How does this fit in with the mantra of "minimum regulation, maximum fun". The aptly named "Canberra Club" are leading RAA down a path to oblivion. If these weight increases come to pass we loose the major "point of difference" we currently have with the GA brigade. RAA will become another CASA. They already are mimicking CASA with their confrontational bull at a gate attitude to change. What have we become? We are powerless to intervene as we have no regional representation and with a 6 man board no hope of any resistance or hope of change to policy. There is no wonder that RAA cannot run a flyin on their own anymore, they are on the nose and everyone can smell it. We are being made to jump through hoops that no one else in aviation has to ie Human Factors, Level 1 maintainers course, weight and balance and what about Jabiru restrictions (which they should have fought tooth and nail against) but assisted CASA. I could stomach 750kg MTOW but why do we need a fleet of 60 plus year old spam cans on our register?. All of these things only benefit someone trying to empire build and enhance their CV. Linke will keep making changes, then leave for a bigger pay packet an leave RAA members to pay for his whims.
We have 8500 members and 3500 aircraft on our register, the income from this should be enough to run RAA. If not then we are outreaching our capabilities and should rein in our spending on unnecessary initiatives which we seem to have to comply with regularly just to please our masters.
We no longer have a body which can keep CASA at bay but cowtow to their every wish - ex RAA employees who have sold out to (working for) CASA are slowly but surely screwing us to the wall, every week they have a lunch meeting with RAA staff to canvas their tyranny and we stupidly go along get shafted - WTF!.
I say pull back on the BS and support the mantra under which we were initially known and successful with.