At 12:00 PM 16/08/2010, you wrote:
Oh, dear, looks like we're all going to hell in a handbasket...
>as he'd just indicated he couldn't be sure you were properly trained.
Which of course applies to ALL Australian glider pilots and instructors.
Beware a blanket statement, aren't there some glider pilots and
instructors out there who have been 'PROPERLY' trained in the PPL, CPL,
ATPL system?
Are you seriously reading comprehension challenged?
Tom did mention that he had an ATPL and was trying to restore the
SLMG rating that used to be issued to PPLs and up.
Evidently none of this counts somehow and this is not just in
Australia as I know an ATPL working in Europe whose ATPL was
acceptable to the Authorities there who had the same problem with
getting a gliding licence there. Even though the air law and many
other aspects of aviation operations are the same for gliders as for
any other fixed wing aerodynes and the person in question had several
thousand gliding and motorgliding hours.
The overseas issue is one thing and it should be noted that the lack
of a real CASA issued glider pilot licence has again caused
difficulties for our team overseas. After that accident in Hungary I
should think it won't be any easier in future. Third countries may be
reluctant to issue pieces of paper that skirt the law to Australians.
The real problem isn't whether or the pilot is competent, it is that
*CASA judged* that they couldn't be sure that the person had been
trained to the glider pilot syllabus. This necessarily casts doubt on
the training of all glider pilots in this country(I do mean ALL as
CASA knew that Tom had an ATPL), at least in a court of law.
It also means that CASA has judged the oversight, supervision and
auditing of the gliding training system, by both itself and GFA in
the past, to be unverified and unverifiable,at best.
As CASA has been given, by Parliament, the job of overseeing civil
aviation *safety* in Australia it is amusing to see the Regulator
admit that it has utterly failed by its own standards. It may be time
to admit that the "self administration" experiment begun with GFA 61
years ago, which never really worked all that well anyway, has
finally failed in today's legal/socio-economic/political
environment. Are very small amateur bodies really going to able to
comply with CASA requirements? Maybe GFA should be folded in to the
10000 or so member RAAus(it won't be a really good fit at present for
various reasons)?
>Has this farce in sport aviation in Australia gone on for long enough,
yet?
I think I would more worried about the people they have driving on the
roads...! ;-)
Which has absolutely nothing to do with what we are talking about
here and neither do Neumann's comments or Catherine's. Catherine's
is of the "stuff everybody else, I'm all right " nature and Terry's
is merely pointless.
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - manufacturers of quality soaring instruments since 1978
phone Int'l + 61 746 355784
fax Int'l + 61 746 358796
cellphone Int'l + 61 428 355784
email: [email protected]
website: www.borgeltinstruments.com
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