At 07:42 PM 3/09/2012, you wrote:
Over past few months I have seen many problems
..snip
All really good advice but do we really want another layer of
regulation? If you are really worried, how about just giving the
airworthiness function to CASA and having qualified LAMEs do the work
and inspections?
A reasonable case can be made that this should be done for all
gliders used to fly trial instructional flights and for training and
early solo.
Given the appalling record of trashing of fine machinery, injuring
and killing of students by GFA instructors (anyone know how the guy
who was crashed on his first weekend gliding, at Benalla, in January
is doing?) maybe the minimum hours should be increased and some
proper instructor training instituted, equivalent to a commercial
licence in power flying? Developing an actual safety culture would be
a good idea too. There isn't one currently, just a regulation and
restriction culture.
Once people are trained and have been around gliding for a while they
should understand what they have got in to and the "informed,
consenting adults" idea can be applied. Advice and technical
information from competent people is required then, regulation isn't,
neither are "certified"gliders although I'd say to anyone who wants
check flights and certified gliders, fill yer boots, just don't force
your views on others. Developing a culture of learning and knowledge
would be good judging from what I see lately in the way of laziness
and willful ignorance about the technical knowledge required to fly
gliders successfully.
OTOH I was in Perth in July and visited the AFA museum at Bull Creek.
Well worth visiting. That's the Kingfisher I did my Silver C in, in
1968, hanging from the ceiling. I picked up a little book by Steve
Hunt and Gloria Baird about the early years of gliding in WA up to 1958.
Before WW2 there was utterly no regulation at all. They just acquired
plans and built gliders and flew them, after teaching themselves to
fly in primaries. No registration, no airworthiness certificates or
inspections, no qualifications, no licences. Also no controlled
airspace at all judging from some of the places they flew from and
to, cross country (this is my idea of aeronautical heaven - hell is
what we have now). The people had a thirst for finding out how to do
this gliding stuff properly and maybe surprisingly there didn't seem
to be any deaths or injuries beyond the very occasional broken limb
although there was at least one very close call where 2 people could have died.
Some of these people died in gliders years later though, when there
was heaps of regulation to keep us all "safe".
Mike
Borgelt Instruments - design & manufacture of quality soaring
instrumentation since 1978
www.borgeltinstruments.com
tel: 07 4635 5784 overseas: int+61-7-4635 5784
mob: 042835 5784 : int+61-42835 5784
P O Box 4607, Toowoomba East, QLD 4350, Australia
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