Flight training transition pain

More than 240 flight training schools have been granted licensing approval under new Civil Aviation Safety regulations.

More than 240 flight training schools in Australia have been granted licensing approval under new Civil Aviation Safety regulations after a four year transition period.

The changeover has not been without its challenges for the schools, some of whom have closed rather than take on the extra administrative work imposed by the new system.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority confirmed 22 had not made the transition for various reasons, including unstable demand or a lack of resources.

However the 242 schools with approval included 39 newcomers to the industry, and ten more were in the process of making the transition.

Ben Wyndham, who operates Airspeed Aviation at Scone in NSW, said nothing had changed about how they taught people to fly, but “layers of administration and legal complexity” had been added.

“They ensure CASA can fulfil its safety oversight obligation by audit rather than expertise in the field,” Mr Wyndham said.

“If your documentation is up to scratch you’re fine, but as one aircraft engineer said ‘the turbo could be hanging off an aeroplane but if the paperwork says it was installed in accordance with the manual, it’s OK’.”

An example of the increased paperwork, was the basic lesson plan which now extended to five or six pages, rather than two.

“For a commercial licence you’re going to do about 250 flying lessons, so you can imagine how much paperwork you’ll end up with,” Mr Wyndham said.

“They’re about to do this to the charter industry as well and make it go through the same process.”

He said his flight training school had been forced to hire a safety manager because as the chief pilot and CEO he was not allowed to continue in that role.

“I’m possibly the most highly qualified safety manager in general aviation that I know of, but I’m not allowed to be a safety manager of my own business,” Mr Wyndham said.

“It’s tough because we’re not a large margin business, we only make enough to live.”

CASA’s acting CEO and director of aviation safety Graeme Crawford said the flight training transition was an important achievement for the aviation community and CASA.

“This was a considerable body of work and I would like to thank the flight training operators for their efforts in meeting the transition deadline,” Mr Crawford said.

“I appreciate this work on top of day-to-day business required an extra commitment.”

He said CASA provided a package of support to assist operators, including training syllabuses, sample manuals and expositions.

“The Manual Authoring and Assessment Tool helped to minimise the administration of the approval process, reducing the burden on the aviation community,” Mr Crawford said.

“I would like to thank CASA’s staff who worked hard to support flight training organisations through the transition.”

A study is currently under way to get a better picture of the true state of general aviation in ­Australia.

Azimuth Partners is conducting the research to provide an understanding of the size of the general aviation industry, its economic impact and employment rates.

The research will also address the health of the sector.