– Steve Hitchen
It was not that long ago that I was lamenting the lack of a major aviation academy in Australia, something that would stand as a centre of excellence and play a part similar to that which Embry Riddle plays in the US system. Now it appears RMIT University is going down that track with one of the largest investments in a training fleet that we've seen in Australia for some years. Not only that, but also they've centred all their aviation training and research around the new academy to form a major centre of aviation learning. Whilst it is clear that airline contracts, particularly overseas, are driving the investment, aviation in Australia will reap the benefits of having such a large academy covering so many aviation disciplines. RMIT is one of the few tertiary institutes in Australia that has its own AOC and fleet; most of them sub-contract the flying portion of degrees and diplomas to established flying schools operating as RTOs. Whilst that model appears to work on paper, the apportioning of money between the two historically favours the institute more than the flying school. And there are business pressures applied to the flying schools that normally aren't there. The university as an AOC model seems to be the one that works the best, provided the institute goes all in and doesn't try to skimp on delivering the program. RMIT's investment in 24 new aeroplanes shows they are committed to delivering an aviation training program well into the future and sets them up as a benchmark academy for any institute thinking of entering the aviation training market.
RAAus' strategic plan for the 2023-25 period could turn out to be a real feather-ruffler. There are people within the GA community that, having read the plan, will be loading the cannons ready to deliver a broadside in their direction. The strategic plan is a classic business tool, and most businesses adopt a strategy of taking as much market share off their competition as they possibly can. That's a key pillar of the RAAus strategy and the thing that will be ruffling feathers. The plan talks about "incentivising pilot and maintainers from other systems to convert to RAAus." It's not easy to interpret that as meaning anything else but taking people and money out of the GA pool and into the RAAus sphere of influence. Purely from a commercial point of view, you can't blame an organisation for targeting a group already enfused with the passion of aviation. However, I would have liked to have seen a similarly active statement aimed at the wider general public. It could be that this tactic is enveloped by the broader marketing strategy, but I think it should have been articulated separately as a key focus point. Maintainers operating under CASR Part 66 might also frown the general direction of Fyshwick after reading the statement that RAAus is planning to introduce maintainer training courses via third-party providers. The privilege of being in the RAAus stream is the ability to get yourself an L1 maintainer approval to do your own maintenance. Logically, the impact of training courses will be more L1 approvals, which takes aircraft out of the Part 66 system. But in this case, GA maintainers simply need to swallow the bitter pill. Most of them are swamped with work at the moment thanks to a lack of LAMEs to do the work. This initiative of RAAus will actually lighten their load and get more RAAus-registered aircraft back in the air sooner. It's the sort of solution CASA is struggling to put in place with GA. RAAus can implement a solution with such simplicity because simplicity is what they do.
The time for hype is over; all the blurb has been written and read, Now it's time for Avalon 2023 to deliver on the promise. It's looking like that's not going to be a problem. When the show starts on Tuesday, I suspect there won't be too many people walking around looking disappointed. AMDA Foundation is more than aware that this event is Australia's biggest aviation showcase, and they've been putting in some very long hours to make sure they do justice to that premise. They say it's going to be the biggest ever, and from my vantage point beside the Avalon runway where I am typing this, I can see no reason to doubt that. Bring it on big time!
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch