[Peetwo]

This week off the Yaffa -

More general than just Fort Fumble news, where it seems OST, & his McComic era hangers on after the Estimates pizzling from Sterle, O'Sullivan, Williams & Xenophon, have skulked off into the basement to sulk while contemplating the fluff in their navels - UFB! 

First from Hitch:

The Last Minute Hitch: 19 February 2016
19 Feb 2016

Australian Flying March-April 2016 explores some of general aviation's most diverse topics, from the new Cirrus Australis and state-of-the-art Redbird sim to taking a couple of old stagers and pitting them in a competition to see who's the charter king. We also open a can of worms with the debate over noise-canceling headsets, look at flight separation rules and show you how to minimise weather damage if your aircraft lives outside. All of this is behind a magnificent Rob Fox image of the Australis high over Cape Schank, Victoria. It's on the streets now, so go and get it!

The wheel turns for general aviation once again with a new minister taking over from Warren Truss. Right now, we don't know which direction the wheel is going to turn, and we'll probably have to wait until after the Federal Election to tell. Minister Truss did a lot of work setting reforms in motion for aviation; those calling for a faster pace of change should reflect on how we'd be going if Truss hadn't commissioned the Forsyth Report at all. Now we have a Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, with the "Regional Development" bit palmed off to another portfolio. Darren Chester MP is now in the chair, and he comes with a bit of GA in his blood already. It is hoped he also comes with a decent suit of armour. Even now, only one day after being sworn in, there will be people in the GA community sharpening their knives and developing pithy, cynical nick-names for Chester without even waiting to see if the bloke is any good in the job. His first actions are unlikely to be anything other than keeping the Truss line until after the election. That's a political thing, and we have to accept that. Still, I suspect the first barrage he gets will be all about not doing enough quickly enough. I'm prepared to say this bloke will be alright until he gives me reason to believe that he's not.

Another young adventurer has emerged ready to take on the world, literally. Queensland teenager Lachie Smart is preparing to circumnavigate the world in order to bring the title of youngest person to fly solo around the world back to Australia. It's a mammoth task for anyone, but even bigger for a young bloke who hasn't even turned 18 yet. Part of the struggle to get something like this going is, of course, money. Aircraft hire, fuel, safety equipment ... the bills keep piling up and they all need to be funded before so much as a prop blade turns. Have a look at the Wings Around the World website and see what you can do to help this lad on his way.

In amongst the deluge of press releases coming from this week's Singapore Air Show was an announcement from Pacific Aerospace Limited (PAL) that they had completed the 100th airframe of the P-750 series. They reached the milestone 10 years after the type was released. Quick maths will show that means 10 aircraft per year, or slightly under one per month. That is a respectable pace for an aircraft made outside of the United States or Europe. But the last three years have yielded an average of only five aircraft, pointing towards a slow-down in demand. It's probably natural then that PAL is looking to China to boost sales. With the world starting to understand the benefits of single-engine turbo-props (SETP) and China's new GA industry flourishing (at the moment) we can hope to see some more good news coming from this NZ company soon.

Who got an e-mail from CASA's new on-line medical system telling them their medical was about to expire when it wasn't? (Sandy did see HERE) I did, and it both freaked me and made me see 37 shades of scarlett. It was helped a bit later when a retraction e-mail arrived apologising "for any undue concern". I calmed down and stopped my plans to deliver the mother of all tirades in this Last Minute Hitch. -  The new medical system kicks in on 21 March, and CASA is exhorting its virtues and how much time it is going to save. To me, it looks like it will actually take longer. There's quite a bit to go through, most of us (and I do mean "most") are getting on in years and were not schooled in the intricacies of digital communication from the day we were born, and as you get older, health and medical condition get a great deal more attention. So it seems the burden of time has not been eliminated, just passed from the regulator to the customer.
(Also reference P9 post HERE today)
May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

 
Also a little bit of goss from the Yaffa's resident Plane-spotter Dougy...

Observation Deck

18 Feb 2016

So we have a new Federal Minister for Transport in National’s Darren Chester. From what I hear it’s a promising appointment, though some are reserving judgement.
The trouble is that, no matter how good the new man is, the portfolio is simply too large; even without the additional responsibility of Deputy Prime Minister that Chester’s predecessor Warren Truss had to bear.

It’s hard to understand how something as big and important as transport gets lumped in with infrastructure. Surely it warrants a minister and department of its own. Once we had a Minister for Civil Aviation; and while we can't really expect that sort of cabinet attention these days, at the very least you’d think we could have a singular focus on transport.
The new minister inherits one of the best departmental secretaries in the nation’s capital, so at least there’s potent continuity.

{P2 Obs: I can confirm that the above paragraphs were edited, originally Dougy was under the misconception that DC was the minister in charge of the whole department - Department for Infrastructure & Regional Development. Then someone must have made him aware that Senator Fiona Nash was actually the senior minister of the Department, with DC in charge of Infrastructure & Transport.

This restructure IMO is a positive move and sees the 'Transport' heading make its way back, to where it should always have been, into the minister's direct remit.

See [/url]HERE for Department Ministerial page}

[url=http://minister.infrastructure.gov.au/index.aspx]Ministers for the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development

• 
  Senator the Hon
  Fiona Nash
  Minister for Regional Development
  Minister for Rural Health
  Minister for Regional Communications
  Deputy Leader of The Nationals
  Senator for New South Wales
  
  
• 
  The Hon
  Darren Chester MP
  Minister for Infrastructure and Transport
  Member for Gippsland
  
  
• 
  The Hon
  Paul Fletcher MP
  Minister for Major Projects, Territories and Local Government
  Member for Bradfield
  

We’ve also got a new chief commissioner coming up for the ATSB, with incumbent Martin Dolan stepping down soon. I believe ATSB Aviation Commissioner Chris Manning doesn’t want the top job, but I hear that another high-profile local aviation identity might well get it. If that turns out to be the case it will be very good for the industry to have two aviation people in the senior mix at the ATSB. - Further evidence that probably the most discredited public servant head - in the eyes of the Senate RRAT Committee, IOS & sectors of the MH370 commentariat - has accepted his Golden parachute. Hopefully the new Chief will bring back some much needed credibility & independence to the ATSB  

MTF...P2