Country aero clubs & instructors

The aero clubs that he mentioned were the clubs at Gilgandra, Narrandera, Young, West Wyalong. Cootamundra, Canberra, Tumut, Forbes, Bathurst, Temora, Wagga, Dubbo, Griffith and Condobolin. There may be others. A big area. If I got any wrong please email me.
Some of these clubs still exist as a social identity or conduct RA training but that limits them to a two seat non-GA aircraft. Some hire out GA aircraft but do not conduct GA flight training.

I can still recall yesteryear when almost every country airport had an aero club with two or three GA aircraft and a full or part-time CFI and instructors. It would appear that with the passage of time the costs and demands of running a country aero club operation have exceeded the ability of the members to support such an operation.

These days we are no longer looking at a part-time CFI and instructors. Now the requirement is to have a full-time CFI, if only to try and keep up with the rising tide of requirements from the regulator and government in general. A full time CFI, with the right experience ratings and approvals, would be expecting a salary of $70 – $100K and that is only for the CFI much less other instructors. It takes a lot of flying to pay those sorts of dollars.

There are a number of reasons for the decline of the country aero club but in broad terms the problem is two fold. The cost of everything in aviation has risen dramatically in the last few years and secondly to support any flying school there has to be a population base big enough, and with enough disposable income, and interest in flying, to support a flying club. Instead we are seeing the population of a number of country towns shrinking.

While I have mentioned an area of NSW I feel sure that the same trend is happening right across Australia. Certainly there are some commercial flying schools beyond the coastal belt, where most budding airline pilots are trained, but they often have flight training as a small part of a larger charter operation.

It is unfortunate to record that the recent Federal Government White Paper only talked about airlines. It said nothing about the need that Australia has to produce general aviation non-airline pilots, pilots who will fly for the RFDS, be Ag pilots, conduct air survey work, fly charter or tourist runs, move freight and essential supplies across inland Australia, be pilots flying at some outback cattle station and yes, be dedicated flying instructors. One can only feel that the day will come when the bad news will jump up and bite someone at Canberra and the response will be along the lines, “Oh! Why didn’t someone tell us about this problem before now?”

FLIGHTWATCH

In the October issue of AA mention was made of Flightwatch, now no longer a stand-alone Air Services function. With the passing of Flightwatch its functions became the fare of Melbourne or Brisbane Centre. Now a VFR OCTA pilot on VHF radio calls Centre and then uses the words ‘Flightwatch’ to indicate that the pilot is seeking to use a Flightwatch function. From the date this dual function came into being this writer has experienced both good and bad service from the centre operators. Some calls were responded to quickly while others had to be repeated twice or even three times before there was a response. In the meantime other calls, airlines and IFR traffic, had been answered. Frustrating to say the least. It would certainly appear that some operators did not want to be involved when they heard the words ‘Flightwatch’. Certainly there have been times when one could hear the controller grit his teeth as a ham fisted flight trainee came onto the sector frequency with a request. On the other side of the coin if this writer gets into a situation where urgent operational assistance is required I do not want to be ignored by someone standing on ceremony.

It now seems that Air Services Australia has become aware of the problem. In September a Standardisation Directive was issued to all Centre operators explaining why pilots need to pass amended route details, even if there is no amendment to Sartime, and instructing controllers to acknowledge receipt of same. Welcome news!

Contact Dave by email at [email protected]