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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