[Peetwo]

Nice work Peetwo, a tidy collection of articles, industry comments and tidbits relating to the often forgotten but highly necessary Whirlybird industry. To start with, the current growth rate of 0.62% is absolutely abysmal after the preceding years growth. Now as with any environment there are numerous factors affecting the Helo industry at the moment including belt tightening, the AUD, and the mining/resource slowdown, to be sure. However, the incessant and rampant molestation of the regulations including the Part 61 folly has caused the biggest damage. The Helo industry has been forced to grab it's ankles and a fully blooded CAsA has torn the industry a new one! Helo operations are extremely cost sensitive, most margins are small while outlays are high. All you need is Inspector Plod to come in armed with his red pen and comprehensive unworkable rule set and you end up with the current malaise - a section of industry haemorrhaging more than Farmer Truss's exit hole after a night on the brandy and vindaloo's.

I'm still willing to cut Skidmore a small measure of slack, at this point in time. It's still early days, he has some support in Boyd, and some of the whispers that I am hearing from around the traps of sleepy hollows executive structure is that the GWM are indeed trying to white ant him. So believe it or not that is a good thing! Why? Well it shows that Skates may just be trying to do the right thing. The GWM have never understood the industry coal face nor have they ever given a fist full of monkey crap about it. Then again they did that to Byron and Smith, so will evil triumph over good yet again? Going on past history one would say, unfortunately, yes. However in the past you didn't have someone like Boyd on the Board and you didn't have the same degree of senate pineapples that Nick, Fawcett and friends seem to have in their arsenal.

Personally I think this game has a few interesting hands yet to be dealt. Although this isn't the topic being discussed here, the fact that the CAsA/ATsB MOU has a very different 'wording' format to the previous one (those with a robust eye for detail will understand where I am coming from) could indicate that the 'previous author' who likely has a penchant for using intellectual PHD style writing as masturbation fodder, has been left mostly out in the cold when it comes to the most recent version. Will GA, the Helo industry and other aviation sectors survive the relentless CAsA buggery that has escalated in recent times? I don't know, the jury is still out on that one, but I do know that the clock doesn't have much tick left in it.

Cue the 60 Minutes stopwatch......tick tick tick tick

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More on Rotorhead woes this time from Paul Phelan:

CASA rulemaking uncertainty stalls rescue chopper plans

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Paul Phelan, April 4 2015

The South Australian government’s State Rescue Helicopter Service (SRHS) has been forced to cancel a request for proposals (RFP) to helicopter operators because of uncertainty over the future costs changes after full implementation of CASR (Civil Aviation Safety Regulations).

A letter from the SA Attorney General’s Department to interested parties has explained the department’s understanding that details provided to prospective tenderers were likely to be outdated while tenders were being prepared.

“I am writing to advise that, unfortunately, the State Rescue Helicopter Service (SRHS) Request for Proposal 13/1113 (the ‘RFP’) issued to you in January 2014 has been terminated. This takes effect immediately and is in keeping with the Bid Rules of the RFP.

Our decision to terminate the RFP follows the events and our learnings subsequent to the RFP’s issue, including:

• the likely combined consequence of regulation changes that Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) earlier forecasted to operators of rotary wing aircraft services, such as the SRHS;
  
• in December 2014, CASA confirming its intention and support to legislate those changes.
  
  

Our conclusion was the impending CASA regulation changes will demand similarly substantial changes to the SRHS requirements described in the RFP.

The end result is that it has left us with no option but to conduct a comprehensive reassessment of what the future needs of the SRHS will be and how to best meet them, taking into account the impending CASA regulation changes.

Subject to more certainty about the impending CASA regulations and SA Cabinet approval, our intention is to recommend a new approach to the open market in 2016, to meet the future requirements of the SRHS.

The multi-unit service has been operated since December 2005 on a seven-year contract with Australian Helicopters Pty Ltd. In a shared-user arrangement unique to South Australia, the service is used by SA police, bushfire management and emergency medical retrieval services to the SA community.

Asked about interim arrangements the SA Attorney-General’s office said: “At this stage we are unable to comment on the interim arrangements for the State Rescue Helicopter Service as it is subject to approval and finalisation.”

 
Cheers Paul...P2

Not quite hot off the press - actually not even mentioned in any sort of MSM outlet that I am aware of - was IMO an exemplary piece from Jim Davis the Chairman of RAAA in their Summer newsletter section titled..'From the Lefthand Seat'  (see my post here). 

Quote from that piece:

"...The old guard at CASA remains in place with no changes to senior management foreshadowed and no changes to the CASA board leadership until 30 June 2015. Most of the ASRR recommendations relate to CASA and will need CASA’s active involvement and support to implement them. It defies logic to have the management team that created the problems highlighted by the ASRR report to be charged with fixing those very same problems.

There is an obvious conflict of interest involved and for that reason alone this situation should not have been allowed to develop. We now have a CASA board leadership and incumbent senior management that firmly believes the ASRR report is flawed and we believe will contrive to discredit it and manipulate the Government’s responses to their own ends. Significantly, approximately half of the agreed recommendations are required to be finalized in the first half of 2015 while the CASA old guard is still in place

The Minister is to be congratulated for commissioning an excellent report, for selecting new board members with sound industry background and for replacing the Director of Aviation Safety. However unless something is done to bring forward the change in leadership of the CASA board and to restructure CASA senior management, all the good work so far may be largely undone. The Minister and the new DAS need to act now to ensure that the full intent of the ASRR report is delivered and not subverted by technical or legalistic arguments. In particular those items agreed to in principle should be given a fair and objective response, preferably with input from the report’s authors, and not just put on the shelf..."  



P2..