[Peetwo]

CASA is the Press -

Carmody Capers, via the Oz:

CASA chief Shane Carmody: reforms will help deliver safe skies for all

Drones are a new issue for CASA.

• Shane Carmody
  
• The Australian
  
• 12:00AM June 24, 2017
  

I’m pleased and honoured to have been appointed as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s new chief executive and director of aviation safety, and I’m amazed how Australian aviation has evolved compared to 2009 when I was last at CASA.

While Australia remains a global leader in aviation safety, I’m very aware that we face challenges brought about by continued growth and technological change.

My vision is for CASA to be an open and transparent regulator, one the aviation industry finds it easy to do business with. My conclusion after eight months as acting director of aviation safety is that achieving this goal is more a matter of reforming CASA’s systems than its people. I’m impressed by the dedication and expertise of CASA’s staff, their commitment to fairness, and where appropriate, firmness in overseeing aviation safety.

I’m keen to improve our service delivery. People coming to CASA for approvals, licences or certificates have every right to expect efficient, streamlined and timely service. We are making a concerted effort to make doing business with us simpler, by improving our systems and centralising data, such as online forms and payment, as well as reviewing licensing and certification policy.

And we’re seeing improvement. We have received valuable feedback, for example, on aviation medicals, which will inform changes to the system. We have delivered improvements in flight-crew licensing with more than 99 per cent of applications being processed within service delivery time frames and more than 85 per cent of aviation medical applications processed on time.

By streamlining our systems, and centralising data, we can focus more effectively on using this data to continue to improve aviation safety.

Aviation is moving into the world of big data, with thousands of gigabytes generated every day. Analysed correctly, this provides an opportunity to create a new proactive model of risk management. It’s a world in which otherwise latent hazards can be discovered hiding in the data of thousands of uneventful flights.

We will know even more about what is going on by looking at data, and we will engage openly and honestly with industry. We should strive to keep industry “in the loop” about the issues we see emerging from the data and from our broader sectoral analysis. We want to be able to take a risk-based rather than a kneejerk approach to safety management.

One important objective for me has been to reboot how we consult with the aviation community.

From July 1, I will establish a new consultation body — the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel — and I am pleased to welcome some of Australia’s most senior aviation leaders to the group.

Senior representatives from Qantas, Virgin Australia, the Australian Airports Association and the Australian Aviation Associations Forum have agreed to work together on aviation safety.

ASAP will provide CASA with objective, high-level advice from the aviation community on current and emerging issues with significant implications for aviation safety and the way CASA performs its functions. It will consolidate several existing forums, and become the avenue through which CASA seeks industry input on regulatory and policy approaches.

Most importantly, through the forum we will seek to agree on the objectives and policy outcomes — before we then call our technical experts to do the detailed work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has served on such panels in the past. Our work together will continue.

CASA’s overriding responsibility for aviation safety leadership, however, means that there will always be limits. We cannot appease everyone, nor meet every request. Regulatory activities are inherently challenging and CASA ultimately has to make the call on major safety questions.

My intention is that once we settle on a position we will stick to it and deliver on what we have said we will deliver. If we can do this, we will maintain the trust and respect of the industry as a whole.

A key recent challenge for CASA has been the growth of unmanned aircraft, popularly and irresistibly known as drones.

Drones have enormous potential for making aviation and society safer, by doing many of the repetitive and dangerous aerial jobs without risking human lives.

The economic benefits of this flourishing industry are considerable. However, this emerging industry poses challenges to us as the regulator because we now have to communicate with a new public — people who have had little or no exposure to aviation, and for whom concepts such as aviation safety for all users, restricted and controlled airspace and the safety of the Australian travelling public, are not front of mind. One of my priorities will be bringing this new group into the broader aviation community, so that together we maintain and improve Australia’s aviation safety performance.

Clearly we need to do things differently.

I know that many in the industry are fatigued by delays in some of our regulation reforms; our process has been too slow and too long, and not sufficiently focused on practical, common sense applications. But I am confident that by working co-operatively with the aviation community we can make positive progress and deliver effective change that delivers “safe skies for all”.

Shane Carmody is the chief executive and director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

And this week's LMH... :

The Last Minute Hitch: 23 June 2017
23 June 2017

My first thought when I heard about CASA's new Aviation Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) was that the industry needs a new committee like it needs more SIDs. However, if you ferret through the undergrowth you will find a couple of encouraging truffles amongst the mushrooms. First of all, this seems to be not so much a new panel as a consolidation of all the other consultative panels CASA has working for them. That has to be a good thing; fewer committees generally means fewer camels. Secondly (and this is a bit hidden in officialese), CASA has stated that issues will go to ASAP first before any work starts on solutions. If ASAP actually functions this way, it's a huge step forward for sensible regulation. It's part of human nature to identify a problem and one potential solution at the same time. CASA's problem historically has been that the solution was often unworkable, but Not Invented Here Syndrome has seen them ignore learned advice and cling doggedly to their ideas like Gollum to a gold ring. Ultimately, this panel is advisory and any action is purely at the discretion of the Director of Aviation Safety. He can choose to ignore advice and stick with the convenient solution, which, if done with regularity, will result in ASAP becoming the white elephant in the room.

 "Not Invented Here Syndrome has seen them ignore learned advice"

And so we could be looking at a few things happening come the start of July. Not only does ASAP kick in, but also the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE) is due to complete its study into general aviation. The outcome of this study has the potential to set the benchmark for Australian governments' attitudes toward general aviation for years to come. Have a look now at how the Labour Party still falls back on its Aviation White Paper. So, what will the report say? If the industry is right, it will say that jobs are at risk for a number of factors, and the government needs to do something to protect it. However, if BITRE's numbers don't add up to that conclusion, we can expect it to be used against us every time we call for government action. Mind you, if the track record of most reports and inquiries into aviation is to be continued, we can probably expect an announcement of an extension soon.

Also, nominations for the general aviation Wings Awards close on 1 July. That means you should just about be done with your submission by now and just polishing it around the edges a bit. During the week I was asked how a nominator could submit supporting documents. If you want to do this, e-mail them to me stevehitchen@yaffa.com.au and I will pass them on to the entire judging panel along with your web-based submission. So get cracking; time is of the essence.

And now we have some great news for a couple of Australian Flying readers! We recently ran subscription and Facebook competitions to win some really good gear, and these two have done just that! Rachel Hawke has scored a Lightspeed Gann flight bag valued at $399 for doing nothing more than signing up for our weekly newsletter.

Congratulations, Rachel ... this is a classy piece of kit. And Alexander Courtney has won a Bose A20 top-of-the-range noise-canceling headset worth $1400 for subscribing to the print version of Australian Flying ... and he got a great deal on Australia's premier GA magazine as well! Thanks to everyone who participated in these competitions, and stand by for news on your next chance to win big through Australian Flying.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

Read more at http://www.australianflying.com.au/the-l...5s3acs7.99

Standing by for incoming -


MTF...P2