Proposal to develop a tailored set of maintenance regulations for general aviation - (DP 1809SS)

Licencing - (anomalies in approvals and lic categories), lack of commercially available training to achieve particular licencing outcomes impact on our ability to operate here and OS. We use OS licensing and registration wherever possible to ensure we stay commercially viable Regs - lack of alignment of CASA regs with the regs of other States (NZ, FAA, EASA) both in content and in coding. If you work under different regulators then the compliance referencing is a major overhead in producing procedures manuals for the same maintenance procedures on the same aircraft types across different regulators Policy direction, attitude and risk aversion within CASA - the current regs provide a myriad of ways to stop things from happening. The obsession with safety as the primary driver of regulation, coupled with the departments approach to shedding any potential liability and avoiding all risk (corporate or individual) means that there is no incentive to view GA from a commercial perspective or to take responsibility for allowing operators to carry out particular operations. CASA should be a partner in the development of the industry and not a barrier to innovation and entrepreneurial activity. The level or regulation and the way it is applied is (arguably) suitable for the QANTAS/Virgin end of town but not suited to the family owned businesses that have been the backbone of GA. CASA officers have no incentive to promote commercially viable safety options for GA operators. Rule interpretation - there are widely differing interpretations and opinions about how the regs are/should be applied in a range of circumstances. I've been in meetings where the CASA reps have had a discussion about what and how a reg or regs actually mean and what is required from an operator and left not knowing how it will be treated in subsequent applications. I have tremendous respect for many CASA officers but they operate in an environment where they have no support for thinking outside the box. They have been left to defend the parapets against criticism of rule changes (e.g. 61, 66 141/2, 138) with very little ammo or armour.

The only way to reduce cost and red tape while ensuring safety is to allow the operators the freedom to be safe. The regs assume every operator is trying to subvert the system and run around in unsafe aircraft. Somewhere between no regulation and QANTAS there is a sweet spot of self regulation with a supportive partnership with CASA to protect the GA using pubic while still allowing people to make money. The regulatory compliance overload can take valuable time and resources away from actually flying an airworthy aircraft in the safest way possible - particularly where the safety levels being promoted are not seen as essential at GA level. The best combination based on my experience would be the PNG rule set (developed from the NZ CAA rules) which is clear and relatively plain english matched with the US FAA approach to rule interpretation which is based on a commercial imperative as well as a safety imperative - they try to assist to make the rules work so that something can happen, not to try and stop it happening (and their rule set allows them to do that); and combined with the TC approach to safety which is to work on the operators providing their own front line QA and SMS to manage safety which TC then monitors and audits. If international compatibility is the key objective then using the FAA rule set would have the best possible benefit of having the CASA regs recognised more widely overseas in countries where the FAA licencing and certification is already recognised. Overhauling the rule set to bring it into line with either FAA or PNG/NZ or whoever is only part of the equation - the attitude to applying the rules and the degree to which CASA wants to partner with the industry rather than stay at arms length will be the key to success in any change. Unfortunately the use of the faas rule set with current CASA direction would be the worst of all worlds. Apart from making commercial viability an imperative, a clear direction for making the rules acceptable to OS jurisdictions (via ICAO) should also be a high priority to facilitate the movement of engineers across state boundaries to meet labour shortages.

Huge benefit in terms of using a system widely recognised around the world. easy, proven, linked to most if not all manufacturers, we already use AD's and SB's from the US as well as aircraft certifications, type certs etc. Their system is predicated on operators operating commercially and on reducing the transactional overheads of compliance. Every change has to have a business impact statement to look at the commercial realities of enforcing a change. Their system allows the training and authorisation of non-licensed personnel to carry out basic maintenance functions which has huge implications for labour shortages in key areas.

Very difficult to realise benefits if the US rules are coupled with CASA's current approach as a regulator. The regulator has to use the regulations to facilitate activity for the US system to work. Many of the rules are open to interpretation and without a commercial dimension as well they may not end up any better than the ones we have. Their inspectors have way more individual responsibility to sign off on approvals etc than CASA

NZ (or the modified version used in PNG) are excellent - clear, unambiguous, logical and tailored to GA. They match with FAA but are more clearly written.

Good in the local region but not recognised outside NZ and PNG. We would just go from one incompatible system to another. Still requires a commercial dimension to interpretation and implementation

Europe don't know what GA is. There are no benefits to adopting either their cutoff points for what constitutes GA or their regs generally. Very unlikely that a change to EASA by Australia would actually be recognised by EASA - unless it was to get up the americans noses!

Lots - don't do it

Key thing about the Canadian system is their approach to monitoring of operators which is to monitor the operators QA and SMS to ensure it is picking up gaps and issues within the operation.

Their regs are more strict and have the potential to add more red tape and bureaucracy if implemented badly

I have outlined some of this in the previous boxes. I believe the NZ/PNG rule set is the clearest and most elegant of any of them (and probably the most recent. The work done in extending the NZ rules to PNG was excellent. The FAR's are tried and true and reflect the way in which business in encouraged in the US generally. The way in which FAA applies and interprets the rules is the key to its functionality. Canada has possibly more restrictive rules than Aust although the TC application of them maybe provides the level of flexibility they need. Their approach to safety monitoring is excellent - monitoring the operators QA and SMS rather than actual operations on the floor gives the operator back responsibility for how they run their business and involves them more intensively in safe practices.

They don't work well outside Canada