kgwilson

The safety practices in workplaces changed when people were encouraged to identify incidents, not just accidents, with no blame being laid. Proper investigation of serious incidents with potential for an accident then resulted in changes to practices, procedures and other preventative measures. It changed the culture dramatically and resulted in far safer places of work.If the same happened in our aviation industry then there would be decent changes realised. The trouble is some people make loud noises with poor facts and then the regulator jumps out of the trees with a large stick and belts everyone senseless. CASA needs to change the way they react if they want people to provide proper reports and enable decent investigation to happen. Only then will there be a real change in the way that problems will be properly managed.

then he goes on about 3000 less members and another $600K hole.Real doom and gloom stuff

In regard to the stats, CASA has stated in its 2nd release extending the response period it doesn't have the details. The number 40 came from a press report in Bundaberg. See my post No 375. The original 0.03% amounted to 27 based on 90,000 movements as reported by RA-Aus in its first email. Then the figure is quoted as 28 by Ra-Aus in its second email. Then I read it was 29 but can't remember where that came from. My post No 508 asks the questions about stats. The other figure from Jabiru itself is 35 through bolt failures out of 3665 engines produced since 2005. That is all we have at this stage. Jabiru says they have been sending engine tear down data to CASA for years but CASA somehow have no information. No-one has any real statistical data or if they have they are keeping them to them selves or have lost or misplaced it.

I asked the questions of what stats CASA had to back up its draft instrument in my Email to Lee Ungermann. No response yet other than release 2 which waters down the original "high and increasing rate of failure" to

"pending identification and rectification of the causes of what appears to be an extraordinary high rate of partial and

complete Jabiru engine failures." See the Monday release below

http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_assets/main/newrules/download/cd1425ss-clarification-extension-consultation-period.pdf

The stats that have been released are extremely broad brush and meaningless. How many full failures, how many partial, what was the actual problem and more importantly what was the cause. If they have 27 to 29 incidents it can't be that hard to provide more details than they have.

All CASA has said is what I asked them in my submission. Are the causes design faults, are they assembly faults, are they pilot induced (no warm up, overheating due to slow climb out, detonation, pre-ignition fuel starvation etc) are they poor adherence to maintenance procedures, are they just poor maintenance or poor quality maintenance, is the fuel of correct grade, quality & freshness. The list goes on and then there are the comparisons with other engines again without any detail or specific statistical evidence. So from an initial knee jerk reaction to a "we are know thinking about things" 2 page soother document adding an extra week there is still no more information available to the Jabiru engine owners and the rest of the flying fraternity than before.

My apologies if the has already been posted (from Bundaberg News)"

AFTER 40 engine failures in the past 12 months, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has proposed to limit operations on Jabiru powered aircraft.

 

Under the consultation draft proposal CASA stated that all aircraft powered by engines manufactured by, or under licence from, Jabiru Aircraft Pty Ltd should be limited to day flights under the visual flight rule, unless approved by CASA, prohibit the carriage of passengers, prohibit the use of Jabiru powered aircraft for solo operations by student pilots and restrict flying over populace areas.

 

Jabiru production manager Jamie Cook said it disagreed with the draft proposal.

 

"They're not grounding the aircraft or engine but they are severely limiting the use of the aircraft," he said.

 

Mr Cook said CASA conducted a routine audit in July to ensure it was still complying with all the standards which it was.

 

"Then two weeks ago CASA advised us that it required an urgent audit which we agreed to," he said.

 

"Last week Jabiru was advised of this proposed instrument which it wanted Jabiru to self-impose and we disagreed and refused."

 

A spokesman for CASA said it had spoken to Jabiru about what needed to be done to fix the problem.

 

"While that process is being worked through we believe that we need to take steps to protect aviation safety," he said.

 

"It is still a consultation draft and until we make a decision Jabiru can operate normally."

Why should they not ignore CASA from even this thread there seems to be a hell of a lot of customers that have been ignored by jabiru. I wouldn't be surprised if they took the same approach.....I know many companies just in the industry I am involved in who ignore the regulatory body....I didn't say it was a good idea but some CEO's think they are above criticism just because they think they know whats best especially when they are big in the market place

How do you know that CASA hasn't been speaking with jabiru already about this and they basically ignored them? This way CASA does grab their attention. Everyone has assumed CASA has done this out of the blue....maybe not

Be aware - if you use change.org you may get pestered with emails about every dammed issue on the planet, I sure did.

RAA was in possession of the only full statistics, and CASA receive those statistics progressively, and would already have had the same statistics as RAA.In my opinion RAA acted prudently, rather than waiting for CASA to get in first, and the present action looks a LOT more professional than the Audit saga.

The letter from RAA was reported here some weeks/months ago, and I can't recall anyone raising any objection to it.

 

So the situation is that RAA becoming aware of a risk trend, took action to report that risk to the appropriate Authority to address it.

 

CASA were not set up to move on an industry as a result of comments by either Motz or weasels.

 

What CASA have done is produce a Draft, as they produced a Draft recently for Angel Flight which met with a similar hysterical response.

 

For those who don't understand what a Draft is, is is a document for discussion/checking which is open to change.

 

I understand the people in the Angel Flight community are happy with their outcome, and following the first meeting regarding this draft, positive reports are coming through, and the process appears to be continuing along the paths the industry would expect.

CASA should have been talking to Jabiru & RA-Aus who were providing the statistics to get a process moving to address the issues as the statistics began to mount. If they were doing this then the only reason to create this DRAFT would be that a roadblock or stalemate had been reached. RA-Aus was certainly not aware of the issuing of the DRAFT until it happened on Thursday as stated in their Email to members on the same day.

The "Big Stick" approach is precisely what was identified in the Forsyth Report. Issuing the DRAFT may have got everyones attention and evoked a certain level of hysteria but in my opinion it is a very poor attempt at issue resolution. The effect has been one of getting many peoples backs up which then often produces irrational response.

To a large degree this is what should be expected from CASA as there has been little time since the publication of the Forsyth Report to implement any real culture change.

The following is taken from the Forsyth Report Executive Summary which I believe is they key issue that needs to be implemented within CASA, ASAP.

"The current relationship between industry and the regulator is cause for concern. In recent years, the regulator has adopted an across the board hard-line philosophy, which in the Panel’s view, is not appropriate for an advanced aviation nation such as Australia. As a result, relationships between industry and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) have, in many cases, become adversarial.

Leading regulators across the world are moving to performance-based regulation, using a ‘trust and verify’ approach, collaborating with industry to produce better safety outcomes and ensuring the regulator stays in touch with rapidly advancing technology and safety practices. On occasions, individual operators may push the boundaries and require close regulatory oversight and a firm regulatory response. An effective risk-based regulator will judge when a hard line is necessary.

A number of countries with advanced aviation regulatory systems have developed collaborative relationships between their regulators and industry, leading to open sharing of safety data. Due to the present adversarial relationship between industry and CASA, Australia lacks the degree of trust required to achieve this important aim. Sharing safety data is a fundamental principle of good safety management.

The Panel concludes that CASA and industry need to build an effective collaborative relationship on a foundation of mutual trust and respect. Therefore, CASA needs to set a new strategic direction. The selection of a new Director of Aviation Safety should concentrate on finding an individual with leadership and change management abilities, rather than primarily aviation expertise. Other jurisdictions have appointed leaders without an aviation background, who have been successful in changing the strategic direction of the safety regulator."

One of our Jab SP6 owners has an early thick finned head 3300 which has about 900 hours on the clock. It has had no issues other than regular maintenance, nothing other than a CHT with the probe under the rear spark plug & it has been run on BP 95 all its life. Another with a J 230 has fiddled with it all the time, run it on just about every type of fuel available, cruises at 3000 rpm, never warms it up before takeoff & has had quite a few issues but he won't say what they are.

I beg to differ. The through bolts are still breaking .

My information is that a large part of the discussion revolved around the through bolt failures. This of course has been dealt with other than for owners who did not take up the Jabiru offer in the allotted time. I would think that the outcome of this particular issue would have been a win for Jabiru.

Until someone tells us what was the cause of the 27 failures or partial failures there is basically no evidence to support the CASA proposed restriction. It appears at least one of these was fuel starvation, hardly an engine issue. How many can be traced to poor maintenance regimes, how many were due to poor cooling including full power slow climb rates. I suspect many of these are FTF owned aircraft. It doesn't matter what the instructor says. Once the student is solo the instructor has no control over how the student treats the engine. This is something that won't appear in the Rotax stats due to the partial liquid cooling system & appears much less in Lycoming/Continental etc due to their much larger mechanical tolerances. Maybe this is the biggest problem, the engines are not idiot proof. There are so many possible issues but we have been given no information. I'll bet CASA has none either just the basic numbers released by RA-Aus.

Now what about me. My 3300 engine is a couple of weeks away from being run for the first time. As a home builder under 95.55 I could stick anything in the engine bay. I think CASA would have a hard time enforcing the proposed restrictions on me.

I think Ungermann has an agenda somewhere & it is not just to get Jabiru to get its sh1t together. I understand he was at Dubbo for a CFIs meeting where many Jab operators were present, said nor discussed anything & then flew directly to Canberra for the meeting.

Lastly sign the petition & email Ungermann. I have.

CASA are NOT attacking Jabiru, nor are they trying to destroy Jabiru. Look at it from a different perspective rather than jump to Jabiru's defence.This is an opportunity from CASA who are willing to offer their resources to help Jabiru with the research and development to improve the Jabiru product. Most companies would love for that same luxury of access to those kind of resources.

 

Every single product has room to improve, nothing is perfect, not even Jabiru and their engines.

 

It would be very unwise to work against CASA, I can't name many companies, if any, who have succesfully done so and survived. Jabiru need to grab on to this and use it to their own benefit. If they wish to survive the next 12 months they need to work with CASA, improve the product, it really isn't a huge ask.

Where has Ungermann been these last 3 years? Why hasn't he been talking to Rod & Co & working with Jab to resolve these issues. This seems to me to be another standard adversarial approach to the industry as identified in the Forsyth report. In The US or UK or Canada or NZ the regulator & the manufacturer would have been talking about these issues over a pint after the first failure. No not here in good old OZ. We are CASA, we tell you what to do, we stick the knife in when you make a mistake, we make you look like crap & tell you that the high and increasing rate of failure (give us the stats) means we can justify our big brother approach. You will be safe when all aircraft cannot fly above ground level.

It is unfortunate that a small number of people who do the wrong thing ends up punishing a lot of people who do the right thing but other than having big net cannons on the sides of the runways to catch the offending pilots (which is probably illegal) I cannot think of another way that is fair to all who do pay to use the airfield.

Some good discussion since my post yesterday morning. Seriously though we should not be any different than GA owners relating to the availability of data to aerodrome operators. The public availability of address info is from an era before we all became "on line" but government & other agencies systems & processes have not kept up with the risks or perceived risks and our new obsession with privacy so they remain. Given that address details of GA aircraft owners is available here, in NZ, USA & the UK & probably most other countries it may have come from an old ICAO agreement or something.

Personally I don't have a problem with my details being on the register. I don't keep my aircraft in my garage so how would someone find it. I could also state my postal address as a PO Box number although I use that and the street address. There are plenty of other ways that my details can be accessed such as the phone book, electoral roll etc. If anyone was after an "expensive" aeroplane there are heaps more on the GA register worth way more than mine. Where is the evidence here to suggest extorsions or such things from someone having access to the register. Anecdotal comments that it has happened in the US or UK is hardly cause for major alarm.

The comment that it is only a small minority who do not pay landing fees is not true in my experience & those getting false invoices is also evidence of someone not using their own callsign.

The Avdata idea seems to be the best option af far as I can see.

If your aircraft is VH registered the owners (and the operator as this may be different) name and registered address is available on line to anyone. This should be the same for all Ra-Aus registered aircraft. In NZ all recreational aircraft are on the same ZK register as GA aircraft so details are available on line. The only difference is that RA aircraft have to be registered annually whereas GA aircraft are registered once but with registrations soon to be on line and regos to be extended to 2 years there should be no issue keeping it up to date.

Why do we have to be secretive about it? Having the register available to anyone including aerodrome operators will help keep our facilities maintained as pilots will know that if they do not pay they can be pursued for the fee.

There are plenty of pilots who almost go out of their way NOT to pay landing fees. We have an honesty box and plenty are not honest. When I see an aircraft arrive and speak to the pilot I remind them of the landing fee box & the fact that the aerodrome is maintained by users and not a cent is put in by ratepayers. Even then some see it as their god given right to use the facilities and not pay the measly $5.00 RA or $10.00 GA fee.

Four old timers were playing their weekly game of golf, one remarked how nice it would be to wake up on Christmas morning, roll out of bed and without an argument go directly to the golf course, meet his buddies and play a round.

His buddies all chimed in said, "Let's do it! We'll make it a priority; figure out a way and meet here early, Christmas morning."

Months later, that special morning arrives, and there they are on the golf course. The first guy says, "Boy this game cost me a fortune! I bought my wife a diamond ring that she can't take her eyes off of."

The second guy says, "I spent a ton too. My wife is at home planning the cruise I gave her. She was up to her eyeballs in brochures."

The third guy says "Well my wife is at home admiring her new car, reading the manual.

They all turned to the last guy in the group who is staring at them like they have lost their minds.

"I can't believe you all went to such expense for this golf game. I slapped my wife on the bum and said, 'Well babe, Merry Christmas! It's a great morning -- intercourse or golfcourse --'

She said, "Don't forget your hat."

Does the new director have all of the qualities as per recommendation 7 of the Forsyth report namely?

7. The next Director of Aviation Safety has leadership and management experience and

capabilities in cultural change of large organisations. Aviation or other safety industry experience

is highly desirable.

It would appear that he fits with the second sentence.

A friend of mine copies emails to me each week highlighting articles and stories from a website called www.boldmethod.com . I have been in & looked at quite a few and found many quite interesting. There are articles on all manner of flying issues, aircraft, training, videos, courses etc etc. Worth a look if you are a pilot, training or just curious.

A handful of 7 year old children in Australia were asked what they thought of beer.

There were some interesting responses, but the last one is especially touching.

'I think beer must be good. My dad says the more beer he drinks the prettier my mum gets.'

--Tim, 7 years old

'Beer makes my dad sleepy and we get to watch what we want on television when he is asleep, so beer is nice.'

--Melanie, 7 years old

'My Mum and Dad both like beer. My Mum gets funny when she drinks it and takes her top off at parties, but Dad doesn't think this is very funny.'

--Grady, 7 years old

''My Mum and Dad talk funny when they drink beer and the more they drinkthe more they give kisses to each other, which is a good thing.'

--Toby, 7 years old

'My Dad gets funny on beer. He is funny. He also wets his pants sometimes, so he shouldn't have too much.

--Sarah, 7 years old

'My Dad loves beer. The more he drinks, the better he dances.

One time he danced right into the pool.'

--Lily, 7 years old

'I don't like beer very much. Every time Dad drinks it, he burns the sausages on the barbecue and they taste disgusting.'

--Ethan, 7 years old

'I give Dad's beer to the dog and he goes to sleep.'

--Shirley, 7 years old

AND THE BEST RESPONSE

'My Mum drinks beer and she says silly things and picks on my father.

Whenever she drinks beer she yells at Dad and tells him to go bury his bone down the street again, but that doesn't make any sense.'

--Jack, 7 years

Why use a surface preparation and then use a etch primer? the organic acids [in the etch primer] will remove any such surface prep including alodine. Just use a two pack epoxy primer .If you want to use an etch primer just clean [aluprep] the surface to be painted.Cheers

"PreKote cleans the surface to be painted while enhancing the adhesion of coatings and improves corrosion protection - all with a superior, non-hazardous and safe technology. This easy-to-apply process deposits a molecular layer that bonds to the surface of metal or composite material. This layer allows the coating, when applied, to get closer to the substrate surface than traditional pre-treatments creating a stronger bond with the surface.

PreKote also provides a polar/non-polar molecule that attaches itself to permanently imbedded contamination; this molecule attracts the coating. In contrast, traditional conversion coatings containing heavy metals such as chrome or zinc have no mechanism by which to attach themselves to permanently imbedded contamination. Since the coating cannot attach itself to those areas, it is a common cause of coating blisters, outgassing (pinholes), skips, etc."

Bruce,

I am about to start painting my Sierra & as anyone will tell you preparation is the most important part.

The best aluminium preparation product, used on all US military aircraft & by most manufacturers is Prekote from Pantheon Chemicals. It replaces alodine or any chromate product & is non toxic unlike those other products. It can be used on all metal & composite surfaces. It is applied with fine scotchbrite pads & lathered up. This is done twice without rinsing & then a full water rinse. I got a 1 US Gallon container from Aviall via a LAME as they won't sell to Joe Public but it can be purchased from other Aviation retailers. Not cheap but no really good products are.

Within 24 hours you then use a good quality epoxy etch primer. I am using Hi-Chem Super Etch. Another is Wattyl Super Etch. Just make sure it is an Epoxy. Once this is applied you can wait months before putting on base coats & finish coats. The primer seems to take about a week to fully etch the metal as even after it is dry & hard you can still scrape it off with your finger nails but once it has aged it is there forever. Check out www.pantheonchemical.com

Kevin

I have a facebook account as a lot of friends and family have one but in fact I rarely use it. The problem now is that for some it has become a medium for abuse and ridicule of anything they don't like. For the vulnerable that can cause quite serious psychological harm and has been cited as being linked to youth suicide in a number of cases.

After the current committee of our Aero Club turned things around which included the expulsion of some trouble makers I set up a facebook page for the club. We got a torrent of abuse from a couple of people & even after banning them there were some things I was unable to delete & there was no assistance from the Facebook organisation. I deleted the page & won't go back.

Long term projections are that facebook is a fad like a lot of other uses of technology & will decline quite markedly in the next 5 years.

We now have a web site which is relevant, uncluttered, easy to navigate & at this stage no comments can be made. I will be setting up logins for members soon & it is great for letting everyone know what is on & also what they missed.

Rec Flying is great & where issues arise things are quickly moderated. I don't have twitter, instagram etc accounts. There are too many to count now & all they do is end up cluttering your email with rubbish about everything.

I have always had a very good relationship with ATC both here & in NZ. When training on an XC exercise my flight plan included Auckland International. The guys were great & everything went smoothly even though there was a B747 behind me, the minimum approach speed was 90 knots & the poor old C152 was flat out at 90 knots. Same when I was 45 miles out to sea & ran into an occluded front not forecast or known at the time & it was hosing down. They gave me every bit of help I needed even patching me in to commercial pilots flying way overhead to let me know what the weather below looked like. I could not be more supportive & in GA always flew in controlled airspace when I could as I knew I had another set of very professional eyes helping to keep me safe.