Haa Torque

To be forced to pay huge positioning costs with no assurance of gaining income, does not make for a good, sound commercial decision and does not promote or help the Australian helicopter industry.

Why are Australian operators being expected to position their aircraft around Australia without being able to charge? This is an unrea-sonable expectation forced on Australian operators. An operator can not position an aircraft for no cost. The flying time still has to be entered into the maintenance release, the crew and accom-modation expenses have still to be met, fuel has to be paid for, and the maintenance still has to be undertaken. Who pays for those costs? How can an operator be expected to position aircraft and not get paid? Moreover, why is this expectation placed on Australian companies? Size aside, I believe the real issues are the displacing of existing Australian opera-tors who have the capability equal to or better of any machines being imported into Australia.

There is still the misguided belief within the Australian fire agencies that Australian operators will sit around and take the scraps – the agen-cies believe this and as such, have convinced themselves that Federal monies are best spent importing machines on short term contracts to ‘add to’ the Australian helicopter compliment. The problem of course is, Australian opera-tors with millions tied up in machinery cannot afford to sit with no certainty – just ask bank managers to finance a machine with no contract!!! I certainly know how that feels, as it was the same when I was buying helicopters back in the 1980’s.

“Value adding’ is a major factor. How many Australian Helicopter apprentices are provided employment and training to? Answer NONE. I know of an Australian operator who has 6 in their hangar plus additional apprentices employed by contract engineering firms who do some third party work.

At what cost have foreign machines been brought out to Australia and why is their a difference in attitude to these international opera-tors in regard to position-ing costs? Dismantling, Importing, and reassembling helicopters on short term contracts is a huge expense, all of which could have been far better and effectively spent in employing our local industry. Instead the tax pay-ers of Australia are footing the bill for what can only be considered as politically motivated decisions.

There is NO problem with additional helicopters being brought in to ‘compliment’ the Australian machinery – but not instead of! Aus-tralian helicopters and crews cannot go to some countries and work whilst there are helicopters available in those countries Again I bring up the importance of having a central data base of helicop-ter operators. Listed on the data base would be all of the Australian assets. This would include numbers of aircraft and their location, types of aircraft, capabili-ties, response times, costs, and any other information required. It would be based on the HAI’s First Response Data Base System model. This would be manned and operated by the HAA and the Australian helicopter industry. Surely this would help the Australian industry to take control of its own destiny and provide a level playing field to operate by.

The helicopter industry with a First Response Data Base could then source more machines if required. All of this information would be held and operated by the Australian industry at a central base with Australian operators and crew in mind.

With the amount of money being spent on foreign operators, why isn’t the HAA receiving funding to enable it to look after our own Australian helicopter industry? Why isn’t our own industry being helped to a far greater degree? The cost of bringing these aircraft in is enormous. With the advent of a First Response Data Base, a strategic plan could be developed to help our Australian assets. Currently it appears that the only plan in place is to see how many aircraft can be imported with little or no restriction placed on them to limit the impact of their operations on the Australian industry. This is unreasonable and should not be allowed to continue with-out specific restraints being imposed on their operations and employment conditions.

As stated earlier, the issue is not the size of the aircraft being bought into Australia, but the fact that they are be-ing bought in at the expense of and without any regard to Australian operators provid-ing little or no real benefit to the Australian helicopter industry. The HAA supports the use of foreign operations if the situation requires and on a similar bases as that instituted by other foreign governments. Foreign operators should augment the Australian capacity not be used instead of Australian operators The helicopter industry of Australia is being treated shamefully. The helicopter industry is made up of a large number of profes-sional, highly trained and skilled people with very sophisticated equipment to operate. To maintain our in-dustry at such a high level of safety, we must have access to our local contracts and work. Both State and Federal Governments should provide proactive support through the HAA to the Australian Helicopter Industry in this endeavour and not deliver generic answers to the HAA’s concerns on this matter If this situation is not ad-dressed quickly and measures initiated to ensure these issues are reviewed where are Australia’s young pilot’s, engineers and crew going to gain experience if they are not provided the opportuni-ties to obtain this experience in their own country? Give our local industry the opportunities to the work to keep our local industry strong and commercially sound.

Year In Review

The year 2006 for the Helicopter Association of Australasia has been a year of change. With change more often than not comes development and growth, which I would say the HAA has experienced. The year started off with the RotorTech conference, which was held at Darling Harbour in January. In February the President of the HAA resigned and a new Board was formed. It was a turbulent beginning to say the least, but with a lot of work, good sound input from the HAA members and a Board all working in the same direction, the HAA has finished the year on a very positive note.

The board of the HAA has had many meetings with its members. Meetings also between the Board itself have been regular and this will continue throughout 2007. We feel that com-munication with each other is what is going to keep the HAA focussed.

One of our critical issues is membership, which we can very proudly say, is on the increase. The more voices we have the more this will lead to the power and political punch we need to give our members the level of representation they need and deserve.

Sponsorship is also a big issue. We have been fortunate to have BPAir back on line and sponsoring our membership cards. The Shephard Group was very generous in firstly donating a booth at the Heli-Pacific Conference and also present-ing a cheque for $5,000. We have received sponsorship from CASA, from our insurance industry, from Avis and many other areas of the industry who have contrib-uted to the HAA but of course we need more to keep the HAA going forward.

The HAA moved into a new office on the Gold Coast Airport in April. This allows people to fly directly to or from us to major cities of Australia and New Zealand. The office is also an area where we have had sponsorship from members and provides the HAA with a professional and business identity.

One of the milestones we have achieved during the year has been in the area of form-ing relationships with other associations with a view to sharing common problems and solutions. One of the areas we have been working in very closely with other associations is the issue of “Tools for Trade”’ which also leads to many engi-neering issues that require addressing from all areas of the industry.

We are working on the issue of authorised land-ing areas. As is so widely known within the helicopter industry, our landing areas are slowly and sometimes not so slowly being eroded away from underneath us. Pilots are being hit with on the spot fines of up to $1,500. This is also an issue for the fixed wing community only they are having their runways taken away from them. If the HAA can increase it’s membership and work together with the fixed wing community we can have our voices heard to save what’s left of our landing areas.

The Helicopter Flight Instructors Manual is a huge achievement for the industry and CASA in the way that it has been worked on together. The CFI’s conference, which was held in Brisbane on the 14th and 15th of October, was a huge success with instruc-tors coming from all over Australia. Two CASA repre-sentatives were in attendance with some pretty hard hitting facts as to CASA’s role in the industry and where they expect the industry and its association to be.

Self administration is an issue that seems to be coming across my desk more and more. On the 21st of July 2005, Bruce Byron delivered an address to the Royal Aeronautical Society. It was titled “The Regulator and The Industry: Achieving Optimum Safety Outcomes”. I feel that this highlights the direction in which the industry is being expected to go. I have been to meetings where Self Administration has been the focus with only one direction being expected, that is that the recognised associations will become responsible for their own industries and that all issues, problems, etc will need to be channelled through these as-sociations directly to CASA The resolution of using NVG’s has been a little bit slower but it is still mov-ing forward and everyone expects an industry positive result, which will take us into the future.

The Heli-Pacific confer-ence held at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast was fabulous with a very positive and ben-eficial result for the HAA. The next Heli-Pacific is being held at the same venue in 2008. Once again we will be expecting a favourable result for the HAA, which of course can only mean a benefit to the whole of the helicopter industry. (Rosie: did you want to talk about the benefits from HP here??) The HAA now attends Bureau of Meteorology meetings every four months in Brisbane at the Royal Flying Doctor base. These meetings have been full of information and I feel are of great benefit to the industry. I would encourage anyone who is free to attend the meetings as some of the info that comes out of the meetings is very relevant to particular areas of the helicopter industry. The time, date and venue for the next meeting will be put up on to the HAA website.

The strategic plan is being worked on as we speak and should also up on the HAA website very soon. This of course is a very valuable tool needed for our constant review and attention to keep focussed on our direction.

The website has been upgraded but of course is still a work in progress. We have had some wonderful as-sistance with this project and expect for it to become bet-ter and better. The website is a place of first contact for lots of people, therefore we need to have it just right but of course with saying that, it is also a very time consuming task at first and still has some glitches to be ironed out. I still would like to encourage members to contribute to the web site with stories and piccies.

Not long ago I found out that the HAA actually started back in the 1960’s. It would be fabulous if there were piccies from back then and some information as to who started it, where it started and any other history. This will be something we can archive and also put on the web site. So if you have any information or know of someone who might please contact me or the office with details – it would be most appreciated.

We have already begun plans for Avalon in 2008 and for the next CFI’s confer-ence. The next Bureau of Meteorology meeting will be on Monday the 5th of January at the Royal flying Doctor base at the Brisbane Airport.

To all members and potential members, we hope you had a merry christmas and happy new year. o Australian Aviation is proud to be an official support-ing journal of the Helicopter Association of Australasia. The views in this column are those of the HAA, and not necessarily Australian Aviation’s.