THE TRADITIONAL AUSTRALIAN FLIGHT MANUAL

This document is on the World Wide Web at www.airsafety.com.au/a6265411.htm

But I have mailed it to you at my own expense because not everyone is on the Web.

From Boyd Munro, PO Box 172, Balmain NSW 2041

e-mail bmunro@airsafety.com.au fax 02 9225 9127 phone 018 22 0047

THE TRADITIONAL AUSTRALIAN FLIGHT MANUAL
BECOMES ILLEGAL ON 17^th AUGUST 2000

REPLACE IT BEFORE THEN, OR RISK A FINE OF $5,000!

Due to a little-known change in the Civil Aviation Regulations, every traditional Australian Flight Manual will become illegal on 17^th August 2000.

That's almost unbelievable - but it's a fact. CAR 322(4)(a) provides that

The certificate holder must make the change to the aircraft's flight manual … before the end of the period of 1 year beginning on the commencement of this regulation [which was 16^th August 1999]

The penalty for non-compliance is $5,000 - and CASA can also cancel your pilot license. Note that it doesn't even matter if your aircraft is not flown, you can be fined and have your license cancelled just for owning an aircraft which does not have a new Flight Manual.

There is massive confusion about the new requirements. Hardly anyone knows what to do. No new Flight Manual conforms unless it contains a "CASA Approval Page". Yet when one owner went to CASA Bankstown last week (21^st June) he was told that he could not have a CASA Approval Page and that the dimensions of the page had not even been decided yet.

The new requirements are set out in CAAP 54-1(1). If you don't have this document yet, I recommend that you get a copy. If you can understand how to make your aircraft satisfy it, go straight to the top of the class because I can make neither head nor tail of it. All I can understand is that you will be in serious trouble if you don't comply.

CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF IT, OR IS IT TO KILL PRIVATE FLYING?

There are advantages to be had, for some, from the new flight manual system. But there are also disadvantages, especially for the owners of aircraft more than 10 years old - which is the vast majority of Australian aircraft. There is no reason why the change-over period to the new system had to be so short. Most private aircraft are more than 20 years old, and have had the same Flight Manual since the day they were first registered. The new system should have been widely publicized, and the change-over period should have been 25 years, not 1 year.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?

It's clear we need a much longer transition period. The transition period allowed was just one year, and the new rules were very poorly publicized (especially in the case of people who are not daily users of the Internet). There is no reason at all why existing Australian Flight Manuals should not continue to be a legal alternative to the new regime for years to come. There is a large number of Australian Flight Manuals which have been in service for 25 years or more. Why should they suddenly be outlawed?

We CAN make a difference here. We don't have to lie down and take this shabby treatment. So I urge you to write to your local Federal Member of Parliament, with copies to the Minister for Transport and your State's Senators, making your feelings known and demanding an extension of the transition period to 25 years. Your Federal MP will listen to you because there is a Federal Election coming up soon, and every vote is needed. This regulation was just sneaked through the Parliament, no MP or Senator voted on it and probably none of them even knew it was before the Parliament. Your MP would rather satisfy you, a voter, than CASA's bureaucrats. It is not as though this is an important plank of government policy like the GST - this is just a case of a bureaucracy having sneaked something through Parliament without a vote while our representatives (such as AOPA) were having a comfortable snooze. There was never a vote on this nonsense - it passed Parliament because no-one objected.

The fact that AOPA and so on let us down is not exactly helpful, but it's not fatal either. We can still get an extension if we make a bit of noise.

I have enclosed two identical pro-forma letters to your Federal MP, together with a reply-paid envelope. Please do the following:

* Read the letter carefully. If you do not agree with it, modify it so that you do agree, or simply throw it away;

* Sign COPY Number 1 of the letter, fill in the other details, and return it to me in the reply-paid envelope;

* Keep COPY Number 2 as a model, make copies of it, and ask your pilot friends to sign the copies and send them to me.

When I receive your signed, my staff will work out who your Federal MP is and fill in his or her name and address. They will then make copies for the Minister for Transport and for two of your State's Senators, and send them all off.

PRACTICAL MATTERS

Whilst I am confident that we will win an extension of time, there are no certainties in political matters. So I therefore want to assist all Australia's Aircraft Owners to comply with this new requirement with the very minimum of disruption and cost. I therefore ask that you also fill out the brief questionnaire on COPY Number 1. In return I will send you back as much information as I have about how to comply with these new requirements at minimum cost and with minimum disruption.

For example, most aircraft do not need a new Flight Manual but they still need a new Document Folder. You can keep costs down considerably if you do not get a new Flight Manual unless you are forced to. CASA has not anywhere suggested that the old Flight Manual is unsafe. This is not a safety matter, it is just change for the sake of change.

One thing you should consider immediately is to transfer your aircraft's Certificate of Registration to a responsible person who does not hold a Pilot License. If you do so, that person is liable only to the fine prescribed in the regulation ($5,000) but CASA cannot also arbitrarily cancel his or her pilot license. Be aware that if you transfer the Registration to the name of a Pty Ltd company that increases the maximum fine to $25,000.

WHY IS BOYD MUNRO DOING ALL THIS?

Because I believe Australia desperately needs an effective aviation lobby group. Later this year I hope to change AOPA so it becomes an effective lobby group. I want to show you now what can be done by effective teamwork so that later on, when I ask for your support, you'll know me by the results that can be achieved if we act together as a team of equals. I want the vast majority of Australia's aircraft owners to become members of AOPA and to get benefit from that.

PLEASE JOIN OUR TEAM BY SIGNING THE LETTER TO YOUR MP

To my Federal Member of Parliament COPY NUMBER 1

My dear Federal Member of Parliament,

I find that I am seriously disadvantaged by Civil Aviation Regulation 322 and 323 which became effective on 16^th August 1999. They have a nasty sting in their tail, to be delivered on 16^th August - the grandfather period is only one year.

I am told that you allowed these Regulations to pass through Parliament without debate, without objection, and without a vote. Is that true? I rely on you to represent my interests in Parliament, and I especially look to you to prevent any purely bureaucratic actions that will harm me. I am surprised if you allowed these regulations, which are harmful to me, to pass without objection.

Given that these regulations have now become law, I ask you to call upon the Minister for Transport to extend the grandfather period, and to require CASA to explain in plain English what is required of me.

Let me explain how these regulations harm me.

I am a pilot. For the past 50 years Australian aircraft have had to have a unique Australian Flight Manual. The unique Australian Flight Manual was never a good idea, but we are all accustomed to it. It was unnecessary, restrictive, and costly - but no-one ever suggested it was unsafe. Yet it is to be outlawed just 6 weeks from now! Why? By all means allow a better alternative - but why outlaw the thing which we all have paid for and know how to comply with?

There are now new requirements which very few people understand, and I certainly do not. The problem is that there is no option to use the old Australian Flight Manual after 16^th August 2000. There was a only one-year transition period, and we users were very poorly educated about the change. I did not find out about it myself until ________________________

Like most aircraft owners, I take my responsibilities seriously and try hard to comply with all the regulations. But in the case of these new Flight Manual regulations, I simply do not know what is expected of me. Nor, it seems, do large numbers of other aircraft owners. Many owners have turned to Licensed Engineers for help and have found that the answers they have received have been unclear and conflicting. And why should it be necessary to involve an engineer in a Flight Manual, which is an operational, not an engineering, document?

To make matters much worse, it will be a criminal offence merely to OWN an aircraft which does not have a new-style Flight Manual on 17^th August, even if the aircraft is not flown. As an owner I haven't even got the option of protecting myself by keeping the aircraft on the ground until I understand what is required of me.

I therefore ask for your help as my Federal Member of Parliament. Please ask the Minister for Transport to:

1 Require CASA to re-issue the instructions for compliance with the new regulations in plain simple English, illustrated by at least 5 examples of exactly what must be done in the case of 5 common types of light aircraft; and

2 Extend the grandfather period from 1 year to 25 years; and

3 Remove the criminal penalty in the case of aircraft which are not flown, so that a person who is unable to comply is not at risk of criminal conviction unless his or her aircraft is flown whilst non-compliant.

Please inform me promptly whether you are willing to represent me as I ask, and if so please keep me informed about the results you achieve for me.

I am willing and able to answer any questions about how I am personally affected by this ill-considered legislation. However if you have questions about the legislation itself or the necessary amending legislation or Ministerial Directions, please contact Boyd Munro of www.airsafety.com.au whose e-mail address is bmunro@airsafety.com.au

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) __________________________________________________________________________________________

(Print name) _____________________________________________________________________________________________

(Residential Address) _____________________________________________________________________________________

(e-mail address and fax number if any) _______________________________________________________________________

c.c. The Minister for Transport and my State's Senators

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Information below this line will be removed before this letter is sent to your representatives. If you know the name of your FEDERAL MP or your FEDERAL electorate please give it to save us looking it up.

My Federal MP is ____________________________________ Federal Electorate ____________________________________

My Mobile Phone _________________________________ My Home Phone ________________________________________

Did you know about the new requirements before you heard from Boyd Munro? ___________________________________

If so, when, and from whom, did you first hear about them? ____________________________________________________

Remarks ________________________________________________________________________________________________

To my Federal Member of Parliament COPY NUMBER 2