– Steve Hitchen
Aviation globally has now entered the gravitational pull of Oshkosh. This is the period leading up to EAA Airventure where all aviation companies go quiet in terms of news, saving their key crowd-pulling announcements of Oshkosh itself. We get nothing until Airventure starts, then a mad flurry over the week of Oshkosh. But this year, there really is only one announcement that people are aching for: MOSAIC. Unfortunately, the mail is that it won't come ... again. This is the long-awaited modification of the rules surrounding LSAs, which will expand the definition, remove the arbitrary MTOW and permit new technology not imagined when the first LSA standard was written. The FAA is yet to finalise the new regs, and the general aviation community is watching nervously, knowing that the legislative deadline for doing so is November this year. After that, the whole rule-writing process goes back to square one without passing Go. On the Good News side of the ledger, the FAA is expecting to get this done in August or September; too late for Oshkosh, but before the deadline. I think even the FAA would have liked to have made the announcement at Oshkosh because it would garner them some good, positive PR in front of the global aviation world. The GA community has waited long enough for this ruleset; a few more weeks won't hurt, but if if goes out longer than that, the nervousness running through the industry will go off the scale.
Whilst we have known for a few years that Western Sydney International would completely swamp the Class G airspace around Sydney, it was not until last week that we got our first harbinger of how bad it was really going to be. Despite the preliminary airspace design published in December 2023 leaving the Class C LL at 2500, Airservices has lowered that level over GA like unwelcome overcast, driving student pilots out of Bankstown down to 1500 feet AMSL, and perhaps driving yet another nail into that airport's coffin. With the 2RN towers stretching up to 800 feet, a requirement to clear that by 500 feet and a practice of staying at least 100 feet below CTA steps, students have only 100 feet through which to thread their aircraft. We may as well demand they fly between the pastry layers on a vanilla slice! Airservices has said the 1500-foot CLL will simplify controlled airspace, which is true for Airservices staff and the airlines, but adds complexity to GA and reduces safety significantly. Students will probably have no option in some cases but to violate controlled airspace. I also expect this will seriously impact the gliding operators at Camden. All this doesn't actually have to happen; so far this is a proposal only and has to go to the Office of Airspace Regulation, who will be distributing it to the GA community for comment. That same community responded so viscerally to the south-eastern corridor concept that CASA withdrew the idea. I expect a similar reaction to this new CLL, placing the OAR in a tight spot of its own.
AAHOF announced four new inductees during the week, each one very worthy of the honour. The impact Ivan Holyman and Billy Hart had on the pioneering decades of aviation laid the foundation for our civil air transport network today. In the cases of both, they believed and they delivered, and deserved to be recognised for that. Bill Bristow also believed, and set up a legacy in Angel Flight that provides a service to thousands of people who otherwise would need to endure long, arduous road trips just to get to medical appointments. His AM is testimony to what he achieved. The great unsung hero among the four is Greg Dunstone. An Airservices engineer who was dogged in his dedication to ADS-B, Dunstone was the driving force behind Australia adopting the new–but not necessarily applauded–surveillance technology. At the time we all hated the idea, but that was a cost thing particularly in the absence of any subsidies. Time has proven the technology, showing that Dunstone's passion for it was well placed. The AAHOF dinner is next year to coincide in time and place with Airshows Downunder Shellharbour, setting up a great aviation weekend that should find a place on many a calendar.
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch