Maintenance Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Ministry of Transport can hardly move a muscle. Here is some evidence

February 14, 2015

Following the last election, and the long overdue departure of Gerry Brownlee as Minister of Transport (arguably the CAA’s least competent overlord in living memory) to his new role in protecting our great nation as Minister of Defence, we must now work with two new faces: Simon Bridges as Minister of Transport and Tukituki National MP Craig Foss, Associate Minister of Transport, responsible for …

CAA funding and the fuel levy: It ticks all the boxes except the one marked ‘Too hard’

December 2, 2014

Based “on information to hand, the CAA Board does not support the introduction of a fuel levy”. This is the hidden headline in the CAA’s summary of feedback to its Stage 1 consultation. Hidden, in fact, on the final page of its document. In one throwaway line. Yet this was the most significant and most widely supported suggestion made by respondents to Stage 1 …

2014 is the year General Aviation tells them exactly what we think of the CAA

December 27, 2013

We begin 2014 with the first in a series of online surveys to give users an opportunity to have their say on the issues that currently affect GA, and client relationships with the CAA. Our survey of CAA users is similar to what many commercial organisations do amongst their own client base to gain feedback so they can improve systems and service – and …

How the Brits are taking an axe to needless GA red tape

November 9, 2013

The British Government and the CAA have announced plans to strip away unnecessary bureaucracy for the UK general aviation sector. One of the key changes will be the setting up by April 2014 of a new GA Unit within the CAA dedicated to more proportionate, effective regulation that supports and encourages a dynamic GA sector. Following the General Aviation Red Tape Challenge, which found …

What’s SMS really about? CAA Director Graeme Harris discusses…

October 16, 2013

Although the submission period on the implementation of SMS has ended and the summary of submissions is published, there were a number of crucial questions that had apparently not been addressed. We asked CAA Director Graeme Harris to discuss them. First, Des Lines noted that there were only 48 written submissions and, of those, only 23 were from General Aviation maintenance organisations and operators. …

SOS! Support Our Survey – but time is short

September 22, 2013

When Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee convened on September 19 to hear submissions opposing what Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee signed into law last year, dramatically increasing costs to GA operators in particular, consultation was a key topic. Notably – nine months after the first objections were raised – the Ministry of Transport suddenly revealed its response at the hearing and the Ministry’s representative declared …

Crisis in the airline hangars: A badly tuned piece of anti-social engineering

August 26, 2013

Hot on the heels of a claimed skills shortage of pilots, in which an application by Air New Zealand and PricewaterhouseCoopers said that only eight people in our great nation qualify for an interview for airline pilot positions, Air NZ now threatens up to 190 redundancies in its team of wide-body aircraft engineers. In stark contrast, at Singapore Airlines, SIA Engineering is benefiting from …

Our urgent SMS to the CAA: In this case, Safety manages a poor second

July 30, 2013

The CAA is rolling out SMS seminars around the country. No, this is not about the Short Message Service so beloved of cellphone texters. In this instance, SMS means Safety Management Systems. They have fallen out of an ICAO effort which resulted in a new Annex with the number 19. In the May/June Vector magazine on page 8, there are four options on which …

Thank heaven! We are not alone

March 28, 2013

Take a look at this, and ask: Are they talking about our New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority? The answer is, of course, no – it’s a summary of the results of a 2013 UK CAA customer survey undertaken by Clarity Research among 74 UK aviation companies, and it makes grim reading. We understand that as a result, the UK CAA is taking a close …

An urgent message to all owners of Rotax-powered Bell helicopters

March 8, 2013

The Civil Aviation Authority would like you to know that there may be a potentially serious leak in your chopper. On March 7, it issued Emergency Airworthiness Directive EASA AD 2013-055EE, concerning reports of non-compliant cylinder head assemblies on a Rotax engine during a production test run. The envelope had a CRITICAL TO FLIGHT SAFETY imprint on it. In BIG RED CAPITAL letters. And …

Category: Maintenance