do it. Whether they did or they didn't became a moot point when a third party gazumped everyone with a little electric-powered Cri Cri. It was not a very pretty episode no matter which way you look at it, but it does show that some major stakeholders are very passionate about electricity as a power source for aircraft.
But for one blistering run by Martin Sonka, Matt Hall may have broken his duck in the Red Bull Air Race. Fastest all weekend in Budapest by the length of a northern summer day, Matt was up against one blinder of a run by Sonka that he couldn't quite best. That was all it took to leave our boy languishing in fifth place. But, let's put this into some perspective: Sonka never made a run that fast again, and Matt was the only pilot to never clock an official time at or over 1:00. One day soon it's all going to come together. Bring on Ascot.
Thanks to all those who have submitted nominations for the 2015 Wings Awards. The nominations close at 1700 today, so give yours a quick polish and get them in via the Australian Flying website. Now it's up to our panel of judges to start work evaluating what is shaping up to be a very worth crop of nominations.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch