Presidential Blog
June was what could be called a “winning month”. The junior All Blacks, Rowers, Kayak slalom, Black Ferns, Team New Zealand, Women’s ARC flying race, Rocket Lab, Lorde and the list goes on. Without getting swollen headed about it Kiwis seem to do extremely well in all fields of endeavour from sport to business to entertainment. It does make you proud to be a New Zealander.
I had a call to Craig Spence in the USA on Tuesday and the first thing he said was how our women’s race team of Dee Bond and McKenzie Krutsinger, as Team Kiwi Express, had just won the AOPA Air Race Classic. That was a few hours after NZ won the Americas cup but Craig did not know that at the time. Details on the air race are at this link.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/05/prweb14370801.htm
One of our good members, Katie Milne has just been elected as the first Woman President of Federated Farmers, so look out guys the testosterone is getting watered down and I must say “about time”. Congratulations to Katie.
The New Southern Sky (NSS) have produced a one page document as a guide for Performance Based Navigation (PBN) which simplifies and puts in plain language what is happening with our navigation system. It is worth read and AOPA had a significant input into it.
At our Executive meeting yesterday we discussed the summer safari for 2017 and Graeme Donald is going to lead this with an event in the southern North Island. It was felt that we really needed to have this as not everyone will come down to the Queenstown IAOPA World Assembly. Graeme will put the program together over the next short while and we will get it up on the website ASAP. It will be based out of Fielding so start planning.
The Winter Fly-in at Alexandra is looking good with about 120 people booked to go. Just need the weather to be good and it will be on. The organisers will advise this week.
The Aviation Community Advisory Group (ACAG) is having its annual meeting in Hamilton on 25th July. It will be held as part of the Aviation New Zealand Conference at the Distinction Hotel Starting at 2PM. Details are on the CAA website. ACAG is getting stronger all the time and is a significant contributor to the CAA issues and rule making process.
The PPL Medical review consultation has closed and I am told there were 296 submissions. These will now be collated by CAA and then discussed with ACAG before going any further. AOPA will be strong on this proposal and we are putting it high on our must do list. Steve Brown is following the matter closely and it will be a prominent part of the IAOPA World Assembly next year. We are putting together a panel of Regulators from around the world to discuss issues that affect GA on a worldwide basis. Things like aircraft certification, avionics certification, red tape reduction Medical review for PPL plus other issues that are affecting GA. CAA are being very supportive of this initiative and I am looking forward seeing the makeup of the final panel together. Craig Spence is working on this for IAOPA. There is still time to register and come along to what will be an exciting event. www.iaopa2018.com
It is winter now so watch the weather closely and don’t take unnecessary risks. There was a light aircraft on an Angel Flight in South Australia that crashed last week. The police described the weather in Mount Gambier on Wednesday morning as “foggy and cold and wet”, and called the crash “extremely tragic”. I wonder if it could have been avoided by just waiting on the ground for a bit longer or just not going.
Fly safely
Ian Andrews
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