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A new hope?
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CASA is turning the corner
Significant changes coming from CASA are signalling – finally – that the organisation is listening and acting following a decade of Disappointments.
The announcement on aviation medicine changes that will permit aerial application pilots to operate on a Class 2 medical is a significant step forward in the way CASA is now looking at risk and managing it.
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While it won’t affect application pilots who need their Class 1 medical to fly charter, it is a very welcome change in the process where CASA has heard industry concerns, reviewed its own practices, openly consulted and moved forward with both safety and efficiency as twin objectives.
In the same week, CASA Director of Aviation Safety, Shane Carmody, also wrote to AAAA recognising our Aerial Improvement Management Systems (AIMS) following a comprehensive CASA review. He identified that “AIMS supports improved safety outcomes” and “exceeds current regulatory Requirements”.
CASA has also committed to working with AAAA on our chief pilots course as “an alternative means of supporting assessment and approvals”. The course is based on identified competencies and aims to deliver skills transfer to support chief pilots in aerial application companies. AAAA looks forward to delivering the new CASArecognised course as soon as possible, as most of the materials are ready to go.
When these very positive initiatives are combined with the new strategic consultative mechanisms under the CASA Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), it appears that the long hoped for cultural shift within CASA is gaining momentum.
TAAAF – of which AAAA is a participant – recently developed and put forward three policy papers to ASAP on key priorities for industry, including revitalising GA, addressing ongoing training and licensing issues and pushing major maintenance sector reforms. TAAAF is now working on new strategic papers addressing additional critical issues ranging from ATO/flight examiner indemnity to establishing a policy hierarchy.
Not only is there now a clear pathway to identifying industry problems, but there is a coherent means of developing remedies at a high strategic level within CASA. That change should not be underestimated.
Industry should not ignore the significant changes going on in CASA and should be offering every encouragement to the Minister, the CASA board, the DAS and senior management to keep going – using the powerful and positive systems now emerging.
‘The long hoped for cultural shift within CASA is gaining momentum.’
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