gandalph Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Did nobody get the CEOs Xmas Email newsletter ?.......I did and presumably 96% of RAAus members with an Email address did also.. With respect Ross, The CEO's Christmas newsletter didn't spell out the revised restrictions imposed by CASA. The section of the Newsletter headed "Note to Members on Jabiru Issues" in the newsletter is shown below in full so that people can draw their own conclusions as to whether they were adequately informed that the draft restrictions were essentially in force when the newsletter was published. Issue 6 December 2014 Welcome to the final newsletter for 2014! Note to members on Jabiru issues As most people are aware, CASA published a draft instrument on 13 November 2014 which would have the effect of restricting the operations of aircraft with a Jabiru powerplant. This would affect more than 1000 RA-Aus registered aircraft and have an adverse impact on some two thirds of our flight training facilities. Since the publication of this draft instrument RA-Aus has been working hard to understand the justification for these restrictions. We have, for some time, known that Jabiru engines have a higher tendency for failure than their Rotax counterpart and welcome any appropriate changes that would improve their reliability. We would also welcome any measures that result in improved reliability and safety of any aspect of our fleet. Having said this we are troubled by the process employed by CASA and especially the lack of transparency in terms of the implementation of these proposed measures. RA-Aus has repeatedly requested the information used to justify statements made by CASA that claim the failure rate is increasing. We have also requested the analysis of said data in order to assess the veracity of these claims. On 17 December 2014, almost five weeks after the draft instrument was published, RA-Aus received the data and was provided one, yes one, working day to respond. As one would expect we would have liked much more time to assess the data, understand the analysis and then form an opinion on the suitability of the proposed measures, however, regardless of taking some five weeks to provide the data, CASA allowed one day. In light of this our response was somewhat rushed. Despite this, RA-Aus was able to note that the data provided to CASA on Jabiru engine failures only covered one partial year. The only time series data made available to us (although not provided to us) was via the ATSB. That is, no engine failure data beyond the beginning of 2014 was used by CASA to justify their position and they left us to infer what data the ATSB had provided. With reference to the latter, RA-Aus has contested the validity of the ATSB data on the basis that it shows a decline in the hours flown by the RA-Aus fleet. This is in direct contrast to Government published figures which show a doubling in the number of hours flown since 2000. This led us to a simple conclusion – CASA has not undertaken robust analysis on reliable data to establish with any degree of accuracy that the failure rate of Jabiru engines is increasing over time. This is despite their statement that they have found statistically significant evidence in support of their claims. RA-Aus’ position is, as stated above, that the failure rate of Jabiru engines is greater than that of Rotax engines but that it is not worsening as per the unsubstantiated statement made by CASA. In light of this RA-Aus responded to CASA, within their incredibly tight and unrealistic timeframe, to state that we oppose their draft instrument and suggested an alternative approach to addressing the real concerns. While CASA acknowledged that our response had merit within 24 hours of receipt they proceeded with the restrictions without due consideration of our arguments. While the restrictions imposed on our members are less stringent than those originally proposed, our opinion is that they are still inappropriate. Furthermore, CASA has remained evasive in terms of providing information relating to what rate of failures would be deemed acceptable and so we remain uninformed as to what point the restrictions will be lifted other than the statement on the CASA website regarding a review by CASA early in the New Year and the six month validity of the proposed Instrument. We will continue to work with CASA and Jabiru in an attempt to address these issues, however, we can’t provide further information at this point. RA-Aus is extremely worried about these actions and what this may mean for private aviation in Australia. Being the fastest growing sector of aviation it concerns us that unilateral action has been taken by the regulator that is not backed up by robust evidence which suggests the action is justified. It worries us that this precedent has the potential for further restrictions that may not be warranted based on incomplete data, deficient analysis and/or misleading claims. We also have concerns about the implications of CASAs decision and what it means for all self-administered aviation organisations as Part 149 is implemented. RA-Aus will focus our efforts on improving safety in our sector by reviewing training methods and practices, improving our education programs, communicating safety findings (where permitted by law) and so forth. We will also remain very focussed on the outcomes of CASAs recent actions, the Governments recent announcements about the recommendations of the ASRR report and continue to hold CASA to the same high standards that they demand of the aviation industry.
coljones Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Well Camel I must admit to holding some similar views on the subject also. No I admit I certainly don't check the CASA website everyday and that's because I like to think I have a life.As a current board member I am notified by either the secretary or President if anything significant occurs within the CASA spectrum, I then do my best to notify my local members within my area Would you like to include NSW as part of your region as we don't get the time of day out of 2 of our reps and the 3rd uses this facility but without direct email to ALL members. Cheers and happy new Year.
Guest Maj Millard Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Would you like to include NSW as part of your region as we don't get the time of day out of 2 of our reps and the 3rd uses this facility but without direct email to ALL members. Cheers and happy new Year. Great idea Col but my general newsletters are often made up largely of local interest stuff which may be meaningless to those outside of the area....Cheers and Happy New Year to you too mate ...............
coljones Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Great idea Col but my general newsletters are often made up largely of local interest stuff which may be meaningless to those outside of the area....Cheers and Happy New Year to you too mate ............... We are used to meaningless in NSW - we have the Daily Telegraph. On occasions I have been so desperate for any news that I have resorted to the fineprint on a bus ticket to better inform myself. Keep well 1 2
Guest Andys@coffs Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Gandalph The CASA instrument came into effect on the 23rd of December when the Government of the day formally ratified the instrument. Until that occurred it was not in effect and held no legal impact certainly none on the 6th of December. I believe folk don't understand what it is that RAAus do so I'll try and make it clear as I understand it. In time past CASA created some exceptions to it's broader rules which it published under the CAO95 series that all of us are ( or should be) familiar with. Those exemptions have a bunch or requirements in them and CASA was at the time not prepared to administer the exemptions on a day to day basis and so RAAus came into being with an aim that is evidenced in the yearly deed of agreement as to what responsibilities RAAus has to CASA. The rules of CASA that we are not exempt from, (ie pretty much all of them) are between pilots and CASA to observe, and rectify non observance. CASA may choose to push corrective action for non observance back to RAAus (and if your the perpetrator of the non observance, then believe me when I say that is a great thing!) but it doesn't have to and neither does RAAus have to accept delegation of that corrective action if we were for example to feel that the best thing for the member body was to have CASA perform correction on a recalcitrant member where all other attempts within the RAAus remit have failed. The yearly deed of agreement is currently not in effect for this year yet, ( so we are not covered legally) due to CASA delays, but previous years agreements are from memory available to members on the member portal of the RAAus website. The deed of Agreement provides the totality of what RAAus does for CASA and is surprisingly sparse as to the reverse..... There is no legislation that provides anything for RAAus beyond the ACT incorporated associations act. Whether CASA can or cant ask RAAus to manage its members around this Jabiru issue is a moot point because 100% of all aircraft affected do not fit within the RAAus fleet and as such CASA must then do something for those outliers. Its my view that the greatest mistake a recreational pilot can make is thinking that his governance is provided wholly and solely by RAAus, in fact very little of the governance is provided by RAAus the greatest majority is provided by CASA despite the generally hands off approach (more hands off the further back in time you go) of CASA. As people are seeing CASA more involved (as evidenced by the Jabiru issue) they are thinking something is wrong when in reality whether CASA was or wasn't so hands on was always CASA's decision to make. Bottom line is folks should not mix governance and administration RAAus does quite a bit of the latter and very little of the former except within the remit of administrating the RAAus Tech and Ops manuals as generally covered (except at the moment) by the Deed of agreement. If you haven't yet read an old one do yourself and the collective understanding a favour and do so. P.S to add to the discussion of local area email's, When a member provides his email address to RAAus it is so that the whole of membership communications that are occurring can take place. Members might reasonably expect that their records are, from a privacy perspective, secure and wont be passed to others for reasons not made clear to the member when they provided that info. Ross says he emails folks in his local area but I suspect that its more a case of Ross emailing folks for who he already has an email address or those who have been asked to added to his list, I would be very surprised if his list is 100% of the FNQ membership. I don't email anything to members because,a) I don't have peoples email address and don't reasonably intend to ask RAAus to provide it to me, if I did I would expect them to refuse to give it to me, and b) I believe our communications from HQ are timely and accurate and there isn't anything more I could add that wouldn't then colour the message beyond what was intended. In this case people are suggesting insufficient comms...Ok maybe so, but in the main that's because of the timing of CASA and the reality of the time of the year and I expect that within a week or so all will be revealed. It wasn't so long ago that you would have got it in the magazine....eventually....., or if important enough by office mail out...which to be honest costs a fortune and in the main tells people what they already know and still takes in excess of a week to process post and deliver. This post contains my personal views and is not the view of the board, if something I have posted as my personal view is unclear, or is offensive to you then take it up with me directly and not the president or the CEO because they don't control my personal views. Andy
Rolf Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Rolf, the CEO did inform members at the first opportunity in his Xmas Email. I also sent out two Email newsletters to member in my Northern region informing of what the status was. if your local board member doesn't do the same then you need to give him a call and ask why ?.......... Thanks May Did not get the Email. Will check with the office that my Email is on file.
kgwilson Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 Kg..Please give the CEO a call at the first opportunity...he's friendly and he'll be happy to hear from you. I believe the office is closed until the 5th..but I don't think he'd mind a call, he'll sort out any problem that exist for you. That his job....Cheersi Correction from me. I got the Jabiru update email on 5 December but nothing since. My wife is a member also & she did not get the Christmas email either. It would appear there are a number of members who did not get this one.
kgwilson Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse but how on earth do CASA expect that Jabiru owners & Jabiru engined aircraft owners will know about the revised instrument and that it has been approved when it is not published on their website & they have not communicated information to ANYONE. I may sound like a broken record but it is total and complete arrogance and with the rule based on skeptical evidence or mostly the lack of evidence it just goes to show that their adversarial stance toward the aviation industry has not been softened by the Forsyth report and the governments acceptance of 36 of the 37 recommendations, it has substantially hardened to a Mexican standoff situation. I reckon any 2 bob lawyer would pull this whole thing apart in court. 2 3
dazza 38 Posted December 30, 2014 Posted December 30, 2014 I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse but how on earth do CASA expect that Jabiru owners & Jabiru engined aircraft owners will know about the revised instrument and that it has been approved when it is not published on their website & they have not communicated information to ANYONE.I may sound like a broken record but it is total and complete arrogance and with the rule based on skeptical evidence or mostly the lack of evidence it just goes to show that their adversarial stance toward the aviation industry has not been softened by the Forsyth report and the governments acceptance of 36 of the 37 recommendations, it has substantially hardened to a Mexican standoff situation. I reckon any 2 bob lawyer would pull this whole thing apart in court. I would doubt that CASA would base their decision on skeptical evidence especially after the Forsyth report came out. 1 2 1
gandalph Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 GandalphThe CASA instrument came into effect on the 23rd of December when the Government of the day formally ratified the instrument. Until that occurred it was not in effect and held no legal impact certainly none on the 6th of December. P.S to add to the discussion of local area email's, ..... Members might reasonably expect that their records are, from a privacy perspective, secure and wont be passed to others for reasons not made clear to the member when they provided that info. ......... I don't email anything to members because,a) I don't have peoples email address and don't reasonably intend to ask RAAus to provide it to me, if I did I would expect them to refuse to give it to me, and b) I believe our communications from HQ are timely and accurate and there isn't anything more I could add that wouldn't then colour the message beyond what was intended. In this case people are suggesting insufficient comms...Ok maybe so, but in the main that's because of the timing of CASA and the reality of the time of the year and I expect that within a week or so all will be revealed. It wasn't so long ago that you would have got it in the magazine....eventually....., or if important enough by office mail out...which to be honest costs a fortune and in the main tells people what they already know and still takes in excess of a week to process post and deliver. This post contains my personal views and is not the view of the board, if something I have posted as my personal view is unclear, or is offensive to you then take it up with me directly and not the president or the CEO because they don't control my personal views. Andy Thanks Andy. The purpose of my post (#352) was to question the accuracy of several responses made by your colleague from FNQ to members regarding the lack of notification that the CASA restriction had been imposed, albeit in a revised form. He implied that members had been notified in the RAA Christmas newsletter when this could not have been the case. I tried to be careful with my language so as not to appear to be making a personal attack or the credibility of another member and thus incur the ire of the Moderators or further upset the Administrator of this valuable site. However, on re-reading my post, I can see that it could be taken as criticism of the CEO. That was not my intention and I accept that my wording was clumsy. I apologise to the RAA CEO for any discomfort my post may have caused him. Re: emails from Board members. I am delighted that you have chosen to respect the privacy of RAA members by not seeking their email addresses from the Assn. Keep up the good work. 1 1
Yenn Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 After thee years of griping about Jab engines on this website by a few members I am surprised it took CASA so long to do something about the Jab engine. Even if all the griping had been untrue, something had to be done so that nobody could point the finger at CASA and said they had been sitting on their hands while the accidents were happening. If a few of us started stating vocally that Rotax engines were dangerous and pushed it far enough CASA would do the same for Rotax. 5 1
Teckair Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Yenn I do not believe this web site would have caused the action taken by CASA. 6 1
Guest Maj Millard Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Correction from me. I got the Jabiru update email on 5 December but nothing since. My wife is a member also & she did not get the Christmas email either. It would appear there are a number of members who did not get this one. Ok Kg...I 'll look into it with the CEO...thanks for the imput.....Cheers
Gnarly Gnu Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Yenn I do not believe this web site would have caused the action taken by CASA. Why not, Kevin Rudd based policy on tweets from twitter. You don't think they are stupid enough? 4
JEM Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Anyone know anything about the following remark/comment/report. Posted by CASA on the Flightsafety.com web page in the right hand "twitter" column. Dated 29 December???. Shown verbatim below... "Another Jabiru engine failure, Saturday in South Australia. Through bolt failed. Follow operational limits."
Jabiru7252 Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Actually, it was a stud, not through bolt.
dmech Posted December 31, 2014 Posted December 31, 2014 Actually, it was a stud, not through bolt. same thing , same cause . Can you tell me which side and if upper or lower bolt/stud, just doing some study on through bolt/stud issues , would appreciate any input regarding through bolt on jab engines . A.D.
Teckair Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 Why not, Kevin Rudd based policy on tweets from twitter. You don't think they are stupid enough? Yeah well Kevin Rudd was dealt with in an appropriate manner for doing stuff like that. The real cause of Jabiru's problems is Jabiru themselves. Anybody who thinks CASA reads these forums and then makes decisions based on various posts people have made is nuts. 5
facthunter Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 Stranger things happen. WE just don't know do we? I would like to think more research would be undertaken, but again that's just a hope. Nev 1
dazza 38 Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 I read somewhere on here that some people think that if they bagged the Rotax 912 on the forum , it will be treated the same way as the Jab and be placed under limitations. Only one problem, the Rotax 912 is well known around the world as being one of the most reliable piston aircraft engines in the world. So good luck with that. 2
jetjr Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 Yes bit they have limited ALL Jabiru engines, not just the problem ones Even those modified and in experimental Havent even attempted to distinguish between models, ages or usage Why would they exempt 912 if they felt there was a problem with other models
turboplanner Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 You need to read all the posts yourself Jetjr, it's all there.
dazza 38 Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 Yes bit they have limited ALL Jabiru engines, not just the problem onesEven those modified and in experimental Havent even attempted to distinguish between models, ages or usage Why would they exempt 912 if they felt there was a problem with other models Because one engine is world class (rotax) and the other engine is a piece of ----.
jetjr Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 Your opinion Dazza, at the cost they have to be. Rising daily So 914 and 2 strokes are the same? ATSB indicates failure rates increasing fast TP, once again you confuse 1
turboplanner Posted January 1, 2015 Posted January 1, 2015 You've had more positions on this than the Kama Sutra. Other people have covered the various models with problems. 1 1
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