walrus

I love the base leg at Milford Sound and the final turn by the cliff.

But back on topic, I live at an altitude about 1000' MSL the hills around me are 2500' to 3500' or more but the valleys are down to 600' MSL. The forecast frequently contains stratus at some altitude band between say 3000/5000' so it is not unusual going West to find 4500' has a scattered whispy stratus 200' thick. or maybe solid stratus at say 7000' . I am also required to fly 1000' above or below cloud by regulations (MOS 2.07). Given that weather forecast, is it even possible to fly at all? I certainly cannot maintain hemispherical levels at all. Furthermore, my little brain is concerned with flying and navigating, not legalities. I am stuck with say 4000' going east or west as that is what gives me about 1000 -1500' clearance on terrain. What happens then if I am prosecuted for breaching hemispherical rules and I successfully argue weather conditions, only then I am prosecuted for departing with a weather forecast that doesnt indicate legal VFR conditions (including complying with hemispherical altitudes) for the whole flight? I suppose I can hedge hop down at 500' AGL but is that safe?

With respect, I fail to follow the logic here. Furthermore, this isn't about me... You start by running an argument that "road rules" are now considerably more complicated than they used to be but that the result of this more onerous situation is that the road toll is drastically smaller, at least two thirds smaller, than it used to be. By implication you are suggesting to me and every other reader that the aviation rules we have today are necessary to prevent a higher, drastically higher, aviation "road toll". I fail to follow your logic. Not only do I fail to follow your logic, I would be astounded if road safety professionals would agree with you that the road toll has been reduced by plucky lawyers writing regulations instead of by massive technological improvements in vehicle primary and secondary safety as well as massive investment in better roads as well as much better driver training. Your argument that regulation, punitive regulation at that, is somehow responsible for this outcome and by implication for aviation is just fantasy. The one thing that lawyers can take credit for - lower road speed limits and their beneficial effects is irrelevant to aviation safety. I would also observe that most offences under road safety Acts are misdemeanours and not felonies with strict liability like aviation offences. There is no linkage whatsoever between the scope, complexity, enforcement of Australia's aviation regulations and anything to do with safety except, I contend, that on the basis of regulatory theory they have a negative, not positive, effect on safety outcomes because people are worried about compliance, not safety.. Were I wrong about this, the FAA would not regulate with such a relatively light hand and road safety authorities would be falling over themselves in their haste to micromanage road transport and criminalise traffic offences the way CASA does. Which brings me to my other point. Its not about me. Its about jobs, economic growth and investment in the aviation industry that has been suffocated by the dead hand of over regulation - a situation obvious to anyone who has visited New Zealand let alone the U.S. A few flight schools for Chinese and Indian students don't change the picture either. Indeed that raises the question of why CASA acquiesced in the activities of such shonky operators as SOAR while allegedly closing down Glen Buckleys APTA. I also respectfully suggest that the relative success of RAA, experimental, etc. is "in spite of" the current regulations and that is why the SAAs etc. are pushing for change. However, I don't expect change, I will comply but i cant help thinking about the opportunities lost and the needless pain and suffering of what little is left.

Its part of the same old story - the theory that there is a perfect set of rules that guarantee absolute safety if all people follow them exactly. The corollary of this theory is that if an accident occurs, barring acts of God, then someone, somewhere, has broken the law. The second corollary is that by definition, CASA and the Government are not liable for said accident because it was caused by commission of an offence of strict liability. The attraction of such theory to lawyers and government is obvious. This thinking is embedded in our regulations and unfortunately it is fatally flawed because of the limitations of language and the absolute impossibility of specifying all combinations of circumstances but that doesn't prevent lawyers from trying. I learned about this theory at the age of about 14 years from my headmaster who was famous for saying "A breach of common sense is a breach of school rules!" and punished people accordingly. You can see this thinking at work in part 91. For example we are required to adhere exactly to published instructions in the Pilots operating handbook on pain of prosecution. Our aircraft must be maintained exactly as specified in approved data. Our flights must be planned likewise and executed exactly as per plan. We are allegedly trained on a competency basis as well, so if we fail to execute then either we or our instructor has committed an offence. We are even supposed to be medically fit according to aviation medical standards. There is the obvious and necessary deferral to acts of god - such as the hemispherical let out : "when it is not possible to do so" but it is minimal. Not only is it fatally flawed, it is highly UNSAFE because it leads people into the fatal error of assuming that if what they are doing is legal, it is by definition safe. In other words, pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers abrogate their responsibility to use their common sense in favor of doing what is legal. This thinking is lazy, pernicious and obviously wrong.. I will leave it to you to recount your own examples of legal but obviously dangerous behaviour. In one area - medical certification, the system is so bad that pilots now have to choose between obtaining medical treatment and keeping their job. This is killing pilots. I'm sure there are better arguments in favor of a more holistic, less prescriptive and safer system than Australias.

"The Age" newspaper has just filled in the blanks about Greg Lynn. Of particular note in the article: "In 1999, Lynn’s marriage collapsed and shortly afterwards, in October that year, Lisa was found dead in the garden of her home. It was listed as suicide from an overdose of anti-depressants and alcohol. To learn more about Greg Lynn’s past, police investigating the Clay and Hill disappearances have quietly called for the file on his first wife’s death." "Those who know him (and there are few) have described him as self-sufficient, self-absorbed, self-contained – a narcissist with an obsessive eye for detail. He was also a proficient pilot, highly intelligent and calm under pressure. " "Clay and Hill are not the only unsolved disappearances in the high country. While Lynn is not a suspect, police will, as a matter of completeness, attempt to plot his movements at the time when other campers and hikers have gone missing in Victoria’s high country." The police and the journalist are being rather coy. If you don't believe Lynn is a suspect in those four disappearances, then you believe in the tooth fairy. This situation has all the makings of a rather large book for a journalist to write.

Well that's the end of the story.

This whole thing is just boring unless you are involved in some way.....then it is tragedy. The Courts will sort it out.

How would an SAA be liable for an aircraft whose registration has expired or was never registered in the first place? I fail to understand the legal theory. We know and it is well established that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The law states that unless the aircraft is registered with an SAA it is not allowed to fly and the SAA has stated that without payment of a fee, registration expires. ‘’The law appears quite clear on this in regard to road going motor vehicles, why not aircraft?

The publicly available stuff is OK, it was the private stuff relating to Jetstar and other stuff not in the public domain (yet) that may be deemed prejudicial.

The blokes lawyer will seize on the link you provided and use it as evidence that his client can’t get a fair trial in Victoria. Please remove the link. Now that he has been charged the matter is now sub ju dice as you have pointed out.

RAAus has produced a very comprehensive proposed 760 Kg. Explanatory page on the website together with an excellent FAQ. Well done!!!!

Be fair. We are all CASA supporters. We are trying to help them through their current difficulties with a minimum of pain and maximum benefit.

Turbo, with respect, regarding medical risk, you fall into the common CASA laid trap. 1) You talk of medical risk without quantifying its application to flying an aircraft for recreation and enjoyment. 2) You believe others(doctors) can and must exactly quantify risk. 3) You then take an absolutist position on risk management which is unsustainable. Firstly for a known medical condition to produce what I would call an "adverse aviation event", the pilot would have to know about the condition, ignore whatever treatment regime they are required to undergo. Then they would have to ignore warning signs of incapacitating illness, embark on flight and succumb. As per the British experience this happened 4 times in 45 years! Doctors cannot give an absolute unconditional assessment on anything and CASA knew that requiring such a statement would sabotage the Basic Med 2. The best Doctors can do is produce a "balance of probabilities" assessment which is highly subjective even after thousands of dollars of tests by specialists. Yet even then CASA won't often accept the results! This is hypocrisy. Every person at any age has conditions of one sort or another. Risk management is a two sided process. It is NOT about absolutes. It requires balancing perceived risk against all of the costs of ameliorating that risk. The whole reason the medicals are even an issue is because this has not been done and CASA refuses to adopt risk management protocols for ANYTHING! Risk management is a relatively exact science that leaves little room for pontificating would be "professionals" to grandstand and grind their axes. So a self certification medical standard needs to balance the costs of the alleged increased in risk to the community against the benefits to the community of an increase in aviation activity by an increasing number of pilots who would otherwise not be flying. Some idea of the disaster that is Australian medical aviation can be gauged by the British expereince - 4 accidents in 45 years versus the millions of dollars paid in Australia to specialists as pilots try to argue with a stubborn and unresponsive CASA. To put that another way, why not make five point harnesses, annual drivers licence medicals and retests, crash helmets and fireproof suits mandatory for all passenger cars? Such an action would definitely lower the road toll but it is equally obvious that the cost, both direct and indirect, would be stratospheric - ayet we allow CASA to do exactly that to recreational and GA aviation! Furthermore have an observation to make: The entire CASA regulatory edifice is now so bad that it is only a matter of time before it becomes unusable. In the medical area, I have been told numerous times that commercial pilots now have two doctors: their DAME and their "Real" doctor. In addition, diagnosis and treatment for some conditions is postponed because of its likely effect on careers. Elsewhere the signs suggest that the industry is paying lip service to CASA requirements because they are becoming impossible to comply with in terms of cost and complexity. I have seen some flying behaviours that I would not care to do myself but nobody censures them any more. The cause of real safety (which is a state of mind) has been drowned in a sea of regulatory cost and compliance requirements and matters will only get worse as participants are forced into unsafe behaviours in an effort to survive.

CASA has a habit of living by the old Lawyers joke: "we will give you all assistance short of actual help." That is what they did to the Basic class 2 medical. On the surface it appeared to be reasonable - then you discover it was a commercial licence standard, there were a range of common conditions that excluded many and CASA asked for the examining doctors "unconditional" approval. My doctor looked at the paperwork , made a phone call to his lawyers and then told me he wasn't issuing any of these because CASA had neatly made him liable for anything that happened to me. I expect the same this time, for example: 1) Allowing 760 kgs but requiring all work on the aircraft to be performed by a LAME or L2 or some other way of preventing owner maintenance. 2) Allowing PPL self certification - but removing their access to controlled airspace. 3) Allowing access to controlled airspace to RAA pilots, but only if the aircraft MTOW is less than 600kg and it is fitted and approved for IFR. In other words, they will give with one hand while they take away with the other so that none of us are better off.

Ian, if you want to metricate everything, give up flying. The aviation world is owned by America and virtually everything, al least in light aircraft, revolves around the A.N standard system “AN something”, or mil spec “ms something” or ‘BAC”, “BMS’ Boeing standards. ‘By way of example, my Rotax had metric fuel and oil connections. Do you think I could find ANYONE in Australia who could supply metric fittings and metric braided Stainless/teflon hose? After a month of looking I gave up and bought metric to AN adaptors for the engine. AN hardware is ubiquitous, some of it even locally made.Fuel system is all AN - 6, Oil is AN - 8.

I was bitten by a triumph motorcycle and a Morris Minor as a youth and a Jaguar ruined me financially through its engineering incompetence then there was finally trying to fix my British father in laws rover made me realise that all British engineering transport products built after 1936 should be euthanised. The Bae 146 didn't help either although the ALF502 was a Lycoming product.

......But why?

General advice I've read elsewhere is not to talk to CASA without your lawyer present and considering the MOU between CASA and ATSB, that goes for them too. This is not to accuse CASA of being corrupt or anything but it is a recognition of the simple facts that you could get charged with a serious criminal offence as a result of investigations: 1) Aviation offences are strict liability offences. 2) Aviation offences are criminal offences which means your are a felon with a criminal record if convicted. 3) A criminal record means that many professions are forbidden to you, as is most if not all, overseas travel. You wont be flying an aircraft again either. The size of the punishment doesn't matter, its the conviction. 4) Aviation regulations are so complex and impenetrable that you are unlikely to be able to navigate them without legal assistance. You may not even know you are incriminating yourself. 5) As the video indicates, you are highly unlikely to be able to avoid incriminating yourself given courtroom tactics. Its a pity it has to be this way.....

Notice how the pilot kept his mouth shut? Good man! Nothing for the ATSB or CASA. They are joined hand and foot. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjt-aiR8pf0AhXSbSsKHQnqCxEQwqsBegQIAhAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dd-7o9xYp7eE&usg=AOvVaw0m8ia3E7_AUW90asWpWd_m

Jackc. today another tradie asked what I wanted for my old 80 series. I told him he was number 5 in the queue. I have a 200 as well.

RAA has at least four markets in my opinion, GA has at least four and the costs of everything connected with aviation is increasing. That creates a great deal of friction as associations and businesses try to find a "one size fits all" value proposition that doesn't exist. Lets catalogue them: RAA: - the ultra cheap home built rag, stick and two stroke market for people who just regard getting airborne as the achievement. - the " shiny new toy" market for those who want an airborne jet ski - price is no barrier. - the home builder who wants a little touring. - refugees from GA without class 2 medical certificates or who have no money for GA. SAAA: - Home builders - The "I can do 180 knots" RV 99 home builders 😜 GA: - the airline stepping stone crowd. - private business users. - well healed recreational flyers Then you can add the aerobatics guys and the techno fetish guys who just want to polish their flying Ferrari, be it a glider or powered. All of these good folk are on display if you visit enough airports. To be fair to CASA and the associations, trying to balance all those competing interests is difficult if not impossible. In the yacht clubs you see the same tensions - the family cruisers at one end and the ultra racing crowd at the other who budget for half a million in sails for each new season

Turbo, I'm in complete agreement with you but I'm married.

It wouldn’t be Australia if such a change didn’t require another layer of paperwork and more complex rules. However, congratulations to RAA for perseverance. The access to controlled airspace would also be very welcome because it then makes touring a lot easier to potentially plan. My touring plans founder on controlled airspace road blocks at Alice Springs, Tindal, Darwin, Broome, Karratha, Perth and Adelaide.

Does the weight increase for 95.55 apply from 2 December 2021?

Flightrite, it's called progress. It's inevitable. Aircraft performance increases with time as it should. If anything, RAA/LSA adopts technology faster than certified aircraft because it doesnt require the same level of certification. We are even occasionally seeing lsa technology get adapted to certified aircraft (Dynon and Rotax) "Cheap Flying" as a concept is/was never going to remain cheap because as performance improves, so does the operating envelope and rules have to cater for that. Dreaming of older and simpler times is just that - dreaming. The next generation of LSA are going to match the performance of certified aircraft (in crude terms) and the generation after that will exceed them. Personally, I am looking forward to the weight increase because my MTOW is constrained to 600 KG by regulation..