All
I see the Mike Borgelt "culture" of personal attacks on anyone who asks critical questions about something he supports has not changed.
Most of you who know me professionally will know that I write in this forum in my individual capacity and that at work I do not tolerate any unfounded claims which can be shown wrong on production of better information. You would also be aware that I am not responsible for all the decisions that CASA makes - not even those about sport and recreational aviation, and certainly not anything in the dim and distant past. Any claims that the way ultralight aeroplanes are covered in our laws has led to increased accident rates would need some facts and figures to back them up - in fact we have a very good safety record in this area, especially since 1990.
The FARs are by no means the entire US aviation rule set - any difference in the amount of printed material is more a consequence of legal systems and Australian legal drafting practices - and take a look at the "readability scores" for the new Australian Commonwealth legislation (on all subjects, not just aviation) before getting too critical of it. (Incidentally, has anybody tried to make sense of some State motor traffic legislation recently? Like trying to find out exactly what law one has broken by being unable to replace a burned-out headlight as soon as it fails on a weekend ?)
Apparently there are smaller centres in the US that like some here, do get air services because they are the only big town in a large area (Montana is 4th largest State of the US by area, but 44th by population and with a total of around 800,000 people).
And equally obviously, gliders in the US are permitted above 18,000 ft - but so far the NAS advocates here have not told us how or whether it will happen here. I suspect they haven't addressed it yet.
In answer to some questions - yes I do fly aeroplanes cross-country IFR, and yes I have flown elsewhere in the world to find out how things work in other countries. The intent is to make use of what works and will work for us also, and avoid getting the warts that are present in some overseas systems. 97% of rules are effectively the same worldwide, but resolving the 3% that are different is the hard part. And those of you who have a problem are welcome to ring the 'other' me at work to talk about it. Unfortunately I cannot always fix the problem, and certainly not instantly...
P.S. there's still the problem of how they can offer better service by removing both wanted and unwanted things they do now - and of whether the NAS proposal will actually save any money anyway...
Wombat
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