– Steve Hitchen
Two twin turbine stories coincided this week with the Cessna C408 SkyCourier marking five years since the prototype first flew and the De Havilland DHC-6 scoring 60 years since its first flight. They are two stories that at first glance could not be more different. But first glances should not be the basis of judgement; the two are more entwined than you may think. For many years the Twin Otter has been the short-haul king of the twin turbo-props, with nothing else really challenging it. GA twin turbines were already thin on the ground, with single-engine turbo-props (SETP) flourishing during the 19-year hiatus in Twin Otter manufacturing. Back in production again, the DHC-6 now faces a serious upstart in the Cessna C408. If a 50-plane order from launch customer FedEx wasn't a healthy enough start, Textron Aviation is beavering away trying to keep up with rising demand. The SkyCourier is faster than the Twin Otter, can carry LD3 cargo containers and has a higher useful load. That may inspire some operators to form plans for expansion, but it can't match the Twin Otter when it comes to STOL operations. In fact, almost nothing does. So, although some operators will go misty-eyed over the C408's speed and capacity, those whose bread-and-butter is found in remote airstrips, small islands and narrow canyons will still pick up the phone and dial De Havilland Canada.
Although most of Australia's general aviation community understood GippsAero selling a controlling share to Mahindra in 2010, what became of that partnership was bewildering. Interference, micro-managing and a brutal corporate culture turned a successful aircraft manufacturer into an asterisk in Australia's GA history. The announcement this week that Airvan production would restart again next month is like a catharsis; we need the Airvan story to go on unMahindra-ed. Once the Morgan family divested themselves of the Indian conglomerate, they set about re-birthing the company by refurbishing existing airframes, re-conditioning hard-to-get Lycoming engines, manufacturing spares in batch lots and working out how to re-build a skilled workforce. It's a mammoth effort almost the equivalent of getting the company up and running in the first place. But that's to their advantage; the family has done it once before and therefore know how to do it again. The contribution of Airvan customers and operators who backed both the model and the Morgan family cannot be underestimated either; their faith provided valuable encouragement that demand was still there. On 12 June, which will be a sunny day in the Latrobe Valley even if it's pouring rain, the keel for the first new production GA8 will be laid. The Airvan story is set to continue.
There's a great line in the Jimmy Stewart movie Mr Smith Goes to Washington, which is, "lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for." The health of GA in Australia has always been a matter for speculation, with most opinions polarised to either "it's not doing too bad" or "it's stuffed beyond recovery." Interestingly, although these two positions represent the ends of a spectrum, there appears to be no middle ground. We are struggling; under siege from high operating costs, over-regulation, vested interest, privatisation and loss of airports. Seen from that point of view, GA does appear to be stuffed. But not, I believe, beyond recovery. In 2013 I had the privilege of editing the 50th anniversary edition of Australian Flying. That task took me to the National Library in Canberra to peruse old issues of the magazine. I was blown away to find that in the 1960s, the GA community was lamenting exactly the same things we are still worried about today. Nothing has changed after 60 years, but we are still here and still going forward. The reason is the people. We love what we do and can't imagine life without it. We have kept GA going all these years even though it has been considered a lost cause for decades. We keep fighting for the GA cause to ensure that it's not lost, and regardless of which end of the optimism-pessimism spectrum you fall, my answer to you is to keep fighting. And the more lost you think GA is, the harder you need to fight.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch