Roundsounds

The relevance however, being until the various representative organisations can cooperate with each other, CASA can continue to kill the industry. ADSB for VFR aircraft being the next issue.

I've run and owned flying schools over the years, my response was in some ways tongue in cheek - but realistic. If you don't like the situation fix it - don't go crying to RAAus I had one customer do an hours dual. After the flight he insisted on sweeping the hangar floor, then claimed that was his method of paying for the flight. I graciously accepted his offer and told him to find somewhere else to fly - he didn't understand why?!

The comparison of an aviation expo to the football is dumb. It's like suggesting KFC / Coke sponsoring a Food and Wine expo, then banning all other food / beverage vendors from the event. The Sydney Food / Wine expo is sponsored by CitiBank, hence no bans on Food / Wine vendors. Maybe sourcing a non aviation sponsor would've been a better tactic?

Why doesn't this person simply purchase their own aircraft and hire it out to anyone holding an RPC? They've identified an issue, they could take the initiative, resolve it and make a huge amount of profit along the way!

Recall that for any given power and attitude combination you'll have a resultant performance, of which IAS will be one. The total reliance on IAS is dangerous. What would you do should the ASI fail or over read? I have students fly circuits with the ASI and ALT covered before I'll and them solo.

I'm not suggesting that at all, but surely you'd promulgate arrival info earlier than 10 days out? The local families who want to see the clown and balloon twisting show might decide to rock up on the day, but pilots intending to fly in would be planning their arrival weeks before hand.

The latest promo sounds more like something you'd read for the Barnum and Bailey Circus coming to town. There seems to be a push to attract families, maybe they don't want people to fly in? "There will be a fantastic airshow, more than 40 exhibitors and trade stalls, 55 seminars over three days, food and drink, kids activities including face painting, balloon twisting, and a clown, and lots of things to see and do for the whole family."

Yes, many times and this weekend should be great. They're flying all of the aircraft that are currently serviceable.

Not necessarily referring to elected positions, it seems like ground hog day. Maybe some fresh ideas are needed?

Doesn't surprise me at all, it's time for some fresh blood in there.

After watching the RAAus video of the QandA session following the AGM, it seems we can forget any MTOW increase or CTA privileges for a few more years. The latest Board communique makes for interesting reading, telling us how well things are going with highlights like: - lobbying CASA for better outcomes for sport aviation. CASA have put CTA/MTOW on the back burner, I wonder if the lobbying helped that situation? - finances going well, including an interesting description of depreciation from an accounting perspective. Expecting a small cash surplus, I wonder if that was before the board graciously donated $30,000 of RAAus' funds to the 2017 Narromine AVA event? - another round of strategic planning under way. I wonder what ever happened to the last strategic plan? It seemed to vanish as the target dates were adjusted, then not met.

Timely following my comments regarding airport viability: Will Australia's small airports soon be a thing of the past? - RN - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Ah and blindly abeying "Rules of Thumb"...

Essentially you would need to demonstrate proficiency and meet the minimum hour requirements. Your previous aeronautical experience count towards both RPL/RPC. You'd find that by the time you reach proficiency and complete some solo consolidation you'd have the minimum hours satisfied to obtain the RPL or RPC. The Nav endorsement would be additional training and theory. The best investment you'll make is spending some time going to visit a few GA and RAA flying schools and seek their guidance. If they tell you none of your previous hours can be taken into account, walk away. Also try and talk to some of their students, note whether there are pre/post flight briefings and have a look at the condition of the aircraft. Generally, your time travelling to a distant airport is cheaper than settling with a closer sub-standard flying school. This might even mean saving up some cash and doing a live in course. Dan Compton at a Dubbo and Sheldon Jones at Moruya are a couple I could recommend.

I have just read this great article on AVWEB, pretty sums up my thoughts on spin training. I'm not a fan of the Muller (hands off) recovery technique, certainly no harm in going through the training, but cannot see any practical application for non-aerobatic pilots as most stall/spin accidents happen too low for it to be used. Here's the article: Spin Training? Yes - AVweb Features Article

So you're both deluded enough to think RAAus management would respond to input from a lone member?

I'm glad you How did you come up with the conclusion that RAAus had prioritised CTA over weight from my ramblings? My business sustainability comment is about aviation in Australia in general. The majority of airports I use are under utilised and given the approach of user pays it's only a matter of time before these are assets are repurposed. (Read developed for residential or industrial purposes.) My local Council wanted to close the tip because it wasn't profitable - I can only imagine what they'd want to do to an airport. I see RAAus waisting an enormous amount of time and effort in pursuing the airspace issue from the wrong angle.

If you're suggesting I failed as a GA operator you're wrong, I sold my business at profit and moved up the food chain. My interest is simply seeing a fair and sustainable aviation industry. If you allow the only growing sector of the small end of aviation to access controlled aerodromes, it can only help sustain a rapidly declining industry. With the ever reducing utilisation of airports, the cost per movement will continue to increase. I recently conducted approximately 20 hours of flying training with a retired airline Captain in his newly acquired GA aircraft. This training was primarily conducted at a Class D airport, there is no way the movement fees would go anywhere near meeting the cost of the airport or air traffic services whilst we operated. At times we operated in the circuit area for an hour and was the only aircraft flying. Your superior GA operational knowledge is obviously limited to technical matters and not business sustainability.

You make many uniformed or incorrect statements in your response, so I won't bother addressing them. Maybe you could take the time to review the relevant rule sets, as indicated I operate within both systems and have a working knowledge of them. You will find the Gliding Australia exemption under CAO 95.4 and the Gliding Aust operations manual is freely available from their website.

At no point was I suggesting access to controlled airspace for incompetent pilots. There is simply no justification for the blanket airspace restrictions imposed upon RAAus pilots, access should be competency based. The present system allows RAAus pilots under training to operate from controlled aerodromes, the minute they obtain a pilot certificate they're banned. As a grade 1 GA instructor, former ATO and RAAus CFI I find the system to be inconsistent and discriminatory. I can train a pilot to the same standard in either RAA or GA, one is permitted to operate in CTA/CTR and the other is not. The RAAus pilot can do a medical, some paperwork and a GA Flight review to convert their RPC to an RPL, they too can then access CTA/CTR in their RAAus registered aircraft. The only difference being a couple of pieces of paper costing upwards of $5K - zero difference in competency or safety. Meanwhile, at Camden (Class D) you've got glider pilots flying over populous areas, on a self certified medical, with only a certificate issued by Gliding Australia. These pilots are trained by instructors not requiring any powered aeroplane experience or comprehensive airspace training as required by GA. The same glider pilots can complete a self launching glider qualification and operate in all controlled airspace and aerodromes. I'm in no way suggesting the glider pilots to be incompetent, I'm simply pointing out the inconsistency in regulations. The regs as applied to glider pilots would seem to be the standard, I don't see a whole lot of incident reports in the ATSB weekly summaries for airspace issues. The limitations on RAAus ops would most likely stem from the days of the single seat "flying clothesline" style aircraft and the associated self training system.

Which particular piece of BS are you referring to?

It's was stated at the QandA session following the AGM 23/9. You can watch the recording online via Facebook on their FB page. I don't know why RAAus don't simply insist on the same privileges as the Gliding federation and Ballooning Assn - they have access without a CASA licence or medical And minimal training. I understand that CASA are in breach of the Civil Aviation Act by discriminating against RAAus without any safety justification.

"a comprehensive aviation exhibition space where if you can think of it you'll find it" Hmmm, the program doesn't read that way. It looks like the highlight of Saturday is the paper plane competition! The RAAus Weight increase and CTA presentations are bound to be interesting, particularly given CASA have put them on the back burner.

That'd be a Howard 500. I sat under the shade of it at Airventure 2017. Howard 500 - Wikipedia