– Steve Hitchen
CASR Part 43 is currently thought to be on the desk of Minister Catherine King for her approval/rejection. CASR Part 43 is a new ruleset for maintenance of GA aircraft in the private and airwork categories. Promised eons ago (2018) and roundly applauded, it has since proven controversial and a fleet of different opinions have been made available to choose from. The major cause of bickering is the approvals CASA will issue to holders of Aircraft Maintenance Technician Certificates (AMTC), which means aircraft can be maintained outside of an MRO organisation. Some are predicting doom; others economic failure of the system. Then there are those that are predicting cheaper maintenance and less downtime for aircraft in those categories. Now, after years of consultation, CASR Part 43 is expected within a couple of weeks or so. In answering the critics, CASA has pointed out that Part 43 won't be compulsory; owners can keep their aircraft in the higher maintenance category if they want. And that goes for the maintainers as well. If you create a non-compulsory ruleset, it opens up the industry to decide if they are going to abide by it or not. That risks, after all these years in development, Part 43 becoming lame-duck legislation. The upside is that alternatives will still be in place, so Part 43–whatever it contains–won't further strangle the industry should they choose not to accept it.
Part of the reason for the delay in Part 43 could be that Minister King is currently basking in the glow of her decision to approve the flight paths into and out of Western Sydney International. These are the flight paths that generated a restructure of the airspace in the Sydney basin, destroying the training area and reducing the efficiency and practicality of Bankstown as a home for flying schools. Strangely (perhaps not), whilst the minister has been talking up how well she has taken into account the needs of stakeholders, provisions for the ongoing health of the general aviation industry have not been mentioned. I suspect that's because they don't exist. How could they? From the moment the name Badgerys Creek came to national prominence as a potential site for an airport, Bankstown was identified as a political inconvenience. Keeping it viable was going to mean scuppering the new airport, so it needed to be sacrificed. If you are going to sacrifice something, you don't worry too much about its health. As we speak, CASA's Office of Airspace Regulation (OAR) is swinging its protractors and set squares trying to design a way of connecting Bankstown to a viable training area. Proposals so far have been greeted with pitch forks because the nominal training area to the south is, frankly, dangerous, due to high ground and low airspace steps. The Bankstown Corridor idea–since junked–made the situation less safe. And look at it from this perspective: it is not incumbent on the OAR to re-arrange Class G airspace. Legally, they can elect to do nothing and let Bankstown die. The fact that they are trying to find a safe passage to and from Bankstown is an implied admission that WSI has made GA in Sydney unsafe.
Something Minister King did not bask in the glow of was the Archerfield Airport Master Plan. It was approved in late March just as the government went into caretaker mode and politicians turned their attentions to seducing swing voters. The fanfare that accompanied the approval was done with tin whistles, and a little bit of subterfuge. According to the AAC website, King approved the masterplan on 26 March. The government was prorogued and went into caretaker mode two days later, after which an approval would have to wait until the new government was sworn in. In most cases, ministers now and past have announced master plan approvals, but not this time. Only the day before I had contacted the department asking where it was at and was told the minister was still thinking about it. So why bring it out one day later and tell no-one about it? Was the approval too sensitive to be given oxygen so close to an election? If that is the case then the minister probably believed there was something in there she thought the aviation community wouldn't like and would punish her for at the ballot box. These leased airport master plans are proving to be nettlesome things for the department.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch