[thorn bird]

Interesting little snippet from Fridays Australian, not earth shattering in itself but it set me pondering just how these things suddenly appear from the bureaucrats.

Are they based on any specific risk analysis? are they simply an epiphany from the brain of a bored minion with nothing better to do but dream up ways to expend budgetary allocations.

Did anyone do a cost / benefit analysis, either before or after the event?

CAsA I was told introduced their DAMP (Drug and alcohol management) scheme allegedly because a single accident investigation which detected traces of cannabis in a deceased pilots blood, traces that in no way would have had any bearing on the cause of the accident. That revelation triggered feigned shock and horror by the bureaucrats who fed into the publics mind that they were at risk as the piloting fraternity were all a mob of raving alcoholics and junkies.

It now appears the Skydiving fraternity, according to Fridays Australian, are to be painted with the same brush.
Personally I've never been able to fathom why anyone would want to jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft, maybe a shot or two of courage required, but to each his own I guess, but it's a rather singular enterprise. How many people get hit by wayward parachutists every year?
Probably a lot less than by lightning I would guess, but so far we haven't been banned from walking in the rain.

I have heard the CAsA DAMP legislation cost the taxpayers well over 30 million dollars to introduce and the industry many millions more to comply with.

I abhor the thought of anyone attempting to commit aviation under the influence of any performance degrading substance, but preventing it completely I would suggest is as impossible as achieving absolute safety.
I've never really understood what Pre-employment drug and alcohol tests were about. All that proves is that at that time on that day you were sober and anyone applying for a job would be rather foolish to turn up for a test under the influence.

Is that an any more effective deterrent than random testing?

Still I guess DAMP is all part of CAsA's corporate plan to make things as convoluted and complex as possible requiring many more minions to administer it and create as many "Felons" as possible to add to its score sheet.

Would it have achieved the same result to simply introduce random tests instead of DAMP? One thing for sure, it would have saved a hell of a lot of money which could have been used for more random testing.

The Australian Parachute Federation which administers Skydiving repots that on average there are 2.5 fatalities a year from skydiving. I wonder what percentage of those were under the influence?