Tuesday, 11 January 2005
Letter to the Editor - Australian Flying magazine
The Editor
Australian Flying
GPO Box 606
Sydney NSW 2001
By Facsimile: (02) 9281 2750
Dear Madam,
The story in your last edition about proposed changes to aviation maintenance regulations (Headaches in the hangar, p66) contains a raft of inaccuracies.
Unfortunately, the author failed to carefully read the latest documents proposing the new regulations or check any of the claims made in the story with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).
The story is a classic scare-mongering attack on a package of regulatory change that is in fact aiming to provide clearer and easier-to-use rules covering aircraft maintenance.
In addition, the story recounts wild assertions by unnamed CASA “sources” about events inside the safety regulator. Not only are the assertions wrong, they are ridiculous.
It is impossible to correct all the mistakes in the story but here are a few factual errors.
The story says:
- It might be illegal for a pilot to inflate a tyre, ‘you may have to call in an engineer’. This is incorrect. The current maintenance a pilot may perform is retained and is, in fact, expanded.
- Industry was given ‘an incredibly short time frame’ ’to digest and comment on the proposals. This is incorrect. Industry had nine weeks to comment on the latest Notice of Proposed Rule Making and submissions were accepted after the deadline closed. Consultation on new maintenance rules began in 1996.
- Pilots would need to sit ‘a biennial airworthiness administration examination’. This is incorrect. It has never been suggested that recreational pilots should sit such an exam.
- ‘The right of an Experimental amateur builder to maintain his own aircraft’ would be extinguished. This is incorrect. This is not proposed and a position previously agreed with the industry will be maintained.
- There will be a ‘return to a situation where most components removed from an aircraft cannot be replaced’. This is incorrect. The current situation will be maintained.
Any reasonable person can see from the above mistakes that the story was misguided at best, or at worst a deliberate attempt to mislead and confuse people in the aviation industry.
Australian Flying should give its readers a commitment to checking the facts before rushing into print.
Yours sincerely
Nicola Hinder
Acting Executive Manager
Corporate Affairs
11 January 2005