Oscar

That article - really, an advertisement - contains the first ever putative date for the lifting of the restrictions that I have seen and I don't believe that CASA has ever made any such actual indication. As far as I am aware, all we have had from CASA amounts to fairly nebulous comments that can be summed up as 'a work in progress' and CASA has not - at any stage - indicated any metric by which they could justify lifting the restriction. I believe that Shine's commentary is at least in part designed to instill a sense of urgency amongst Jabiru engine owners to embark on some form of legal action.

In fact, CASA's action has presented itself with something of a Gordian Knot, for reasons which have been discussed at great length here. In that respect, I do believe that Shine has some justification for suggesting that there is no guarantee that the restrictions may be lifted at the end of June. Anecdotal information (from a well-informed source) suggests that some in CASA senior management are well aware of the situation in which it has been placed by its own rush to judgement and are not at all happy with the situation.

While it is blindingly obvious that CASA's action has done almost certainly tangible financial damage to FTFs and line-hire operators of Jabiru-powered aircraft, and probably less directly intangible damage to the value of Jabiru-powered aircraft, recourse to precipitate legal action may well not be the best first-line of offense. I believe that it would be a better course of action to at least first pursue with CASA any available lines of remediation of the situation by way of developing responses that actually repair the damage done. Simply threatening to hit CASA with massive legal action is fairly unlikely to achieve a negotiated solution(s); it is more likely to cause CASA to retreat to a 'hold the line' position.

I suggest that a better strategy overall, is for everybody to pause, work with RAA and others to achieve permanent resolution of the restrictions problem - then those who have good arguments to seek recompense for their losses, can take action. I recognise that this strategy provides very little comfort to operators who have been forced towards / into the wall by CASA's action in the short-term, but at the best of times legal action grinds exceeding slow and it is unlikely that a legal action even started tomorrow will have any useful effect on speeding up the resolution of the current situation - and may well be short-term counter-productive.

just not quite up to the standard of an "aircraft engine"

For what it's worth... my engine was recently on a test stand, running standard plugs and 95 ULP. Following a series of runs, it was idle for several weeks. At the end of that time, we went to fire it up for a demo run - it simply wouldn't start. By that time, the petrol in the test stand tank was around six weeks old (from the service station, no way of telling how long from the refinery!).

A couple of weeks later, Ian Bent was there, checked it over, carby settings correct. Changed to Iridium plugs - it started perfectly, and Ian's comment was that it sounded 'very healthy'. Still running the same batch of fuel...

This whole issue is a bit more complex than just a simple question of ethics.

Let me presage what follows by saying that passing on details of an individual's complaint to the relevant Govt. department on an issue over which they have jurisdiction concerning the action(s) of another Govt. department, as a result of which the complained-of 'other Govt. Department' would be placed in receipt of information that could prejudice their actions towards the complaining individual, is certainly unethical. By way of example: If I had been subject to, let us say, a determination of evading tax by the ATO and had a penalty placed upon me, that I then complained (on reasonable grounds) to the Attorney-General's Department was unconstitutional according to Section XXX of the Constitution and the A-G's Dept. had passed on my correspondence to the ATO, I think that would be extremely unethical. The result of the A-G's Dept. passing on details of my complaint could well see the ATO unleashing their hell-hounds onto me.

From reading Bruce Tuncks' post, it seems to me that what he proposed to the Treasury was that Commonwealth funding being applied to the regulation of recreational aviation in Australia was basically wasting resources. I happen to agree with that position; the impact on society in general from recreational aviation is miniscule and significant de-regulation of its activities would make not one jot of difference to society in general. As long as recreational aircraft are not operating in a way that has them causing the crashes of RPTs or falling into the midst of heavily-populated areas, even the fatality rate of recreational aviation in its worst years comes even within a bull's roar of say rock fishing or some other recreational activities, yet we have one of the most tightly regulated areas of activity. Far more people die and are injured in quad-bike accidents every year than in recreational/sport aviation, but we do not have the very considerable governmental cost of a dedicated team of people involved in the regulation of quad bikes...

If - and I am perhaps jumping to conclusions here - Bruce's letter to the Treasurer basically said: 'we, the actual participants in recreational aviation, don't want or even need this level of Governmental involvement our activities, it doesn't help anybody, and it's a waste of taxpayers' money' - it is simply a 'heads-up' to Treasury that here is an area where Govt. expenditure could be better spent elsewhere. I would call that a damn good idea.

Unless Bruce had specifically included information in his letter to Treasury that he has committed an offence that falls within CASA's purview to punish him, I don't see that he could be victimised by CASA even knowing all the contents of his letter. If Treasury had simply referred his comments to CASA saying, in effect: 'here's an argument that your expenditure on control of recreational aviation is a waste of money - tell us why he isn't correct?', I personally believe that that is a fair and reasonable exchange of information between Govt. departments.

It could well be that Bruce's letter to Treasury might kick-off a review of CASA's allocation of and need for Govt. resources. I think any reasonable person would expect Treasury to seek CASA's position rather than taking a unilateral decision to change the disposition of resources to its functions.

We don't have any of the 'source documents' by which to make a judgement on whether Treasury passing whatever information it did to CASA is in fact a breach of ethics; I think it is more reasonable to place this in the area of 'more information needed' before making pronouncements.

Listen to the "commentary" on this one:

Video of the landing at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/03/08/qantas-retires-historic-boeing-747-400-to-hars.html

It's just about as good as it gets, I reckon. If I could do half as well in anything I'd be walking away, rubbing my hands and saying: 'ok, you guys, now let's see YOU do better..'

Nev, I would agree that 'appears' is a key word, and I'll go further and suggest that anybody who has been on the receiving end of Rod Stiff's displeasure (and I have) would not be drawing too long a bow by having the distinct impression that he could create a battlezone over a friendly beer.. but that impression does not make it fact.

I was a Commonwealth Public Servant for 27 years, with a break as a consultant, before going into private enterprise. The Public Service is an absolutely hierarchical organisation and while I had many opportunities to contribute to policy development, in the finality, policy comes top-down. If one is specifically directed to act in a certain way, you have a choice of obeying the order or resigning your position - it's that simple.

Because of the legislative structure for the control of 'aviation', all forms of Sport aviation are forced to be politically aware. It is utterly pointless and entirely counter-productive to rail against the minutiae of the situation, and it is most certainly useless to target individuals who have no power to change the situation.

For the sake of the future of recreational / Sport aviation, I personally endorse the idea that 'bad' legislation / regulation should be fought tooth and nail with every weapon we can muster - but please: let's get the right targets.

Until there is some decent evidence that this was Ungermann's 'project', I believe that perpetuating the apparent blame onto Ungermann is possibly generating an urban myth and may well be quite negative to the development of better relations between Sport aviation management groups and the Sport Aviation oversight group within CASA. If, indeed, Ungermann was the progenitor and champion of this action and that is proven, then I would be happy to join the crowd drawing his hurdle towards the Tyburn gibbet, but I seriously believe that far more caution should be exercised at this time before hurling accusations around.

Consider, for a moment, that Ungermann, and in fact most of the Sport Aviation group in CASA owe their careers (both prior to and since joining CASA) to experience within the Sport aviation sector. While their specific experience with earlier iterations of RAA management may have been less than joyous, RAA has a (mostly) new and generally far more responsive and sensible Board. It does not make sense to me that the Sport Aviation group in CASA would deliberately seek to cut the guts out of the very 'client' group to which their existence is linked. Further, I suggest that the entire manner in which the CASA action was executed would - if the new DAS is to be taken at his word regarding his intent to change the combative culture of CASA on the lines advocated by the Forsyth Report and endorsed by the Minister - be career suicide for a relatively junior middle-manager. Perhaps Ungermann is a thrill-seeker in regard to his career but I am not aware of such a characteristic in his nature.

By comparison, I suggest that research into the nature and prejudices of the previous two DAS position occupants would point strongly to any explicit or implicit antipathetic policy towards Sport aviation has come from the highest levels within CASA. McCormick's reputation was pretty well understood; Farqharson's career in CASA ended - coincidentally? - with the promulgation of the CASA action.

We may well be given some more indication of CASA's current position re Sport Aviation and RAA in particular by the way in which CASA handles the FOI request for the data behind the action. However, to suggest that this whole affair is simply the result of a feud is I think very much out of left field and any such allegation should be discouraged unless there is believable evidence to back it up.

The Seabird Seeker was specifically developed for Powerline inspection work - and the camera (system) it carried for that work for Ergon Energy was valued at over $1m, I believe. http://www.seabirdaviation.com.au/pages/

Now owned by the Yanks and soon to be lost to the Australian aircraft industry.

That's it, I'm increasing my shares in the rivet company tomorrow!

I did speak to one of the CASA reps on their stand at Avalon.When asking about the restrictions I was told that CASA had 'more information than they have told at this stage'. I continued to question them on whether this should be applied to particular engines or variants of these and from the responses I got it appeared they were more focused on the manufacturer rather than any particular engine.

I was however assured many times that the instrument is definitely temporary and would be removed at some stage in the future...

 

However I did enjoy the free coffee from the CASA stand, looking on it as the only opportunity I'll ever get to get some of my money back from CASA.

Let's look at the possibilities:

Possibility A: the information that CASA holds does thoroughly support the action. If this is the case, then the release of the information not only demonstrates CASA's bona fides but also would provide extremely important facts to the operators of Jabiru engines, which can only improve the safety of their operations. There is no possible way that anybody could interpret CASA in effect saying: 'we know stuff about your engine that is a safety risk but we aren't going to tell you what it is' as being in any way a responsible position for the safety of all concerned. I fail to see that there could be any sensible reason for CASA to not release the pertinent information.

Possibility B: the information that CASA holds indicates a more serious problem than the action is designed to ameliorate. If this is the case, then CASA has obviously failed to exercise its power to adequately protect everybody at risk. It might be argued (by CASA) that if this is indeed the case, it has weighed up all the factors including risk, economic effect etc. on owners, operators, Jabiru and even CAMit, and attempted to arrive at a 'balanced' response. At a subjective level, I don't think there would be a lot of public (in this case, the aviating public) confidence that such a balanced decision is historically typical of CASA action; at the objective level, it is simply not in CASA's remit to consider economics, social consequences etc. - CASA's role is 'safety', pure and simple. If CASA holds information that obviously requires a more serious / restrictive level of action than it has currently taken then it would have demonstrably failed to exercise its power correctly in the performance of its statutory function.

Possibility C: the information that CASA holds does not reasonably support the action. In this case, the action places CASA in a position where it could be the subject of both or either of individual legal action by Jabiru/an owner/an operator (e.g. an FTF operating out of, say, Archerfield) or a major class action (and remember, CASA can be sued). Further, it would expose CASA to serious questions as to its competence to provide appropriate responses to apparent situations in terms of research, analysis, and the development of remedial action. I believe that it would also introduce serious questions as to the motive(s) behind the action which - and this is personal conjecture - might include either or both of CASA having a 'political' position regarding sport aviation or an apparent vendetta against a specific manufacturer.

I cannot think of any convincing reason why CASA should not release for general advice and consideration the information it claims to hold that it has used to validate the action it has initiated. It has provided no metric by the achievement of which the restrictions will be lifted, which to me indicates that it will make a subjective judgement on the issue - which I have to say appears to reinforce the view that the imposition of the restrictions was equally subjective.

This response by CASA to enquiries regarding the release of the information behind the action appears to directly negate one of the recommendations of the Forsyth Review - and one supported by the Government - viz:

16. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority finalises its Capability Framework and overhauls its training program to ensure identified areas of need are addressed, including:

a. communication in a regulatory context

b. decision making and good regulatory practice

c. auditing.

That Report was tabled in Parliament in July 2014, many months before the action. A new DAS, charged with implementing the Report, was due to take over the reins of the organisation on the next effective working DAY following the promulgation of the action. CASA will not release the information it states validates the action it took, and by the timing of the promulgation of the action it ensured that the new DAS did not have the opportunity to examine that data and endorse (or otherwise) the action.

To quote the Bard: 'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark'. That appears to me to have spread...

What complete ignorance. It is essential for adequate cooling to get a p-delta difference between the intake and the exhaust sides of the heads and barrels of around 2.5"; adding high-pressure air to the exhaust side of the cowl area will reduce the exhaust negative pressure and therefore reduce the p-delta significantly - possibly even stagnate flow through the head and barrel fins.

Bob - your version is MUCH better than mine! To me, excessive blow-by is indicative of a problem and trying to capture blow-by oil seems to be a bit of a 'turn up the radio to drown out the noise of the engine rattling' type of concept. The engine in question here does on average about 50 hours/year, which if an hour every weekend (ish) should keep it in good nick - but if it sits for many weeks between flights, is probably getting some corrosion in the bores and packing iron oxide into the rings causing the blow-by. Excessive restriction of the crankcase ventilation will for sure cause problems but a sweet-running engine shouldn't be pushing out much except stuff that shouldn't be in the oil...

Frank, think about a hose attached to a sealed water tank, with another hose the same size out the side of that sealed tank somewhere near the top of the tank. |Assume that the water is heavily contaminated with particles of rust (for example). The velocity and pressure of the water in the hoses into and out of the sealed tank will be the same, (less pressure head effects) - but the water INSIDE the tank will move slowly and let the rust particles settle out onto the bottom of the tank.

Reclaiming blow-by oil that is contaminated with the products of combustion isn't a very good idea; however, since the blow-by exits into the sump anyway and the oil relief hose is carrying basically oil fumes that have already come from the sump, the nett effect of any reclaiming of oil from the breather pipe isn't going to contain much in the way of carbon / iron oxide particles, but if it returns oil that is reduced in viscosity from uncombusted petrol and any condensed water vapour / sulphuric acid, that would not be good for the engine.

Overly-low oil temps are bad for engine life...

Whatever one's opinion of Ungermann may be, what would you seriously expect him to say in a public space with a (to him) 'unkown' audience?

I remain personally unconvinced that Ungermann unilaterally had a sudden and monumental brain-fart late in 2014 regarding Jabiru engine problems; I am aware that he was expressing 'reservations' about them while still with RAA ( not as an expression of a RAA position but as an entirely personal comment, that he felt less confident about them than about Rotax 912s).

However, I do remain personally convinced that there was a very, very considerable amount of high-level politics taking place in CASA that resulted in the sudden application of an action with far-reaching potential consequences for recreational aviation in this country. The timing of and the stated reasons for the CASA action should be viewed as highly suspicious.

Consider the following:

The Forsyth Report had been released, and it was quite critical of the previous (and temporarily then current) senior management ethic of a combative and unconsultative approach across the board with aviation in this country.

The departing (acting) DAS - a man known to be antipathetic to all forms of self-managing Sport aviation - was to be replaced by a new broom who had publicly committed himself to changing the culture at CASA, which by definition is an explicit repudiation of his predecessors.

The basis of the action contained no statement of a 'standard of performance' by which any manufacturer could rate its achievement ( and the use of one brand of engine as the 'baseline' for comparison is palpably idiotic: if we had a sudden rash of 912 engine failures in a short time, then it logically follows that to be consistent, CASA would have to apply the same sort of action).

Aero engines other than Jabirus, (e.g. converted auto engines) that have a demonstrably greater rate of failure than the 'baseline' 912 engines, were not subject to any action.

CASA continues to withhold public release of the 'evidence' on which they claim the action has been justified; as far as I am aware, the only circumstances in which it is considered justified to withhold evidence that apparently supports a government decision of action is National Security and this is most certainly not in that category.

There is no clear expression of any qualitative mechanism by which Jabiru can demonstrate that it has 'rectified' problems - be they clearly identified mechanical issues or more nebulous 'operational' issues ( and it is entirely obvious from the great disparity between the experience of individual owners and FTFs etc. that engine management often, though not exclusively, plays a significant role in overall reliability).

Remember that CASA can be sued for its actions. It cannot realistically come out and say: 'We got it wrong this time' - the potential for a class action is considerable and the loss of 'reputation' quite possibly incalculable.

However - if anybody were to tackle Ungermann at Avalon - it might be a good place to start, to ask him to justify the non-release of the 'evidence' and demand an answer of when this is to be made public. His answer to that might well be illuminating..

When I visited the NASM restoration facility at Silver Hill in 1991 (I think it was), I discovered that they took videos and pictures of all important dismantling (VHS tapes, in those days) and used them extensively when re-constructing the aircraft - sometimes years after the dismantling - and by a team that had changed volunteer members many times. The TV, picture files and vhs tapes were a significant part of the 'reconstruction' area that was set up around the aircraft when it came time to put everything back together, and they had special (large!) trolley arrangements with all the pictorial and written stuff that would be wheeled into place.

It was a brilliant concept; before any major job started, the restoration team would sit down and review all the relevant videos etc and discuss the work schedule. The NASM team had become quite expert at taking videos with great detail, so they could 'reverse-engineer' the strip-down sequence and not find themselves having fastened something in place that meant something else could not easily be re-attached etc.

The F/A-18 pilot's lower legs are attached to a harness which pulls them in to clear the panel before ejecting.

2 x 36(?) kgs seats, add chutes per occupant... actually, this is a BRILLIANT safety improvement!. Since you couldn't legally take off with two passengers, there's a potential halving of fatalities right there!

Talk about a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.....

Ryan - may I respectfully suggest that you may be running a greater risk by using that engine than you have realised? JEM0002-3 (the latest Engine Maintenance Manual) states:

Maximum allowable pressure loss is 25% - therefore a differential of lower than 80/60 indicates a problem.

IF you (or your delivery pilot, in this case) does have an engine failure that results in a crash and airframe damage, I would be highly surprised if your Hull insurance company would accept a claim, on the basis that the engine had a known problem (by the manufacturer's definition and prescription) that was not rectified before flight. You may be gambling with your entire investment in this aircraft.

If I were in your shoes, I think I'd be organising to have the pots pulled and honed (Ian Bent at CAMit can tell you the best homing specifications), the rings changed and the ring grooves cleaned. Given that this engine has had a top overhaul done fairly recently, (and assuming that was a full service), that investment would very possibly give you at least the 200 hours you hope to get before going to a CAE engine, and protect your insurance cover. To me, that is a sensible investment in risk management.

Just from guesswork here: if this aircraft was sold at a very good 'buyers' price, had it been used routinely before sale? Have you seen the log book entries for use in the last little while? Rust in the bores will end up as iron oxide packed around the rings, holding them from proper sealing and that in turn will lead to excessive blow-by that will in turn lead to excessive oil being expelled through the breather. A flight across the continent from W.A will entail some long hops; excessive oil consumption will result in low oil level, high oil temps, faster oil consumption: rapidly increasing the potential for engine failure. Altogether, a classic recipe for an accident that started before the aircraft left the ground.

As a last thought: for a properly expert opinion on Jab. engines, a call to Keith Rule at Cessnock might be very, very worthwhile; he does not have any axe to grind (unlike some others) and he is widely regarded for the quality of his work on Jab engines.

There's no other option for them, other than getting out.Nev

I'm not getting an ejection seat for my SK jabiru. There was an English Electric Lightning which killed the pilot when he activated the ejection seat on the ground after doing a dead-engine landing. AND the Jab being high wing would interfere with the ejection. I would hit the roof.

NOT Photoshopped? Bullmessages, I say - when do you get lovely blue skies in the UK?

The GARA is the reason that - I believe - all new C172's are 'updates' of the original 1956 model - it qualifies for the exemption to modern standards.

As for the slippery-slope and thin-end-of-the-wedge arguments ... what can I say?

None of which is reasonable, necessary or likely to happen This has the potential to..Make all engines that could be fitted to any RAAus aircraft potentially subject to an ill defined standard of reliability in a section of aviation which is "special" in that it is truly recreational and available to people who are enthusiasts and do not carry more than one passenger who is clearly defined as being informed of the risks involved with being carried on the aircraft and is willing to accept the lowered standard of regulation applying.

 

Logically have a flow on to warbirds, experimental and other non mainstream (certified) operations ...Nev

Nev, I believe that one should look beyond just engine reliability as a possible consequence of the way in which CASA has constructed the basis for the action. CASA has taken action based purely on the existence of a more than average risk of a 'class' of aircraft having an accident, or having a potential accident (since not every forced landing of a Jabiru-powered aircraft resulted in a 'crash', just an inconvenient and unplanned termination of a flight).

This creates a whole new avenue for legal argument: that any 'class' of aircraft that can be shown to have an accident rate beyond the norm should be subject to limitations in the interests of 'safety'. In this case, CASA has effectively defined 'class' as aircraft with a common brand of engine - which is nowhere a recognised standard for the creation of a 'class' in the way that, say, MTOW brackets, or use of a CS Prop, or retractable gear etc. can be seen as definitive.

By application of this principle - and lawyers WILL find ways to apply it where that suits their purpose - almost any specific aircraft can be made into a 'class' and compared with other aircraft also made into a 'class'. If, for example, it can be shown from statistics that low-wing aircraft have a higher incidence of occupant injury/death than high-wing aircraft, the argument can be bought forwards on this principle that low-wing aircraft should be subject to more limitation than high-wing aircraft. ANY make/model of aircraft that has a demonstrable higher rate of injury/death than the 'norm' should, by application of the principle, be /have been subject to limitations.

By making the basis for action a 'comparison', not an acceptable / non-acceptable figure of some sort ( let us say, failures / 10k hours of operation in the case of Jabiru-engined aircraft), the principle has been established that anything can be nominated as the 'baseline'. Whether one likes it or not, the really, strikingly obvious 'baseline' for serious injury / death in terms of providing a statistically meaningful figure, would be Jabirus - and because of the CASA action, they would be an almost automatic choice for a lawyer to use. What lawyer would miss the fact that Jabirus have been subject to limitations on the basis of a 'safety' argument when there are other aircraft out there with 'worse' statistics for serious injury / death?

Just on the 2014 accident statistics ( which CASA has highlighted), there are a considerable number of aircraft that can be demonstrated to have 'worse' serious injury / death figures: any involved in fatals, just for a start. One doesn't need to be a genius to see where application of the CASA principle could lead. As with pretty much any legislation / regulation, it's unlikely to be sorted until there is a legal testing of the principle - by which time all of the potential collateral damage may have been achieved, and without any quantifiable benefit. It is impossible to measure 'accidents potentially avoided'.

The Salto is great for aerobatics...kaz