– Steve Hitchen
It's great to see AAHOF holding induction dinners in their own space. When the hall of fame started out in Wagga Wagga in 2010, the aim had always been to have a "bricks and mortar" building rather than than exist purely virtually. That was always going to be a long, turbulent flight path to make that happen. Although the local council supported the idea, the cost was going to run into huge figures. Now AAHOF has settled into the upstairs space at HARS, which means people both within and without aviation now have somewhere to go to read the stories and examine the artifacts gathered there. As AAHOF president Steve Padgett points out, there is great synergy between AAHOF and HARS, which should make for a great partnership for aviation in the years to come. AAHOF will be open during Wings over Illawarra next month, so if you're down there, make time to drop in and see the work that has been done thus far.
Airport privatisation will always be debated passionately within the general aviation community, especially when it comes to runways, taxiways and hangars disappearing in favour of lucrative non-aviation development. Large chunks of Bankstown and Moorabbin have been destroyed in the past 10 years or so, and now Canberra Airport is about to lose around 450 m of landing distance from its smaller runway 12/30. Capital Airport Group (CAG) says it is about increasing the height over terrain and obstacles outside of the airport boundary, but some stakeholders at the airport believe it is due to turbulence predicted to come off a new development within the airport. Everybody has their own truths. The consultation meeting at Canberra was apparently "robust", which can sometimes mean constructive, sometimes destructive. CAG is drawing attention to the fact that a displaced threshold doesn't mean destruction of the runway; it means aircraft will have to land further down the runway. That leaves 1300 m of runway remaining to pull up. Is that not enough for GA ops? The argy-bargy here is not so much about what is happening as why it is happening. Despite assurances from CAG that it's about obstacle clearances, some GA community members believe strongly it is related to non-aviation development, which is always going to raise the hackles of aviation people no matter what the reasoning or the scenario. The GA community at Canberra is on tenterhooks, existing at a privatised airport that has a focus on commercial aviation and non-aviation development and without a Plan B should the axe one day fall. Things like this trigger visceral reactions, and it's hard to blame them for that.
Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) will start their three-part series on Loss of Control on 1 November. Anything that explores the main reason for aircraft accidents is worth watching. Flying is all about control; a connect from the brain through the hands and feet to moveable control surfaces. Loss of Control (LOC) results in an undesirable situation that too often results in disaster, but if the pilot is properly trained, there's no need for an aircraft to be out of control at any stage. Yet, as stated, LOC is the main reason aircraft and pilots come to grief. RAAus' series will seek to educate pilots on contributing factors and causes, using pilots and subject-matter experts to illuminate the reasons why pilots lose control of their aircraft. Get on this one; it will be worth watching.
The 2022 CASA Wings Awards nominations are now closed! Thank you to all those that put in submissions. We've had a very good response–perhaps our best ever–and it's now up to the judging panel to sift through everything and make some decisions. As we do every year, the Australian Division of the Royal Aeronautical Society and Australian Flying will be looking to see who best matches the criteria to come up with some worthy winners. We expect to be making announcements before the year is out.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch