A Brief to Government to Revitalise the General Aviation Industry in Australia
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PROJECT EUREKA A BRIEF TO GOVERNMENT TO REVITALISE THE GENERAL AVIATION INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA 1 PROJECT EUREKA CONTENTS SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PAGE------- 4 SECTION 2 RECOMMENDATIONS PAGE------- 9 SECTION 3 FLIGHT REGULATIONS AND OPERATIONS PAGE------- 16 SECTION 4 INDUSTRY FUNDING AND TAXES PAGE------- 21 SECTION 5 AIRPORT AND GENERAL AVIATION PAGE------- 29 BUSINESS SECURITY OF TENURE SECTION 6 CHARTER AND AIRWORK OPERATIONS PAGE------- 33 SECTION 7 FLIGHTTRAINING PAGE------- 39 SECTION 8 AVIATION MEDICINE PAGE------- 44 SECTION 9 AIR SPACE MANAGEMENT PAGE------- 47 SECTION 10 ENGINEERING PAGE------- 51 SECTION 11 FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES PAGE------- 58 APPENDIX 1 SIGNATURES OF CONTRIBUTORS AND PAGE------- 63 SUPPORTERS OF PROJECT EUREKA HELD BY CEO AOPA APPENDIX 2 COMMUNITY LAND TITLE OWNERSHIP PAGE-------- 65 MODEL FOR SECONDARY CAPITAL CITY AIRPORTS by KEITH CAMPBELL APPENDIX 3 UNSAFE SKIES by DICK SMITH PAGE------- 70 APPENDIX 4 CASA V JABIRU: A CASE OF HOW THE REGULATOR AND THE INDUSTRY PAGE------- 71 INTERACT APPENDIX 5 FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES by PAGE------- 87 PHILLIP REISS APPENDIX 6 NATIONAL AIR SPACE SYSTEM (NAS) OF PAGE------- 96 AUSTRALIA APPENDIX 7 AVIATION SAFETY REGULATION REVIEW PAGE------- 110 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY/RECOMMENDATIONS APPENDIX 8 AIRPORT MOVEMENT DATA & GA STATISTICS PAGE------- 116 APPENDIX 9 JOHN ANDERSON’S NAS 2002 MEDIA RELEASE PAGE------- 118 2 PROJECT EUREKA SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 PROJECT EUREKA SECTION 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Aircraft Owners and Pilot Association (AOPA) of Australia has been operating since 1949, some 67 years. AOPA has 2600 members in Australia and we are part of a worldwide association called International AOPA (AOPA), which has 400,000 members. Our charter is to support and be the public voice of General Aviation (GA) aircraft owners and pilots in private, commercial charter and airline operations, numbering in total some 34,000 individuals. Australia has been at the forefront of the development of aviation. We have produced some of the world’s best-known and skilled aviators including Charles Kingsford- Smith; Nancy Bird-Walton; Bert Hinkler; Charles Ulm; Hudson Fysh and Dick Smith. We created the safest airline in the world, Qantas. That safety record came about through the local training of some of the world’s most skilful engineers and pilots. But instead of building on that skills base as we did through the '60s to '90s when we had a flourishing General Aviation (GA) industry, it is now slowly dying. To underline the importance of the GA industry it is worth outlining its diversity while recognising that within each of these sectors there is the potential for enormous jobs growth, given the right policy settings: Private VFR/IFR flying training; commercial flying training. Commercial Charter and Airwork (medivac plus training) Crop-dusters; RFDS; Air Ambulances. Helicopter operations. Warbirds; Gliding; ultralights (now up to 600 kg, home built or factory built) Engineering maintenance shops. Aircraft manufacturing. Replacement third party suppliers. Project Eureka is a Brief to Government containing policy proposals and initiatives to revitalise this flagging Australian industry: an industry that has been in constant and unabated decline over the last 30 years. The industry recognises there is no easy solution to the current situation. It is made up of many sectors that all have to work or prosper together to create a vibrant GA industry. Project Eureka has identified nine separate, but interrelated GA areas, that need bold and innovative policy reform if the Industry is to be revitalised: 1. Flight Regulations and Operations 2. Industry Funding and Taxes 3. Airport and General Aviation Business Security of Tenure 4. Charter and Air work Operations 4 PROJECT EUREKA 5. Flight Training 6. Aviation Medicine 7. Airspace Management 8. Engineering/Manufacturing 9. Future Technologies Each section of the Brief details the problems created by existing policies and more importantly, the Recommendations summarise the suggested policy reforms to address these problems. One of our authors and team leader, Mr Ken Lewis, is a current International Air Transport Operational Safety Auditor (IOSA) and former Chairman of the International Air Transport Association Safety Committee (IATA) and retired QANTAS Group General Manager Safety and Environment 1980-2002. Drawing on 50 years of experience dealing with the Australian regulators, CAA and CASA he stated: “From my experience I can assure you they (the politicians) will send it (Eureka) to CASA for 'guidance.' CASA will then defer comment as long as they can which will be after any coming election. CASA comment to the politicians will be 'we are analysing the document and whilst we think it has some merit it is not a document drafted by experienced and proven regulation drafters such that exist within the professional ranks of CASA'." The result will be that the Brief, like many before it, will not see the light of day. When such an eminent Australian aviation person, who is actively engaged globally in aviation regulations, loses complete faith in the ability of our regulators it is time for drastic remedial action. This is why AOPA is calling this Project Eureka because we see this as a last stand against inappropriate Government industry regulation; regulation that has decimated our once thriving GA industry. It may sound melodramatic to those not associated with the industry, but those of us who have been in the industry through the period 1960- 1990 feel very frustrated that government bureaucrats, through lack of understanding of the need for businesses to be commercially viable, have failed this industry. Through Project Eureka, AOPA and the General Aviation community presents to Government the means to revitalise this important industry for growth of jobs and businesses; and for expansion of educational and training opportunities while encouraging greater technical innovation. Our proposals will, if accepted, reduce taxpayer liabilities and generate very substantial revenue, external and internal, into the future. AOPA representatives have constantly met and debated our problems with the Regulators. They are the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), Air Services Australia (ASA) and the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. AOPA representatives volunteered time and money year after year attending Australia-wide hearings, helping to develop the industry recommendations that go nowhere. As an industry we have failed to get these bodies to understand the commercial implications 5 PROJECT EUREKA of their policy agenda. As an example of how frustrated industry has become with the regulator we can examine CASA/ATSB/Dept performance in implementing the recommendations of the Aviation Safety Regulation Review (ASRR). This review was commissioned by the Minister in 2014. Despite a firm Ministerial Direction to CASA by the Deputy Prime Minister, Hon Warren Truss MP, to implement thirty two (and to further evaluate four) of the thirty seven recommendations, the majority have not been actioned. Ten recommendations were considered by the committee members to have been easily actioned with little effort. ASRR Chairman, David Forsyth AO, in commenting on the implementation performance of the authorities over the last two years, stated that: “Regarding how many of the ASRR recommendations have been implemented, I can advise my score card is as follows: Assessing the information tabled by Minister Truss in Parliament in February, showing implementation status as at 31 December 2015, I assessed the following status. CASA 29% implemented, 15% partially implemented and 56% not done DEPT 20% implemented, 60% partially implemented and 20% not done ATSB 33% implemented, 33% partially implemented and 33% not done. This is being as benevolent as possible. Other may have a harder view. A number of those regarded as implemented will require ongoing monitoring to ensure change remains in place and/or that the culture has changed.” Clearly, if the Deputy Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia can’t get any significant action out of CASA, ASA, ATSB and the Department, than who can? A different approach is clearly needed. In conclusion, the GA industry is collapsing under the weight of regulation, as any objective appreciation of the facts will attest, for no perceived or measurable increase in aviation safety. Rather, the present excessive and expensive regime is producing a reduced safety outcome when viewed against US statistics. Avgas sales are down, medicals are down, secondary airport movements are down and licensed engineers working in GA are reducing with no engineering apprentices in sight. It seems to AOPA that it is incumbent on Government to correct this situation because CASA has proven unable to regulate without impacting commercial viability. It has taken 26 years for CASA to rewrite these rules at huge expense and incalculable losses to the GA industry and still they are not finished. The industry is united in a demand for radical change and will not rest until measures are enacted to correct this unacceptable position. This Project Eureka Brief presents the costed solutions to revitalise an iconic Australian industry with proceeds from an Industry Trust Fund, administered like the 6 PROJECT EUREKA Future Fund, for the benefit of all Australians. Project Eureka proposes that the Trust capital be generated by the sale of a financially underperforming Australian public asset, Airservices Australia.