AUSTRALIAN April - May 2017 Vol 70 No 2 Price $7.75 incl GST
Happy 70th BEECH BONANZA We fly the
Bristell
PAC Expedition 350:
Space and comfort ! r WinIaN e y a ys a
W unw n o Oz Rscripti sub
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Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Australia MISSION STATEMENT AOPA stands for its members’ right to fly without unnecessary restrictions and costs. PRESIDENT Marc De Stoop mds@aopa.com.au IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT Phillip Reiss 0418 255 099 phillip.reiss@aopa.com.au VICE PRESIDENT & SECRETARY Spencer Ferrier 0437 747 747 ferlaw@ozemail.com.au VICE PRESIDENT & TREASURER Dr Tony Van Der Spek tony.vanderspek@aopa.com.au DIRECTORS Allan Bligh 0408 268 689 allan.bligh@aopa.com.au Peter Holstein 0418 425 512 peter.holstein@aopa.com.au Robert Liddell robert.liddell@aopa.com.au Neill Rear neill.rear@aopa.com.au Ben Morgan ben.morgan@aopa.com.au Bas Scheffers bas.scheffers@aopa.com.au Mark Smith mark.smith@aopa.com.au Peter John peter.john@aopa.com.au AOPA Youth Ambassador Michelle O’Hare youth@aopa.com.au MAGAZINE EDITOR Mark Smith editor@aopa.com.au ART DIRECTOR Melinda Vassallo 0413 833 161 melinda@aopa.com.au Advertising 02 9791 9099 advertising@aopa.com.au AOPA OFFICE Phone: +61 (0) 2 9791 9099 Fax: +61 (0) 2 9791 9355 Email: mail@aopa.com.au Executive Director Ben Morgan 0415 577 724 Membership 02 9791 9099 mail@aopa.com.au Accounts 02 9791 9099 accounts@aopa.com.au Address Hangar 600 Prentice Street Bankstown Airport NSW 2200 All mail: PO Box 26 Georges Hall NSW 2198 www.aopa.com.au ©AOPA Australia 2017. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without permission from AOPA. Printed by Graphic Impressions. AOPA by resolution of the Board has adopted database management practice that will allow selected and qualified aviation commercial interests access to the membership database for aviation promotional use that the Board deems acceptable as being informative to its members. The Privacy Act requires that members have the right to opt out of this marketing. Please advise the AOPA office if this is your desire.
Reporting Point Avalon is over for another two years and I know the organisers are very happy with the turnout on the public days. A combination of perfect weather and a new jet to watch conspired to create massive crowds and traffic chaos. What wasn’t on show in any large numbers were flight training schools. The main exhibition halls had a few airline pilot factories eager to entice new students into the world of commercial flying, but I couldn’t see much in the way of smaller operations. Is it the high cost of exhibiting, or that such schools simply don’t exist anymore? An idea that AOPA President Marc De Stoop came up with, which is also mentioned in our Avalon coverage, is for a dedicated Learn to Fly pavilion in the general aviation and sport flying area. For a much lower cost, schools could exhibit and promote aviation training to a marketplace other than people wishing to fly for a living. I believe there is a huge market in people whose kids are off their hands and have the spare money to finally learn to fly. Or those who did a restricted licence in 1978, then flew for 80 hours before the pressures of life consigned their log book to a dusty shelf, with the now grounded pilot over the years occasionally looking at its spine while wistfully remembering what it was like to be free. These people are out there. A newspaper story about the problems at Archerfield has highlighted the challenges flying training operations have on large secondary airports that were privatised in the early 1990s. Costs have spiralled completely out of control. I learned to fly in 1983 at Barwon Heads airfield outside Geelong. It had a pair of runways, with a single instructor, where students and qualified pilots could fly one of two 172s or a 150. CFI Barbara Begg had about 20 to 25 students at any one time. Ten miles to the west was Geelong Airport that also had a flying school and about 30 students at any time. While doing navigation training, flying into Essendon or Moorabbin was free and both airports had multiple training schools. Today Geelong has no flying training school, beyond the RAA operation at Lethbridge. The nearest location is Bacchus Marsh. Landing at Melbourne’s two secondary airports costs a fortune and the number of flying schools at both are dwindling. So my question is, where would the 40 to 50 students who were learning when I was, go today if they lived in Geelong? How many would bother with the drive to Bacchus Marsh? Apart from airline pilot candidates who are using HECS to pay for their instruction, who is going to add thousands to their training in landing fees by learning to fly at Moorabbin, Bankstown, or Archerfield? In this issue I have a story about Lilydale airfield. Its flying school is doing well because, apart from being a beautiful place to fly, it is outside controlled airspace and has no landing fees. A student straps in, taxis out and is airborne. The problem is this sort of school is becoming rarer as a combination of the land grab of developers and a growing population sees airfields eaten up and spat out as housing developments. Geelong Airport was lost that way. What’s the answer? For a start, unshackling the bonds of paperwork would help reduce the cost burden on GA flying schools. Allowing qualified GA flying instructors to simply hang out their shingle and teach people to fly would also go a long way to getting instructors back into country aero clubs. Another good move would be to wrest control of the airside and associated aviation infrastructure like offices and hangars on government-built secondary airfields from the developers and give it back to aviation. It can be done, and would reduce costs enormously while giving operators some certainty again about their future tenure. A lot was done badly in the years since I learned to fly. It’s time the political masters listened to an industry that is on its knees, held out its hand and helped it back up. Clear prop. Mark Smith, Editor www.aopa.com.au I AUSTRALIAN PILOT
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Contents » AOPA At Work
Calendar of Events
Bob Grimstead............................................. 52
President’s Report.........................................6
Events................................................................8
Stinson Style................................................ 56 Ferry Fun........................................................60
AOPA-Avalon Seminar............................... 12 AOPA at Avalon............................................ 14
Letters
Welcome Members..................................... 19
Letters to the Editor................................... 22
Badgery’s Creek.......................................... 20
Cover Feature The Beechcraft Bonanza ......................... 42
News Book Review: The Crash of MH370........10
Columns
Scholarships Available............................... 16
Five Reasons to Fly.................................... 34 Legal Eagle – Spencer Ferrier.................40
Features Avalon Airshow........................................... 24
Aircraft Review
Cirrus Jet....................................................... 32
The Expedition 350.................................... 47
Lilydale Airfield............................................. 36
The Bristell LSA........................................... 28
42
The Beechcraft Bonanza
46
The Expedition 350 4
AUSTRALIAN PILOT I www.aopa.com.au
AUSTRALIAN April - May 2017 Vol 70 No 2 Price $7.75 incl GST
Happy 70th BEECH BONANZA We fly the
Bristell
COVER: 1967 V35 Bonanza. Photo: Mark Smith
Warbirds
PAC Expedition 350:
Space and comfort IN!
Win a yearays
W nw n Oz Rucriptio subs
» FIRST AUSSIES FLY THE CIRRUS JET » AOPA’S AVALON SUCCESS AIRCRAFT OWNERS AND PILOTS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIAN WARBIRDS ASSOCIATION • HELICOPTER FRATERNITY
P40 Kittyhawk............................................. 63 RAAF Trainer Formation Team............... 68
AOPA AGM AGM Notice of Meeting..............................72
Membership Marketplace Classifieds......................................................77
AOPA Membership Form Join AOPA for Great Benefits.................. 81
Short Final Looking Back to Look Forward.............. 82
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Stinson Style
63
P40 Kittyhawk www.aopa.com.au I AUSTRALIAN PILOT
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AOPA AT WORK
President’s Report
Avalon 2017: A Resounding Success For AOPA AOPA had a great week at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon. Highlights to report to the membership were: 1. AOPA Pacific Forum Dialogue Conference. AOPA director Phillip Reiss organised our Q & A Conference at Avalon with heads of the government aviation agencies, along with AOPA principals. Speakers were CASA acting CEO/DAS Shane Carmody, Airservices Australia chief executive Jason Harfield, ATSB chief commissioner Greg Hood, AOPA New Zealand president Ian Andrews and AOPA Australia executive director Ben Morgan. Unfortunately Phillip had not recovered sufficiently from back surgery to moderate the conference and it took a lot to keep him away and ensure he complied with doctors’ orders to rest, Phillip, the AOPA membership and I thank you for all your effort and energy in putting the conference together. In Phillip’s absence, AOPA vice president Spencer Ferrier admirably handled the moderator’s duties ensuring the conference was conducted professionally and courteously. I want to publicly thank Airshows Downunder for providing the conference room facilities to AOPA free of charge, and thank the speakers for taking the time to address AOPA members on the multitude of very important issues facing GA. Two things stood out for me from the conference proceedings. They were: a) Ian Andrews’ knowledge, reasoning and solutions for Class 2 Avmed reforms. Ian leads the international AOPA push for unified Class 2 or PPL medical reform in a worldwide, harmonised way pushing ICAO engagement. Let’s do this reform internationally. As someone once said; do it once and do it right. Ian is reporting a receptive ear at ICAO. b) Executive director Ben Morgan’s strong advocacy. Ben, on behalf of a member, raised the issue of a very long-standing and unresolved litigation case between the member and CASA with Shane Carmody. I’m pleased to report that within a week of the conference CASA lawyers approached the member’s lawyers for a settlement. This demonstrates that CASA and AOPA can work effectively together. We do however still have a problem convincing CASA that there is a massive amount of work to do on regulatory reform to revitalise general aviation. You can’t fix a problem if all the stakeholders don’t accept there is a problem in the first place. It’s my view that is where general aviation is at. The government, department and the agencies have not publicly acknowledged,
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AUSTRALIAN PILOT I www.aopa.com.au
in any meaningful way, the extent the problem. I do sense, however, that Ben Morgan’s high profile media campaign message is starting to hit home. The minister has commissioned a study to try and get independent advice on the state or health of general aviation. It sounds like Yes Minister stuff but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt for now that his intentions are well-founded and he wants to help. The minister has also personally intervened to chair the Aviation Industry Round Table rather than it being charged by a department representative. This will give industry representatives direct access to the minister, which is a very welcome move that has to help long term. Those of us who work day-to-day in the industry know Stevie Wonder walking around YSBK could see the massive decline in GA activity over the past 20-30 years. Aircraft movements have dropped from 550,000 to 170,000 and airfield employees from 8000 to 2000. It beggars belief that we still have to convince all in Canberra of the problems. 2. Aviation Industry Round Table Minister Darren Chester invited me to a closed-door round table conference at Avalon, along with the heads of the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, CASA, ASA and ATSB and other peak general aviation industry bodies. It is clear the minister wants to be personally involved in discussions with the GA industry rather than simply receiving a report from the department and agencies. This can only be a positive move. There are no results to report yet but it is definitely a move in the right direction. At the round-table conference I requested a meeting with him to discuss our Project Eureka policy reform agenda. AOPA will continue to push a very high profile public and media campaign to propagate reform. I’m happy to sit at any table with any level of government, including the Senate crossbench to develop regulatory reform. Without dialogue and engagement there is no hope for solutions. Some may say we are wasting our time but I say nothing ventured nothing gained. 3. Avalon AOPA Village I want to publicly thank Ben Morgan, the AOPA executive team and all the AOPA volunteers who manned the village for six days during the show. It was the most professional AOPA event I have ever seen. AOPA directors Mark Smith, Bas Scheffers, Dr Tony van de Spek, Allan Bligh and Spencer Ferrier
AOPA AT WORK
Marc De Stoop AOPA President mds@aopa.com.au
were also there to provide information to the many members who enjoyed our area. The media interview room, branding, sales apparel, food, flight simulators, OzRunway and Rusty Pilots seminars were well-received by members. It was a well-planned and executed event. Every member I met congratulated us on the village. Even though we were left off the official program and not in a great position we still managed a magnificent turnout, particularly on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday public days. This convinced me we need to continue to be at Avalon. I want to thank Schofields Flying College for sending two aircraft and instructors to the show to help us. On other matters: a) Ben Morgan and I met with Archerfield Airport general manager Heather Matters. She has reached out to AOPA to start a cooperative dialogue about how the GA industry and the airport can better support one another. We will report back if we can secure a better deal at Archerfield for AOPA members. b) Membership numbers have significantly increased over the last month. Have a look at the very large list in this edition of AP. It’s the largest number of new members since I’ve been associated with AOPA. c) Virginia Thornburg recently joined the AOPA team to focus on membership renewal, an area of previous weakness for the organisation. I’m pleased to report Virginia has had immediate success in signing up 480 renewals in her first month at the helm. Well done Virginia!
A big thank you to our dedicated AOPA volunteers at Avalon. Virginia Thornberg George Thornberg David Lake Grant Halinan Greg Nugent Rob Cummings
d) During Avalon Airshow week we signed up 81 new members. Outstanding result.
Laura Wallace
e) Ben Morgan is in the final negotiations for a membership partnership cooperation deal with Schofields Flying Club that will see its entire membership of 460 join AOPA. This is a very exciting development and vindication of the work the AOPA Board has been carrying out to turn the association’s membership numbers around.
Steve Vischer
We want to deliver this sort of outcome around the country. And don’t forget to look out for the new AOPA website, which will be online by the time this edition of Australian Pilot is on the stands. Safe flying!
Peter Morgan David Hales Sharon Sebastian Phil Buckley Norma and Frank O’Hare Michelle O’Hare Richard Talbot Rob Lawrie
Marc De Stoop President www.aopa.com.au I AUSTRALIAN PILOT
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