Presidents Report from this months Sports Pilot

[fly_tornado]

greater freedoms come with more legislations, more legislations leads to higher complaince costs. before you know it RAA is having its pilot's registrar audited by CASA.

 

 

[jetjr]

Maybe greater regulation is coming like it or not and freedoms should be negotiatd in line with them

 

Some who believe if RAA had not embraced LSA etc then rules and oversight would be the same today as 15 years ago are kidding themselves

 

 

[facthunter]

.

 

Re the CTA. Most of my flying WAS in CTA but I think it is a mistake to go for more than "transit" rights. ACCESS to CTA was what ruined the RPL Licence The Authority, stipulated higher health requirements as a CONDITION of going there (end of story). This is a SAFETY issue IF you relate it to getting around by a shorter more direct path having a "clearance if necessary or time slots rather than going through.CTA mixing with the other traffic. Transit lanes have too much traffic in confined spaces going in both directions . Not good places to be if the visibility is marginal .

 

IF you want to fly in a controlled area often the terrain is not the best you can find and dodging weather can be more restricted. If you go in and out of CTA you need a clearance each time and you constantly have to fly to track and altitude tolerances you are not used to and increase your workload. Your training and build costs( Electrics and Radios Strobes and lights etc. will certainly go up there, and you will inevitably have INCIDENTS which will bring US under scrutiny. WE need to be able to get around congested Controlled traffic areas.

 

Our exposure to Liability goes through the roof when we mix with larger & faster aircraft operating under complex IFR rules who don't rely on "see and be seen" Often.

 

Aircraft Build and service. They go together. We are becoming essentially purchasers of aircraft that are becoming increasingly expensive. The better ones are more a product of European conditions the say the older EAA in the USA.

 

The builder "knows" his plane better than almost anyone else, and that is an advantage but you don't want one that takes half your life to make. A developed earlier concept (like a Parasol)? or The EAA Biplane was a generic design that helped get EAA where it is today. The RAAus could "sponsor" some generic designs in different materials as support. Nev

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

greater freedoms come with more legislations, more legislations leads to higher complaince costs. before you know it RAA is having its pilot's registrar audited by CASA.

or alternately....today we have a cost structure reflecting what CASA wanted changed over past recent years (which grew our employee base) and an increasing member liability insurance premium reflecting the hands off management approach of years gone by , but an unchanged revenue structure giving a budget that is unsustainable. We need to either grow revenue by charging folk more or spread the costs across a larger member baseline. In my opinion (not board position) it wont by either /or but a mix of both and some costs savings thrown in....bottom line is we cant just leave things as they are unless you folk are perfectly happy paying an extra $50 or more per year to balance the budget (and that doesn't return us to where we had a surplus each year....arguably not really where we need to be, but we do need the necessary capital to undertake the systems changes we have planned in the very near term.....

 

Andy

 

 

[rhysmcc]

Given the President is the view that RA-AUS and CASA are in competition, charging more when already your "competitor" offers a cheaper alternative (comparing RPC and RPL costs) would not be the answer.

 

I don't see how operating in CTA would increase your exposure to liability considering there is now a 3rd party involved who is responsible to keeping you separated with the IFR traffic.

 

I'm interested to hear what the board is asking for here in regards to increased MTOW, considering a limit isn't actually placed on the RPC but a restriction on aircraft that can be registered. Is the attempt to raise the current LSA/Ultralight limit to 1500kg, or introduce another "class" of aircraft?

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Given the President is the view that RA-AUS and CASA are in competition, charging more when already your "competitor" offers a cheaper alternative (comparing RPC and RPL costs) would not be the answer.I don't see how operating in CTA would increase your exposure to liability considering there is now a 3rd party involved who is responsible to keeping you separated with the IFR traffic.

 

I'm interested to hear what the board is asking for here in regards to increased MTOW, considering a limit isn't actually placed on the RPC but a restriction on aircraft that can be registered. Is the attempt to raise the current LSA/Ultralight limit to 1500kg, or introduce another "class" of aircraft?

if it were true that "they charge less" then as you say , Im thinking uphill and poo! but while comparison of one piece of paper/plastic to the alternate paper/plastic may well be cheaper I think most members are interested in the total cost of one path as compared to the other which has aircraft maintenance (in fact TCO of owning an aircraft on one path as compared to the other) /registration/licensing/liability insurance etc.......

 

The MTOW question is a work in progress. Comms will come out when its appropriate to advise......Letting members know what you want at the beginning of a negotiation , is likely to bear little resemblance to what the answer is at the end of negotiation, and most negotiators are unlike to signal the opposition publically what they intend to ask for/would be happy to accept etc before sitting across the table from each other......

 

Andy

 

 

[fly_tornado]

the problem with going beyond LSA into GA aircraft is you are forcing everyone to pay for the privileges of the few.

 

The jump up wont be cheap forcing the RAA to move away from being the low cost alternative.

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

All this to0ing and froing about RAA turning into a CASA is crap. Casa is a monster who wants to keep all private aircraft on the ground to maximise their safety figures. 99.8% of flyers I have talked to over these past years do not want CTA privileges or the other crap that comes with all of that. They want the low regulation of what we have now but also most want to fly slightly larger aircraft to fit the "average large aussie frame" and make it more comfortable and not be on MTOW or slightly over in some cases just to want to be able to fly somewhere.. I would love to find out how many airfields there are in non CTA...it would be a damn site more than you think I would reckon. I have no desire to land at the Gold Coast or Brisbane or the Sunshine Coast or even Archerfield. Also I have no interest in CTA at all the only reason looking at RPL was a larger aircraft and it would NOT have been a grubby cessna or similar they suck way too much fuel and main is a costly exercise. The whole object of the fun is to keep it simple and cheap in relative terms to GA.

 

A small weight increase would make a huge difference to most and there are a hell of a lot of aircraft that have MTOW or 750kg with engines that perform well and are cheap to run yet we are hamstrung to 600kg in the very same aircraft and even less in others. I don't see any issues to continuing the same under RAA except raise the weight limit a bit. 750kg is half of what is allowed under RPL I really do not see the drama. Too many on here are whingers and worry warts and must just like to see their own words in print without actually adding anything constructive or supportive in trying to get the RAA into a better place and stuff CASA with slightly larger aircraft and weights there won't be any drain off to RPL or GA because if you did you would have rocks in your head or stacks of cash to burn. Or both

 

Mark

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Andy, How many new people will raising the MTOW bring to the RAA? just a ballpark figure

 

 

[rhysmcc]

if it were true that "they charge less" then as you say , Im thinking uphill and poo! but while comparison of one piece of paper/plastic to the alternate paper/plastic may well be cheaper I think most members are interested in the total cost of one path as compared to the other which has aircraft maintenance (in fact TCO of owning an aircraft on one path as compared to the other) /registration/licensing/liability insurance etc.......The MTOW question is a work in progress. Comms will come out when its appropriate to advise......Letting members know what you want at the beginning of a negotiation , is likely to bear little resemblance to what the answer is at the end of negotiation, and most negotiators are unlike to signal the opposition publically what they intend to ask for/would be happy to accept etc before sitting across the table from each other......

 

Andy

I was referring to the cost of the RPL (one off $50 fee) vs the RPC which is a much higher annual fee. The cost of aircraft ownership maybe cheaper but it's really like comparing apples with oranges (a 30yo factory c172 vs j230), which was the point I was trying to make. RAAUS and CASA are no more in competition then RAAUS and the local boating club.

 

It's great to want and ask for something, but is there a plan on how it'll all work and look?

 

 

[rhysmcc]

Andy, How many new people will raising the MTOW bring to the RAA? just a ballpark figure

I could see RAAUS offering a class of amateur built aircraft similar to the experimental VH kits (rv etc) attracting new members, but we'd need to reel in our current annual costs (membership and fees) and offer something casa don't (less regulation and medical requirements). I can't see casa going for it and you'd need SAAA onside to convince them it's the way forward.

 

I can't see RAAUS administrating factory aircraft bigger then LSA

 

 

[coljones]

the problem with going beyond LSA into GA aircraft is you are forcing everyone to pay for the privileges of the few.The jump up wont be cheap forcing the RAA to move away from being the low cost alternative.

Where do you see the cost increases coming from FT? You will probably find that the large number of plastics and the ease with which they can pass the registration process means that they are already providing more of the RAA operating revenue than their costs eg RAA makes a profit out of plastics and their pilots. Most of the load of fighting CASA is actually done by honoraries rather than paid staff eg Presidents and Secretaries through the ages including people like Eugene Reid, Steve Runciman and Michael Monck.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

are we going to have schools flying RAA registered cessna 172s? who's going to maintain them

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

FT. Your simply going to have to take it on faith that the board isn't out to destroy RAAus or make things more expensive and / or complicated. I can assure you that debate is robust and designed to lift the lid on dark and difficult areas....there is far more debate to be had. this particular chicken isn't laying an egg any time soon! But the budget deficit is real and is eating into our reserves now!

 

Andy

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Andy, How many new people will raising the MTOW bring to the RAA? just a ballpark figure

Or to look at it in the inverse.... Assuming costs decrease ( same costs greater spread) and operations remain the same, how many members will we loose.... I'm guessing zero....

 

How many will we gain.... I'm stuffed if I know exactly, but do know that historically after every MTOW increase there have been substantial step increases in membership, so I'm told by the longer serving board members who have been around for the last few....

 

Personally I think Mark Kyle has my thoughts pretty well to a T, but as I'm told regularly, there is no harm in asking and history shows that evolution is possible.

 

A

 

 

[rhysmcc]

are we going to have schools flying RAA registered cessna 172s? who's going to maintain them

Personally I don't see this as the way forward for RA-AUS and indeed the maintenance and systems required to be in place to support such a fleet would increase costs for the membership. Stick with amateur built aircraft which can be owner maintained or factory LSA. Move away from issuing pilot certiciates and instead get us an exception to the medical requirement for the RPL in RA-AUS aircraft. How much money would we save not having to administer pilot licensing but focusing on recreational aircraft instead?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Andy has the RAA done any modelling into this change? Would the board care to release the modelling or research?

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Andy has the RAA done any modelling into this change? Would the board care to release the modelling or research?

No we haven't. You are writing as though we were close to negotiation conclusion, yet if you read the motion words from the last board meeting that will better define the maturity of where we are, which to me is a long way from modelling.....Modelling will likely requires quality statistics......RAAus doesn't have too many of those to choose from yet.....

 

Andy

 

 

[shags_j]

My question is this. Does it matter if we lose members? Does it matter if we don't gain members?

 

We are not in this (we = RAAUS) to make a profit surely. We are in this to make sure the members can continue to do what they love in the least restrictive way possible.

 

I am happy that there may be increased MTOW and CTA access cause it benefits me but i think the reasoning as to why the president is pushing for this is wrong, and quite frankly concerning.

 

 

[coljones]

No we haven't. You are writing as though we were close to negotiation conclusion, yet if you read the motion words from the last board meeting that will better define the maturity of where we are, which to me is a long way from modelling.....Modelling will likely requires quality statistics......RAAus doesn't have too many of those to choose from yet.....Andy

Hi Andy

@ https://www.raa.asn.au/members/meetings/minutes/ the latest minutes are the draft from Temora in April last year. The last board minutes are from September 2013. Are there any intentions of releasing the current budget or YTD Accounts?

 

Cheers

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

My question is this. Does it matter if we lose members? Does it matter if we don't gain members?We are not in this (we = RAAUS) to make a profit surely. We are in this to make sure the members can continue to do what they love in the least restrictive way possible.

 

I am happy that there may be increased MTOW and CTA access cause it benefits me but i think the reasoning as to why the president is pushing for this is wrong, and quite frankly concerning.

Yes I believe it matters. We as a group should reasonably expect economies of scale..as our member base grows the efforts of providing that one additional member the services he needs should incrementally decrease. Equally the reverse applies as members drop off the costs for the remaining members increase as they are recovered from a smaller number. Currently costs >> Revenue so we don't want Revenue to decrease, rather ideally we want it to grow. Its a reasonable point that we are a NFP org and you are right there are no paid up shareholders who expect their pound of flesh, however the members are in effect shareholders and if we can do more for less then as a member shareholder that has got to be a good thing isn't it? Cost is of itself a restrictor, and if you are looking for the least restrictive way then that would, to me, equate among others to the least costly way.

 

Col your question re budget and YTD accounts, I believe that question might be better asked of the president CEO in a formal request rather than me trying to answer it here....here isnt the entire RAAus membership and there are those that have in the recent past been agitated that things have been discussed here and not via formal communications to the greater membership "you found out first here!!!" which is a function of 2 way comms vs 1 way as we have it at present.

 

There is a budget, as the previous post I made (which gave cause to at least one complaint against me, as previously identified) and there is regular actuals reporting to the board by the treasurer/CEO however they are not for public consumption as I recall...hence my suggestion that you discuss with the CEO/President.

 

Andy

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

Hi Andy @ https://www.raa.asn.au/members/meetings/minutes/ the latest minutes are the draft from Temora in April last year. The last board minutes are from September 2013. Are there any intentions of releasing the current budget or YTD Accounts?

 

Cheers

I'll write to the CEO/President and ask them to be updated

 

Andy

 

 

[turboplanner]

There is a budget, as the previous post I made (which gave cause to at least one complaint against me, as previously identified) and there is regular actuals reporting to the board by the treasurer/CEO however they are not for public consumption as I recall...hence my suggestion that you discuss with the CEO/President.

You might convey to these people Andy, that it isn't their money, it is public money and all details are required to be published each year, and accessible through the Department of Justice for anyone, member or not. The Annual Reports in recent years have been less than satisfactory, making it impossible to track this public money, particularly regarding specific costs vs income.

 

Under those circumstances interim figures out in the public arena shouldn't be a problem if all members are engaged in all discussions as they should be.

 

 

[Guest Andys@coffs]

You might convey to these people Andy, that it isn't their money, it is public money and all details are required to be published each year, and accessible through the Department of Justice for anyone, member or not. The Annual Reports in recent years have been less than satisfactory, making it impossible to track this public money, particularly regarding specific costs vs income.Under those circumstances interim figures out in the public arena shouldn't be a problem if all members are engaged in all discussions as they should be.

Life is rarely so black and white. Annual returns have been made IAW the ACT legislation, and the Office of Regulatory Services in Canberra would, presumably, kick up a stink if our returns were not meeting the legislative requirements. They are independently audited, but, as you suggest may not show what you, or other members feel you need....If that is the case then its likely a function of the way our chart of accounts is structured.

 

The CEO is, because of his accounting background, looking to update the chart of accounts, presumably to have effect from the end of the current financial year (logical and most easy time to change). If there is stuff you want to see in the audited reporting that isn't there today....and your a member of RAAus...then drop him an email identifying the issue and what you would like to see changed...It could be, if you do that soon, that it may well be incorporated into the upcoming changes.

 

Get me involved if that discussion doesn't progress satisfactorily

 

Andy

 

 

[shags_j]

Yes I believe it matters. We as a group should reasonably expect economies of scale..as our member base grows the efforts of providing that one additional member the services he needs should incrementally decrease. Equally the reverse applies as members drop off the costs for the remaining members increase as they are recovered from a smaller number. Currently costs >> Revenue so we don't want Revenue to decrease, rather ideally we want it to grow. Its a reasonable point that we are a NFP org and you are right there are no paid up shareholders who expect their pound of flesh, however the members are in effect shareholders and if we can do more for less then as a member shareholder that has got to be a good thing isn't it? Cost is of itself a restrictor, and if you are looking for the least restrictive way then that would, to me, equate among others to the least costly way....

Andy

But we made a profit in the past didn't we with less members at lower membership fees? Have our costs increased proportionally greater than our membership base profit? If so why? Are the increased costs necessary? Maybe and hopefully all questions that the board are addressing. I deleted the accounting side of my brain when I switched careers 3 years ago and really don't want to activate it again but surely we don't need to continually increase membership to reduce member fees (i do understand economies of scale, I have a degree in accounting and coy law).

 

All food for thought. I went to an AGM not so long ago (the one at YJCW) and wasn't impressed with the accounts supplied there. The notes (which weren't presented at the meeting and the treasurer gave a strange expression when they were requested by a member) seem to be just the stock standard printout from sol 6 (or myob ae, handiledger, whichever software they use). Also are they audited by one of the big 4 or appropriately big firm? Due to a long association with audited accounts (I was head of SMSF in a mid tier firm) I don't hold much stock in "independently" audited account.

 

Something that is not addressed in the accounts each year is a treasurers report explaining things in detail. Not just a "look we have more revenue than last year... Yay!" kind of thing but more detail in discrepancies. I want to see more explanation on things like salary increases. There was one year there where salaries almost doubled. This needs to be explained ie. Salaries hadn't been indexed and were reviewed as being low or we were severely understaffed and needed to employ additional people. We don't need to know X got paid extra but need a quick explanation why things may look a bit "funky". This is mostly due to the fact the notes are just the aforementioned printouts from software x and not individually written.

 

One note about the above is that I haven't even bothered to look at the last 3 years accounts because I just gave up. Maybe if we can access recent ones I might take more of an interest but realistically I don't think members should have to go to this effort.

 

Wow that was a rant longer than I expected...