AUSFLY appears to have been cancelled for 2014

[rankamateur]

Narromine didn't tender until after it was closed, someone must have taken their eye off the ball. It always seemed a bit pissweak to me that an organisation as big as ours had to put out feelers for bribes to get our annual showcase event to move, and they killed it. It defies logic that the term was extended for another three years when the first three had seen growing decline, show a real lack of imagination! Extremely ironic given that the growth of Natfly may have been the reason for the change in the first place!

 

 

[facthunter]

Perhaps having RAAus and SAAA do the main event on alternative years??? . You would get some mixing of the members and a bit of competition to see who does it best. While I have always been against breaking up into specialised groups. It's another thing to go to combining it all in one. I personally think that SAAA is too small a number to function efficiently on it's own. Selling the Melbourne head quarters helped a fair bit financially, but that sort of thing is once only. AOPA is the only one who can take on the "AUTHORITY" without compromising it's own position and It can serve the RAAus as well as it does any other section of "Private" flying.. RAAus cannot attack the CASA if there was need to stand up to it, and IF the RAAus is doing CASA's job to some extent it's members are not able to expect the RAAus can act against CASA on their behalf. Nev

 

 

[Powerin]

I don't know enough about the history of both organisations, but while joining the two together might seem to be more efficient I wonder about the logistics.

 

To become more efficient you have to be able do the same combined jobs with less total staff and less combined resources. Each organisation has to have something to offer the other in terms of expertise and systems. From what I gather RAAus can barely handle the workload they have with the staff they employ now especially with the extra workload CASA has imposed recently. I'm willing to bet SAAA is the same.

 

RAAus is only just now coming to grips with the 21st century and starting to put together computer systems for their core business of aircraft registration and pilot certification. This might become more efficient given a few years (simply digitizing paper records in a generic way as they are now is a start, but it's not the way ahead for real efficiency). With the large turnover of key staff in RAAus over recent years there could be a pretty large hole in our expertise as well. That's not to say the staff aren't doing a great job, but many are new to RAAus and probably need some time to come up to speed with RAAus operations.

 

How would adding the SAAA business help RAAus? Or perhaps more to the point how would it help SAAA lumping it with RAAus as it stands at the moment.

 

I believe things will get better within RAAus with the current leadership and some foresight, but at the moment I really can't see anything within RAAus that would be of value, in terms of increased efficiency to SAAA. Perhaps SAAA has some whizzbang systems in place that could help RAAus?

 

I'm not trying to put down either organisation here, but RAAus has a lot of work to do getting it's own house in order after years of neglect before it can successfully partner with another organisation. I don't believe SAAA is a large enough organisation to be able to take on and help fix the problems within RAAus. With the cancelling of Ausfly this year, due it seems to manpower issues, it's possible SAAA has a few issues of its own as well.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

oh well at least Airventure has it's usual live online stream to keep me entertained. 37 days 18 minutes to go.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

It defies logic that the term was extended for another three years when the first three had seen growing decline, show a real lack of imagination!

Well in fairness I understand the Temora council put quite a lot of effort and $$ into upgrading things specifically to help Natfly.

 

 

[Bubbleboy]

Well in fairness I understand the Temora council put quite a lot of effort and $$ into upgrading things specifically to help Natfly.

Temora facilities are fantastic! I cant see why suppliers wont attend.

Scotty

 

 

[jetjr]

Temora facilities are fantastic! I cant see why suppliers wont attend.Scotty

Too expensive for too small an audience, not enough sales on the back of it

 

 

[metalman]

Something that seems to be forgotten here ,SAAA is not at all like RAAus ,they don't administer registration, flying training or pilot certificates/ licences.

 

RAAus is a bigger organisation than SAAA , and as the RAAus came from the SAAA way back when they didn't want anything to do with ultralights what makes us think they would want to be effectively swallowed up by a bigger organisation. By amalgamating the existing SAAA members would lose a lot of control with the sheer voting numbers of the RAA members , why would they want that?

 

As for the success of the different events I was at both of them within a 12 month period, they were both okay , I enjoyed them both , there is a different focus at each event ,but they were both good!

 

Something I did notice ,and this may be where RAAus can shift focus , the SAAA is a builders group, that's what they do ,build planes! The RAAus have shifted its focus, I believe , to administering factory built planes, there just doesn't seem to be the home building activity , and that is where the suppliers come in, if your going to an event that focus on building then it's worth the effort to showcase avionics, glass displays ,paint, coverings, hardware,etc,,,,,but if the focus is flight training then why bother , leave it to the aircraft factories !

 

That was the big difference in the events that I noticed , maybe a joint effort might work ,but joining the two organisations together would just bring up all the old reasons why they split ,

 

Matty

 

 

[rankamateur]

By amalgamating the existing SAAA members would lose a lot of control with the sheer voting numbers of the RAA members , why would they want that?

Seems to me people guarding their power and control is what has ballsed up RAA, sad that humans stuff everything up for their 15 minutes of power.

 

 

[metalman]

Seems to me people guarding their power and control is what has ballsed up RAA, sad that humans stuff everything up for their 15 minutes of power.

Agree 100%,,,,,sadly it's hard to find people who will put aside personal goals for the greater good!!!not impossible but they're hard to find,

Matty

 

 

[facthunter]

I believe a while back the RAAus did some of the clerical work for the SAAA. They ARE very different organisations with an emphasis on Building with the SAAA, but RV's have become Ubiquitous as have Jabiru's in the RAAus..SAAA needs more members but young people are noticeable by their absence, like in many areas. I think they (SAAA) are venturing into flight training which I think will cause problems . Australia is a large place and it costs money to get around. Nev

 

 

[bra83d]

Good morning all

 

Can I ask a question regarding ausfly.

 

In your personal opinion, What is the most important part of ausfly? Trade displays, Airshows or just the fly in and social side of it.

 

We (gliding club, aeroclub and the local saaa chapter 38) are desperately trying to get something together. This event was a major thing for Narromine and the airport precinct. We are hopeing that whatever we can produce in the next 10 weeks will be well supported.

 

Standby for further details.

 

Thanks for your feedback

 

Brad

 

 

[metalman]

For me Brad every fly in in firstly about people and planes, I like to look at trinkets and new stuff but I'm not going to buy up big , mostly I don't have the room in the plane for stuff, so it's a social thing and checking out other pilots planes for me, I was keen to head up for ausfly but even if it ends up a well attended fly in ill still be keen

 

Matty

 

 

[rankamateur]

Same , I have all the trinkets I need for now, just got to stack them all together, but the stuff I bought is stuff I have seen at Natfly, 2 at Narromine and 2 at Temora, If the trade displays were not there I doubt I would have bought the stuff online without seeing it in the flesh, BUT that is definitely the way a lot of people are shopping and is having, I believe, a huge impact on the ability to attract trade displays to Natfly and probrably Ausfly as well. The best thing about shopping after Natfly is you not only get to see the stuff, but get to discuss it with reps and also other pilots, whose opinions are varied and available!

 

 

[djpacro]

The NSW Aerobatic Championships will be held at Narromine on 5-9 September, 2014 - I may be there.

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

........By amalgamating the existing SAAA members would lose a lot of control with the sheer voting numbers of the RAA members , why would they want that?........

Yeah all 100 RAAus voters will definitely be an issue!

 

I agree with you, just think that the "sheer voting numbers" is something we aspire to, not something we have today....except in theory!

 

I wonder if there was a vote "that all RAAus Aircraft be mounted on a pole in a garden somewhere" whether we would get a 10% voter turnout!

 

Andy

 

 

[metalman]

Yeah all 100 RAAus voters will definitely be an issue!I agree with you just think that the "sheer voting numbers" is something we aspire to, not something we have today....except in theory!

 

Andy

Yeh perhaps that was more aspirational than factual :-)

Matty

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Where were you in 1982/3 Metalman? If you were at Mangalore you would have seen just how much effort the SAAA put into the "Ultralight " movement back then.

 

The "Takeover Paranoia" has been generated via the RAAus. I doubt the SAAA would want to have anything to do with the current mess that is the RAAus.

 

 

[metalman]

Where were you in 1982/3 Metalman? If you were at Mangalore you would have seen just how much effort the SAAA put into the "Ultralight " movement back then.The "Takeover Paranoia" has been generated via the RAAus. I doubt the SAAA would want to have anything to do with the current mess that is the RAAus.

Is that all you got out of my post, sorry to offend but so far all we get is retrospective whining about the old days, my post was my opinion based on my observations on the difference in the two groups , inspite of the talk I can't imagine how two very different organisations can just " join" , I guess I must be wrong ,cause the test for being right seems to be whether I was at mangalore in the early 80's, although I can read ,not that it gives me the right to have an opinion ,just means I'm informed!

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Hang on Matt and Ozzie, I've got the greatest respect for both of you, so don't want to see you at each others' throats ...

 

Matt, actually I feel that Ozzie has a point, I don't ever recall a time when SAAA didn't want anything to do with ultralights, in fact they were exceptionally supportive and increasingly shared their Easter Mangalore event with us as the ultralight movement grew. By 1983 it was becoming eminently clear that we weren't going to be able to continue to operate under the exemption of 95.10 issue 1 without some kind of self-administered regulatory body to ensure that people were actually sticking to the requirements, which, to be fair, virtually no-one was! We were all building planes that were either overweight or exceeded the permitted wing-loading, or both. You pretty well had to, to make the structures safe. There were some nice planes but ...

 

SAAA and GFA were both approached about helping us with this new 'requirement' and GFA didn't want to get involved, they (correctly in my mind) were very puristic about competition gliding, regularly hosting and winning the world championships, and didn't want any hiccups or headaches. SAAA gave us a lot of assistance in the form of advice, introductions to people who were knowledgeable about the required processes to set up a new organisation, and support in dealings with the DoA, as CASA was then. SAAA wasn't in a position to take us under their wing because they were, as has been mentioned, an organisation solely oriented toward Amateur Building of aircraft and had nothing to do with flight training or licencing or overseeing regulatory matters as all their aircraft were VH registered and required a GA licence, as is still the case.

 

In 1983 a large part of the SAAA's Gala Dinner was set aside for the inauguration ceremony of AUF complete with then Minister for Aviation Kim Beasley and that year and subsequent years the prize-giving ceremony was extended to include the AUF's participants for longest flights to attend and other competitions.

 

Because of the fundamental differences between the RAAus and SAAA I agree with Matt and can't see that there would be any practical aspect of merging the two organisations but I could imagine that the two could work together much more closely. It's tragically evident that Amateur Building is very much on the decline in SAAA, our local chapter closed a couple of years ago due to lack of interest/members. Even so there is a strong demand for cheaper flying and, like it or not, to do that you either buy second-hand or build it yourself. Self built is certain to work out cheaper in the long run if the L1 maintenance thing is scrapped, as seems likely.

 

Sharing a National fly-in event again would seem to me to be the best way to kick off a new era of mutual support between the two organisations and could well lead to a sharing of facilities, office staff and aviation-related promotions that could benefit both Associations as well as sport aviation in general.

 

 

[poteroo]

Where were you in 1982/3 Metalman? If you were at Mangalore you would have seen just how much effort the SAAA put into the "Ultralight " movement back then.The "Takeover Paranoia" has been generated via the RAAus. I doubt the SAAA would want to have anything to do with the current mess that is the RAAus.

As a SAAA Chapter Pres/member, and an RAAus member - I'm seeing both sides of the coin.

 

I think that SAAA has got the experimental building and maintenance approvals business pretty much sorted to CASAs' satisfaction. It wouldn't be all that much of a jump to have all the RAAus 'experimental' activities placed under the wing of SAAA. What's the difference between a kit being built under RAAus and GA experimental? There should be absolute commonality in all respects.

 

While the SAAA is currently flirting with setting up a training structure, this would be far better organised by RAAus Operations where there is a quite long established structure that CASA have been, and continue to, work with. Currently, SAAA have nothing, and whatever they do insofar as setting up under Part 141 - it's going to be resisted by the existing GA flight schools. There is no such problem with RAAus FTF's and GA schools.....well, a little in some locations, but it's slowly being resolved.

 

happy days,

 

 

[Bandit12]

I can see the potential in theory for merged organisations, but can't see it working in practicality.

 

I can see absolutely no reason why both organisations can't work closer to share events such as a national fly in, which would work great for numbers attending, reduce costs for traders trying to get to both, create a bigger impact in local economies and ultimately result in better growth for both organisations. Once only has to look at the Ulysses AGM (at least most years anyway) to see what big events can look like.....

 

 

[metalman]

Point taken HITC , attitude has been wound down and put back in the drawer :-)

 

Matty

 

 

[XAIRVTW]

At the present state the RAA is the, SAAA would not want the grief that would follow. Maybe in the future there might be a need to merge the two. But as for now I think both organisation are better off as they are. Weather permitting I will still fly to Narromine the weekend that Ausfly would of been on. Beats staying at home listening to the missus!

 

 

[rankamateur]

It would also allow trade displays to concentrate on the one event instead of trying to decide which event to attend, should result in more toys for all of us to check out.

Yep! Hilarious?