Reece

If these sentiments may seem strident then talk with anyone who had to deal with the aviation bureaucracy of this era to see that we are sadly being mild in our recollection of history. For civil aviation things only deteriorated further as the Department itself reflected its own continual internal upheavals with numerous name changes, regular changes of minister (including one who publicly ‘hated’ aviation) and even its basic role. It wasn’t till the eventual emergence of what was to later become the Federal Airports Corporation and the Civil Aviation Authority that there appeared a glimmer of hope on the horizon that things would indeed one day actually get better.

Much of the impetus for massive structural change came from Dick Smith’s book ‘Two Years in the Aviation Hall of Doom’ in which he went head to head with the unyielding bureaucrats that in his, and the industry’s, opinion were largely administering rules and regulations that were frequently outdated, often irrelevant and in many cases actually reduced safety standards in real terms. His book created such an impact (and was reprinted in series form in this magazine through 1985) that it lead to the establishment of a House of Representatives standing committee to investigate the numerous allegations detailed within its pages. Forthebureaucratsit was a case of their worst nightmare coming true as a new word- accountability- even began to be whispered within their ranks. An era of change was inevitably on its way.

Change did come and it certainly wasn’t overnight though now, as we enter the final decade of this incredible century, we can at last begin to see its efforts finally bearing fruit. This quite rightly just might be the beginning of a golden age for aviation in Australia. Deregulation will at last give us some real competition within the domestic airline industry while both the CA A and FAC are now shaping up as viable service-orientated organisations that are beginning to realise that they are also there to serve their clients as well as administer them. Something that the stalwarts of the old Department could never understand.

That things are changing within, for instance, the CA A are never more obvious than by the release of the long awaited report by Ron Yates into the thorny issue of First of Type Certification. This is an issue that more than any other represented the primary battlefield of industry versus bureaucrat throughout the past decade and a half. The industry will contend that many good planes have not been brought into Australian operation due to the inability of their manufacturers and distributors to be able to satisfy the overly stringent, often impractical and mostly unjustified.

requirements that are unique to Australia. This was particularly so in the commuter class where aircraft such as the Dornier228 Beech 1900, King Air 300 and Metro Ill were unable to be imported to replace older less sophisticated and potentially less safe designs due to the sole fact that they weighed in at just a shade over the nineteen forties cutoff point of 5700kg.

Primary jet operators fared just as badly with the long contentious Amendment 62 accelerate/stop requirement, again unique to Australia and offering no verifiable improvement in safety, whilst greatly lowering the productivity and, in some cases, the actual safety of an airliner. Qantas alone estimates that compliance with Amendment 62 has cost it an additional $8m since the mid eighties whilst Ansett and Australia have also had to pay a significant performance premium that has cost them dearly for no quantifiable improvement in safety.

The thorniest issue though was always First of Type Certification. It was this situation and the unique and largely unwarranted specific particular requirements demanded by the bureaucrats that resulted in the greatest amount of heartburn for industry. This, coupled with the ongoing refusal to have anything practical to do with SFAR41 aircraft from the world’s foremost aeronautical nation, was what actually prompted this magazine to run a controversial expose of the situation in our January ’89 edition. It was also that article which created the environment for change which led the CA A Board to initiate its first truly independent review of Airworthiness and First of Type Certification procedures.

It was a bold and gutsy move by the Board and its lateral thinking senior management. Today, that report is nothing less than a breath of fresh air within the long shut corridors of aeronautical power. The battle lines between the new breed of lateral thinkers and the traditional concrete-minded bureaucrats of the ‘old’ Department have been drawn for more than a year now. It is indeed the lateral thinkers who are now fortunately inhabiting the senior management levels of the CA A and bringing us such enlightened documents as Mr Yates’ report into the long contentious certification problem.

His report makes excellent reading and is endorsed by virtually every facet of the industry which is the real motor of civil aviation. More importantly though, it also represents the depth of change that has taken place within the aviation bureaucracy these past two years.

The Yates Report is certainly less than a major win for common sense, lateral thinking and a beacon towards what just might be a new era of co-operation and trust between the CAA and the industry over which it presides. An in-depth review of the Yates Report appears elsewhere in this issue.