old man emu

That plane is as flash as a rat with a gold tooth!

OME

Great Dad Joke!

How many kid you got?

OME

Gareth,

It's fine pitch for take off and coarse for cruise.

Nice build work.

OME

Sweeet!

Speaking of newly released books, I've just bought Fromelles - The Final Chapters which deals with the identification of the Australian infantry soldiers killed during the Battle of Fromelles on 16 July 1916. It's not an aviation book, but puts the finishing touches to the story of the Battle of Fromelles and the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of our troops. The story of the search was initially told in Fromelles by Patrick Lindsay published in 2007.

MM please post the author's name and who published "The Wild Winds", and the name of the bookstore you bought it from.

OME

Scotty,

Buy a copy of Airplane Trader. There are people who advertise containerisation and transport of aircraft from the US. All you have to do is ask. There was one bloke who was doing a fair bit of shipping out of California all around the world, but he swapped his pilot's nav bag for a set of wings and a harp a few months ago. (Natural causes I believe). Try ringing the mob I used to work for and ask Dave.

OME

A proper magnetic compass would have to be swung and corrected and a deviation card installed. Somewhere there would be a table of tolerences allowed. Nev

The only real correction a compass needs is to be corrected for Northern or Southern Hemisphere dip in the Earth's magnetic field. Swinging the compass provides the data to produce a deviation card. As long as the data is good. it doesn't matter if the compass is consistently one or two degrees off, or if it is 10 - 15 degrees off all the time. As long as the pilot can use the information provided by the compass to follow a planned course, it doesn't matter how far off actual it is.

How would you define "fitted" other than its being in the same location every time it has to be used. You can always put a bit of Velcro on a level surface and another on the back of the compass and secure it that way.

OME

Why not go to a good camping equipment store and buy a good quality prismatic compass? You can carry it in a map pocket in the cockpit for reference if the GPS fails. The Regs only say that you have to carry a magnetic compass. They don't say anything about referring to it during Day VFR flight.

You will still have to do a compass swing to work out the compass' deviation and to make a com[ass deviation card.

OME

In another thread we were told that the airport at Cahuna in Victoria has recently been upgraded so that it can be used by the air ambulance. In that thread a comment was made that this news item would show the general public that local airports are a very important community asset.

Here's an idea ... Why don't a lot of you northern Victorian and Southern NSW fellows get together and arrange to all fly into Cahuna one Saturday and have a big get together. You could contact the local Press and tell them that you are all coming in to celebrate the upgrade and to highlight the importance of airports like Cahuna's.

Old Man Emu

How's ya melons?

Scotty,

Wiltshire Engineering on Bankstown Airport are the people the company I worked for use. Very experienced, and the carby will come back with all ADs done. Don't expect to get out of this cheaply of the carby has some wear.

Ring Bob Gray on 02 97904107.

OME

The Coroner is also charged with investigating the circumstances of the death.

Have you ever prepared a Report to a Coroner in relation to an aviation fatality?

OME

You've got the horse before the cart. Unless a State police force has a dedicated accident investigation team which would attend a serious/fatal Rec Flying incident, the local bloke would happily accept the assistance of an independent investigator, suitably certified by RAAus, to assist in preparing the necessary reports. If the incident involved a fatality, then the local Coroner would be wise to accept this assistance. For Coroners to automatically OK this independent assistance, all it needs is a Deed of Agreement between RAAus and each Chief State Coroner. Arranging the agreement could be initiated by RAAus.

Also a fatality is the domain of a Coroner. It is the task of police, as agents of the Coroner, to investigate and prepare reports into the death. Therefore in the investigation into a death what the Coroner says, goes.

Any reports submitted to the Coroner are not usually available to the public until they are produced as information during the Inquest. However, I'm sure that in the interests of community safety, a clause could be included in any Deed of Agreement that matters having a significant effect on public safety could be published prior to the completion of the Inquest (probably on a 'no name, no pack drill' basis).

Old Man Emu

That's almost ready to sit in and make aeroplane noises!

The idea of 90 days is to shove the Board. It is designed so they can't be slack.

I can't see why the system can't be done in that length of time. The system document is an outline of how things are going to be done. I fully agree that completing the documentation of procedures, which is another thing altogether, would take a longer time. But the need is to get a guding system in place as soon as possible.

OME

Where to start, where to start.

The longest journey starts with the first step. (Attrib: Some Chinese guy who didn't have the bus fare)

You have taken the first step by identifying that there is no guiding system for RAAus. There should have been one long ago, as soon as the organization started to show signs of expansion. If a Quality Management System had been developed even 10 years ago, then the costs in today's money would have been lower. But that bridge has been crossed and burned. There is another one in the road ahead. What is to be done?

Here's my suggestion:

At the next General Meeting of RAAus the following motion could be moved, and seconded from the floor (or placed on the official agenda as a Notice of Motion)

That this meeting of members of RAAus directs the Board of Directors to establish, document and implement an Integrated Management System conforming to AS/NZS ISO 9001:2008, and covering all aspects of the Association's activities.

Notice should also be given that, should the above motion be carried, this supplementary motion should then be put:

That this meeting of members of the RAAus directs the Board of Directors to have the Integrated Management System ready for implementation ninety (90) days from the date of this meeting.

(NB: By using the phrase "covering all aspects of the Association's activities, I don't mean that such things as Safety Management Systems, Training Syllabus, Maintenance Requirements etc have to completed in the same time. There just needs to be a reference in the IMS policy that the RAAus will produce such documented systems.

The Integrated Management System defines the overall objectives of the Association, and sets out the managerial procedures to be used to reach these objectives.

Can it be done in 90 days? Yes. Taking it steady it might only take 90 hours to do.

Old Man Emu

The problem with the application of legal requirements to various industries is that those charged with oversighting them have not been instructed on the correct application of discretion.

You can see this ability to apply discretion in the comparison of a cop in the US, and a traditional UK constable.

The cop cannot grasp the concept of discretion. For a cop, it's a matter of yes/no (I was almost going to write black or white). They don't have the ability to see the grey. It's all push, shove and handcuff, without helping to solve the problem.

On the other hand, the UK constable has been taught how to apply discretion. Those constables carry limited weaponry, so they have to be able to control situations by talking and listening. Sure they make arrests, but how often do you see them depicted using deadly force and whacking on the handcuffs on detainees who aren't resisting arrest?

If the people charged with oversighting the myriad of laws in our world were told to be assistants in correcting errors rather than just punishing the person who made the error, then the objectives set by the legal requirement would be more universally met.

OME

How do other organisations that interact with a nationwide membership go about handling this governance/grass roots representation?

For instance, how does a Trade Union arrange these matters? How does AOPA do it? Pleanty of examples to look at and extract the best points.

OME

Yes, ISO 9001 is most commonly used in commerce, but the principles expounded in it are equally applicable to an organization such as RAAus. Just because RAAus is not meant to be a profit making concern as a commercial business would be, it still needs to have guiding principles to operate efficiently. After all, RAAus is producing a product: the ability for each member to engage in recreational flying.

It is the inefficiency of management that has drawn RAAus into the mire it wallows in today.

OME

These questions have to be answered:

1. Has the RAAus got a documented INTEGRATED management system that meets the criteria of ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems - Requirements?

2. If such a document exists, was it prepared by a person or persons who had the education, training or experience in light aircraft operations/maintenance, as well as business operations? (In other words, was the writer "competent" in the area of aviation overseen by RAAus?)

3. If such a document exists, when was the last time an independent audit was carried out on the implementation, operation and monitoring of the various requirements in the document?

4. If any audits have been carried out, were they conducted by a competent management systems auditor?

Having read all the various threads dealing with the management of RAAus, I have the opinion that the answers will be:

1. No

2. Cannot be answered since the answer to Q1 is "No".

3. Cannot be answered since the answer to Q1 is "No".

4. Cannot be answered since the answer to Q1 is "No".

And there, my dear friends is the root cause of RAAus' problems.

OME

Yenn,

Would you have tried to build a plane without having a set of plans?

It's the same thing for an organization to try to run without a plan to guide it toward its goals. The QMS and associated procedures are an organization's guide.

OME

Yes I apologise OME, I was looking at the avatar at the time; it should have been blokes.

OME

With the RAAus coffers being as full as they are at the moment, I believe that some budget expenditure to get the ship back on an even keel as soon as possible would be money well spent.

Be careful not to employ a company that has big overheads. Supporting the overheads is where it is going to cost money.

OME

Well you turkeys better write it because I think a lot of people are going to be very busy very shortly writing a workable SMS to underpin the safety standard.

Turboplanner,

I take offence at your use of the word 'turkeys'. And I'm not being comical here. You could have made you comment just as well by using a neutral term such as "blokes", 'fellows' or even 'members'.

In regard to a Safety Management System, this falls under the umbrella of the QMS. A proper QMS is a modular system that has modules for WH&S, Financial practices, Human Resources, etc, etc. In a proper system an SMS would follow the format of all the other modules.

Old Man Emu

As a postscript, I feel that the QM should be a dedicated position becausea) there is a lot of work to be done in setting up and maintaining a QMS and,

b) being dedicated to Quality, the incumbent will have no conflict of interest.

The work is in setting up the Procedures Manual. There's a lot of background research to do, but it's not impossible.

The first thing that an organization needs is a commitment from its governors to support the QMS. After that, they can give responsibility to a nominated member of staff to carry out internal audits. To ensure no conflicts of interest, the organization just has to appoint an independent audit to go through the place about once a year as a double check.

OME