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– Steve Hitchen

If you look closely at your new charts for East Sale, you'll see something very different: a low-level Danger Area slicing through the Restricted area from Heyfield to Lindenow South. It follows the path of the old northern VFR route, but the difference here is that if you stay within 1 nm of the railways lines and below 1500 feet, you don't need a clearance, even if East Sale miltary airspace is active, because this lane is now Class G airspace. Commonsense in action! This is a great move that will make life easier for VFR pilots without compromising safety. It is the first of two reforms that will make East Sale less of a roadblock in eastern Victoria. The second one is scheduled for November, and shifts the lower end of the restricted area so VFR aircraft can transit from Jack Smith Lake to Loch Sport without needing a clearance. The trade-off for the second phase will be a Broadcast Area established where the coastal CTAF is now so the helicopter traffic to and from the oil fields know you're there. These changes have apparently been made to accommodate RAAF basic flight training, which relocates from Tamworth to East Sale next year. If this proves a success, it could make a great template for how to clear other military roadblocks such as Nowra and Williamtown.

CASA has published selected feedback to the Multicom NPRM, and if you study it carefully, you'll find many cases where the respondent has clearly not understood the proposal, but has enthusiastically endorsed it. To be clear, the current proposal on the tables does not allow Multicom 126.7 to be used as a blanket frequency below 1500 feet. Multicom is to be used only within horizontal limits of 3 nm of an airport without a tower or its own CTAF, and within a vertical limit of 1500 feet. Outside that cylinder of air around the airport, you'll be back on the area VHF at any altitude. Also brought to light in the feedback is the desire for that 3 nm limit to go out to 5 nm at least. I think CASA will give the industry that change, which is another shot of commonsense given that safety increases proportionally with the amount of warning we get of a potential conflict. Although we are calling 10 nm out on CTAFs, 5 nm is a good compromise for 126.7 at uncharted airports.

CASA's other big move this week has been to lay down the new rules about fuel. For VFR flight in aircraft with an MTOW below 5700 kg, the PIC must now carry a 30-minute fixed reserve that cannot be eaten into. En route, the pilot will need to manage the fuel constantly to work out if they will arrive at their destination with the 30 mins intact. If they are in a sitution when they will arrive with only the reserve intact, they will need to tell Centre they are on minumum fuel. If the calcs show that some of the reserve will be consumed on the way home, they need to declare a Mayday and divert to refuel if possible. CASA believes that this situation is so dire, that they'd rather have you land in a paddock than start using the fixed reserve. There are so many variables around fuel use that it would be impossible to write legislation to cover everything. Fuel state of any aeroplane engine varies with the day, the altitude flown at, the age and condition of the engine, the accuracy of the piece of dowel used to measure the fuel in the first place, whether or not a Cessna cross-fed during refueling, whether or not an EGT gauge is fitted ... you fill in the rest of the list yourself. To be able to calculate the fuel state in flight with enough accuracy to be able to evaluate whether or not a regulation has been broken is just not possible. Consequently, CASA might have to concede that there will be some alternative means of compliance. If I put four hours of fuel in a plane to conduct a two-hour flight in windless CAVOK, making in-flight fuel calcs seems an unnecessary increase in workload, especially when such an operation results in a higher degree of safety. But will the FOI at the other end understand when I can't present them with the in-flight fuel management calculations mandated by this legislative instrument? And this is only the start of my worries with this legislation.

And this is the last you will hear from me until late June. I am consigning next week's newsletter to our new Senior Contributor Kreisha Ballantyne whilst I make my way to Europe. You're in good hands with Kreisha, albeit very different ones from my own. My targets in Europe are Dassault, Daher and Pilatus, so if all goes according to plan I should come home with a swag of good photos and some stories worth telling.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

 

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