90 SA Flyer Magazine
Most pilots know the
feeling when things swiftly
start going awry: the
cloud base is lowering,
the mountains ahead are
rising ever higher, and the
weather behind has closed
up.
A
S rain begins to
spatter on the
windshield and the
turbulence bucks
and rolls the puny
aircraft like a pea in
a giant’s rattle, the
pilot’s heart begins
to beat in his throat, his mouth dries up
and his passengers begin to send furtive
glances his way. Do they notice the sweat
on his brow?
“How did I get into this situation?”
he asks himself. “I did everything right. I
meticulously planned the ight. I checked
the weather beforehand. I have every piece
of navigational equipment before me. Yet
I’m now trapped. I ignored the signs until it
was too late.”
There is no turning back.
QUO VADIS?
From a broader perspective, this is
a question that many general aviation
(GA) pilots and aircraft owners are asking
themselves, not just in South Africa, but in
every country where GA exists.
GA has been in decline everywhere,
and we know the reasons. In early
November, AOPA Australia President Marc
de Stoop said, “The restrictions that CASA
impose on our aviation industry through our
unique regulatory framework continue to
cause serious decline in GA activity across
our wide brown land.”
AOPA US President Marc Baker had
this to say: “The issues facing general
aviation across the globe have never
been more challenging. Over-regulation,
increasing costs, fuel availability, ageing
aircraft, airspace access, public perception
regarding noise and safety, and many other
factors challenge pilots around the world.”
Commenting on an Australian
government report that conrms this
decline, de Stoop continues: “The minister
needs to come out and state just what
he intends to do. So far all he has done
is to announce another committee – with
AOPA excluded, I might add. No good
being a compliant Canberra committee
member if you don’t get positive actions
and outcomes. I’d much rather be resolute
and true to our cause. General aviation
has its back against the wall and it needs
bold initiatives from government to turn
it around. AOPA is determined to force
outcomes rather than win friends in
Canberra. Many say to me, ‘Marc you
need to do things the Canberra way to
get anywhere with government.’ I respond
by saying that that approach has got us
nowhere in the last 30 years. It’s actually
been the catalyst for our decline. Maybe
it’s time Canberra changed its ways. You
wonder why we have the Brexit and Trump
phenomena? Ordinary people are fed up.”
It is unsurprising that AOPA
communities in other countries are saying
exactly the same things we have been
saying in South Africa. There are, therefore,
plans afoot for greater unity of purpose with
our GA compatriots in other countries.
Marc Baker sums up: “It’s important that
we as a group require regulators to act with
reason, reminding them that no pilot wants
to y an unsafe airplane. The truth is, there
is a lot of life left in the aircraft we already
have.”
Our situations worldwide are similar
– but perhaps more protracted in South
Africa. Aviation authorities, and ICAO itself,
have become more and more airline-
centric, yet the airlines are decrying a pilot
shortage.
With greater automation in all aircraft,
from large airliners to tiny drones, the pilot
we know is swiftly becoming an endangered
species. This increase in automation is
leading towards the elimination of aircrew
altogether. Flight engineers, navigators and
radio operators are already extinct. First
ofcers are in the crosshairs.
However, automation is also moving
into GA, and the regulators are as at-
footed as they were when drones became
easy to y and the population of unmanned
aircraft began exploding. The drone
AOPA BRIEFING
Chris Martinus ‒ Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association – South Africa
NO TURNING BACK
GA is heading into bad weather in
mountainous terrain. Clever decision
making by all in the industry is needed.
Dave Forney
91 SA Flyer Magazine
technology will be transferred to manned
aviation – it’s already happening – and
the next generation of light aircraft, will,
like drones, become increasingly easy
to y, resulting in a new boom in private
aviation. Regulators are ip-opping on
how to effectively regulate drones so
that they can safely cohabit with manned
aircraft – thus far with dismal success. And
drone operators have lost patience with the
process, with many of them openly stating
that they are now ignoring regulations and
will y as they like.
Just as the drones are an unstoppable
phenomenon, a new generation of light
aircraft, together with the existing eet
retrotted with new technologies, will
become a major problem for the regulators,
who are still mired in the belief that
commercial airline travel will continue to
edge out private non-commercial air travel.
MAKING DECISIONS
Just like our pilot who got himself
into the weather and the mountains, our
authorities need to take decisive action to
accommodate the changes that have been
happening and will be ramping up in future.
There is no turning back. The short-
sighted view of just eliminating drones and
small GA is not going to work. Forward
vision and adherence to the principles
of developing aviation and safety are
imperative if we are to avoid crashing and
burning.
Yet we have a Civil Aviation Authority
that appears to have lost sight of these
objectives. The senior executives seem
to see the industry they are obliged to
engage and cooperate with as the enemy.
They spend much of their time making
compliance by the industry more and more
difcult – without even a nod to helping
facilitate progress and development.
CAA is unable or unwilling to simply
perform its basic function of processing
licences, certicates, renewals and other
documents and approvals. Licence and
certicate renewals are being delayed for
weeks and even months. In the past, a
pilot licence renewal would be processed
in the time it took for the applicant to have
a cup of coffee. Now it requires a stack of
duplicated documentation and much more
time.
AOPA SA receives almost daily reports
of delays in the issue of documents,
which are keeping aircraft grounded and
personnel unable to perform their tasks.
IMAGE IS EVERYTHING
Our CAA has become obsessed
with its image, something that has
become pervasive in several branches of
government. Instead of focusing on service
delivery, considerable time and resources
are expended on hiring marketing
companies to do dubious ‘surveys’ in
which the CAA receives meaningless
‘awards’. The CAA has published numerous
advertisements with Director Ms Poppy
Khoza holding irrelevant trophies while
AOPA BRIEFING
Easy to fly, drone type aircraft like
the Volocopter will drive a new
generation in general aviation.
SA Flyer 2013|02
SA Flyer 2017|12
Nico van Staden 083 321 0916
nico@aerostratus.co.za
Mary Ann 083 778 9293
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92 SA Flyer Magazine
grinning at the camera.
This narcissistic
approach to burnishing
its image is disturbing,
since it’s obvious to
most that it is merely an
attempt to wallpaper over
the glaring defects in
CAA’s ability to perform
its legislated functions. It
is also worrying that the
CAA is more concerned
about publicising its
success in passing the
recent ICAO audit than
using the infrastructure
it undoubtedly has for
the purpose for which it
exists.
Furthermore, the
CAA has indicated
that it intends to use its
success to lord it over
neighbouring countries
to the detriment of
international GA, rather
than taking a leadership
position to create
greater cooperation
and development of
international operations
through reciprocal
rights and recognition of
qualications.
WORKING TOGETHER
It is a little comforting
to know that we in South
Africa are not alone in
having difculties keeping
general aviation alive and
making progress toward a
future which should be far
rosier than the present.
It is also a clarion call
to all participants in GA
to unify their efforts
to achieve attainable
standards and regulations
which promote safety,
cooperation and mutual
respect between all
the users of our skies,
everywhere.
Next year there
will be great efforts
made between the 79
AOPAs around the world
to invigorate general
aviation through greater
cooperation and a unied
approach to building GA
worldwide.
AOPA BRIEFING
j
Simple tasks such as processing licence
renewals are taking increasingly more time.
