Hi all,
A couple of points have come up from the February Board Meeting that need Vigilance by our members.
ADSB - This is back on the agenda. The upper air program has been implemented with an operational date of 2013. There is extremely strong pressure from the airlines to the authorities to implement ADSB now into the lower airspace. This will affect ALL of us. We must be very vigilant.
Airport Trigger Points. - Also from the airlines and CASA as a "safety issue". There are moves to have trigger points related to RPT movements into small airports. What this means is that when a certain airport has an RPT movement or volume ratio that reaches the "Trigger" point, that airport and the airspace around it, will be declared Class D airspace. This trigger point is rumored to be very low. This will exclude all our members who do not have a PPL license from the airport and the airspace around it. Once again we need vigilance from the membership.
ELT'S - There has been some concern about the mandatory requirement to carry 406 ELT'S from this March. I questioned Jim Coyne from CASA about this and his reply was that the CAO (Civil Aviation Order) mandating this requirement still has not been issued, and that after it is issued the standard twelve months grace period for compliance will apply. So in simple terms there is no mandatory requirement to carry 406 ELT's this year.
Note. Be aware that it is now illegal to activate the old 121.5 MHz units.
Rego. Stickers. - There is also some confusion about this requirement. Last year the board agreed to the requirement to have registration stickers. The reason for this is it had been found that there were many reported cases of unregistered aircraft flying. In most cases these were unintentional, but placed the owner at great risk not only from the regulator, but also from ligation should there be an accident or incident. In fact in recent years there were cases of aircraft judged to win prizes at Natfly, that were later disqualified because they were found to be unintentionally unregistered. It is hoped that the sticker will be a reminder to those, who for one reason or other, have forgotten to re-register their aircraft, and to provide a peer pressure means to encourage those who want to "free load" on our association to re-register.
There was no intention to have an AN, and this will be removed. The requirement is to have a sticker that is visible from outside the aircraft only. You can put the sticker wherever you choose, but it would be preferable to be on the left hand side of the aircraft. This is intended to be in its flying condition, so if an aircraft has covers at night that is OK.
John McK
