Haa Torque

Having This Close Contact Allowed You to Find Out Local Information, Which May Not Have Been Covered in Your Area Pfib. Quite Often They Would Make Up a Pfib of Your Route Specifically for You Once You Had Shown Them Exactly Where You Would Be Operating. Being a Helicopter and Most Probably Doing Low Level Doing Survey Work, It Was Always Handy to Know if There Was Unusual Blasting Going on at Any of the Mines of if There Was a New Powerline Under Construction.

The Amount of Local Knowledge Held by the Flight Service Offices Was Amazing, and the Service Offered Terrific, Often Well Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. But Cost Cutting Saw It Go.

Now Flight Watch is in Danger Too, With Airservices Trying to Shut It Down.

Services to Our Industry Seem to Be Constantly Eroded Such as the Shut Down, From Flight Service to Flight Watch.

After Intervention From the Former Transport Minister Just Before the Election, at Least Now an Independent Assessment is to Be Done on the Service. The Problem is That Everything is User Pays, So It All Comes Down to the Bottom Line. But at What Cost to Safety? Some Time Back I Did an Airservices Introductory Air Traffic Controller Course in Brisbane. It Was Quite Eye Opening and Gave a Great Insight Into the Pressures Involved With Being a Controller. To Suddenly Have a ‘heavy’ Appear on the Screen Coming Out of Sydney and Having to Then Control It Into Brisbane Along With the Myriad of Other Traffic, Was Quite a Challenge.

So Why Are We Looking at Putting More Pressure on Our Air Traffic Controllers?

Haa Issues

the Haa Board is Working on a Number of Issues at the Moment, Including: • the Non Pilot Aircrewman Recognition and Skill Sets.

• Aircrewman Log Book.

• Flight Watch.

• Fly Neighbourly Guide.

• Landing Areas.

• Working With the Casa Standards and Consultative Committee.

• Casr Part 133.

• Night Vision Goggles.

• Helipacific 2008.

Working All These and Many Other Issues Requires Industry Support. Again the Haaa Encourages the Helicopter Industry to Get on Board to Help Us Help You. O Australian Aviation is Proud to Be an Official Supporting Journal of the Helicopter Association of Australasia. The Views in This Column Are Those of the Haa, and Not Necessarily Australian Aviation’s.