An Open Letter to the General Aviation Community – Part Two

By Des Waerden

Amendment 36: What the Last 18 Months Have Taught Us

Almost a year ago, I wrote an open letter to the General Aviation community about the withdrawal of AIC 18.19 and what I believed the issue was beginning to expose within our industry. At the time, Amendment 36 was still somewhere ahead of us, the outcome was far from certain, and much of that letter was a call for the GA community to get involved rather than simply accept the situation as the new status quo. Much has happened since then.

Amendment 36 has now been signed into law by the Minister of Transport and the supporting CATS have been released by the SACAA. After many months, we finally have an outcome and, in my view, a sensible one. The first letter was about the problem in front of us and what we needed to do about it. This one is about what happened when we actually tried.

We learned a great deal along the way. We learned that the regulatory system can work, but also where it struggles. We learned what can happen when ordinary aircraft owners, pilots, engineers and technical specialists organise themselves around a common cause. We learned that there are people within the SACAA who are prepared to listen and engage constructively. We also exposed some uncomfortable weaknesses in how General Aviation represents itself and, if we are going to be completely honest, in how some of us participate in this community.

There is little value in spending 18 months fighting for regulatory change, getting the outcome we asked for and then simply returning to our hangars without considering what the experience taught us. This is not a victory lap, nor is it another criticism of the SACAA. It is a follow-up to the conversation we started last year and a personal reflection on the good, the bad, and, occasionally, the ugly of the last 18 months.

Some of the lessons have very little to do with engines.

What Worked?

The most encouraging part of this process was seeing what the GA community can achieve when people are prepared to get involved. The Part 91 Collective came about because a group of ordinary aircraft owners realised that there was a problem and that waiting for somebody else to solve it was unlikely to achieve much.

People contributed what they could. Engineers brought technical knowledge. Owners provided information and data. Others researched international practice, read regulations, attended meetings and prepared submissions. Over time, the discussion became less emotional and increasingly centred on evidence, technical merit and risk.

There were also people within the SACAA who engaged constructively with us. It would be unfair to characterise the regulator as the enemy in this process. We disagreed, sometimes strongly, but disagreement between industry and the regulator is not necessarily unhealthy. The important thing is how we disagree. When both sides are prepared to work from evidence and consider each other's positions, the regulatory system can function.

What Did Not Work?

The process took far longer than any of us had hoped. Whatever the reasons within the regulatory and government machinery, the experience demonstrated how difficult it can be to move even a relatively contained regulatory change through the entire process. That’s important because regulatory delay is not neutral. Aircraft continue to incur costs. Businesses continue to pay salaries. Pilots lose currency. Owners make decisions about whether remaining in aviation is still financially viable.

There is also a lesson here about transition. When an established mechanism is removed before its replacement is available, the consequences need to be properly understood. I hope that is something both industry and the regulator take from this experience.

Industry, however, needs to accept its share of criticism.

We were fragmented. Information did not always flow particularly well. Different groups sometimes pursued different approaches to the same problem and personalities occasionally got in the way. In many respects, we were trying to build the machinery required to represent ourselves while simultaneously solving the problem.

That led me to a question I had not seriously considered before this process began.

Who Represents Private General Aviation?

South Africa has several recognised aviation associations, and many of them perform important work. They include people who have devoted enormous amounts of their time to aviation, often over decades. This is not intended as criticism of those organisations or the people serving within them. Recognition, however, should not automatically be confused with representation.

Commercial and private aviation share many interests, but they are not the same constituency. A commercial organisation quite correctly exists to represent the interests of its members. Those interests will often coincide with those of private aircraft owners, but sometimes they will not. The CMP is one of those cases.

Expecting commercial aviation to automatically represent private aviation is a little like asking the divorce attorney to provide couples therapy. There may be considerable expertise in the room, but the interests are not necessarily the same.

One of the uncomfortable questions arising from Amendment 36 is therefore who genuinely represents the ordinary private aircraft owner, recreational pilot, flying club and grassroots GA community when regulatory decisions are being made.

I don't think the answer is necessarily another association.

Perhaps an existing organisation can fill that role more effectively. Perhaps better cooperation between existing organisations is the answer. Perhaps a permanent coordinating forum or federation is needed. If none of those structures can genuinely represent this constituency, perhaps something new will eventually need to be considered. I don't know the answer, and I don't think this letter is the place to prescribe one. The objective should not be another association. The objective should be effective representation.

The regulatory system already provides mechanisms through which individuals and organisations can participate. The problem is therefore not simply whether the door exists. We also need people willing to walk through it.

We Also Need to Look at Ourselves

There was certainly no shortage of opinion during the Amendment 36 process. Every WhatsApp group appeared to have an expert on precisely what the CAA, the Minister, the associations and those of us involved in the process should have been doing.

There is nothing wrong with criticism. We need people who question decisions and challenge the status quo. I have done plenty of that myself over the last 18 months. Criticism without participation, however, eventually becomes little more than white noise.

If you believe your association is not representing you, join it and help change it. If you believe a proposed regulation is wrong, read it and make a submission. If you believe CARCom is not hearing the voice of private aviation, help us put that voice in the room. If you believe those currently doing the work are doing it badly, put your hand up and do it better.

It is very easy to sit on the sidelines and explain what somebody else should be doing. It is considerably harder to give up an evening, read a proposed regulation, research the issue and put your name to a submission. There is no mysterious "they" coming to save General Aviation. There is only us. If we want this community to flourish, collective ownership has to extend beyond owning and flying the aircraft.

Where Is the Next Generation?

Of all the things I have learned through this process, this probably concerns me the most.

Look around the tables where aviation policy and regulation are discussed. Look at the people attending association meetings, sitting on committees, preparing submissions and giving up their time to represent the industry. There is an enormous amount of experience in those rooms (read Grey Hair), but we are not seeing enough of the next generation.

Where are the young commercial pilots, instructors and students? Where are the flying schools?

A pilot in their twenties today could still be flying professionally in the 2060s. The regulatory decisions being made now may affect their entire careers, yet too many young aviators simply accept the regulatory environment they inherit. That needs to change.

Flying schools have a particular responsibility here. We do a good job of teaching people how to pass examinations, fly an aeroplane and obtain a licence. We should also be teaching young aviators how the industry they are entering actually works. They should know what CARCom is. They should understand how regulations are developed. They should be encouraged to read proposed amendments, attend association meetings and question decisions they do not understand.

Most importantly, they should be encouraged to get their hands dirty. The next generation should not simply inherit the aviation system we leave behind. They should help build it.

How does Commercial Aviation Have a Stake in This?

I write this not only as a private aircraft owner and GA pilot, but also as someone working in commercial aviation. That perspective has reinforced another lesson from the last 18 months. The health of General Aviation is not only a GA problem.

South African airlines need pilots. As the industry grows, we increasingly discuss the availability of suitably qualified Captains and First Officers. What we sometimes overlook is where those pilots actually come from. Nobody arrives at an airline interview with the required experience by accident.

Somewhere, a flying school trained that pilot. An instructor sat beside them through their first circuits. An AMO maintained the aircraft. An examiner tested them. They instructed, flew charter, worked in contract aviation, or found another route to gain the experience necessary to progress.

A declining GA sector and a shortage of qualified airline pilots are not the same problem. They are also not mutually exclusive.

If flying becomes prohibitively expensive, training organisations disappear, aircraft become unnecessarily difficult to operate and maintain, and young pilots cannot find a viable path through the first thousand hours of their careers, the consequences will eventually reach the airlines.

Commercial aviation therefore has considerable skin in the game.

That does not mean airlines should represent private aviation. They should not. It does mean that airlines and larger aviation businesses should recognise the strategic importance of the ecosystem beneath them. We should lend technical expertise where it is useful, support the training environment and participate when regulatory decisions threaten the long-term health of that ecosystem. We cannot continually harvest from an ecosystem without putting something back into it.

For commercial aviation, supporting a healthy GA and training sector is not charity. It is succession planning.

A Word on Freedom and Responsibility

Amendment 36 gives us something that many in GA have spent considerable time arguing for: a more proportionate approach to managing our aircraft. We now have to prove that the argument was justified.

This was never about avoiding maintenance. It was about appropriate maintenance and allowing sensible decisions to be made based on condition, utilisation, maintenance history, and proper technical oversight, rather than relying solely on an arbitrary calendar date. If owners abuse that flexibility, cut corners or interpret regulatory relief as permission to neglect their aircraft, we will have proved our critics right.

The responsibility therefore shifts partly back to us.

Those of us who argued for change now have an obligation to demonstrate that greater flexibility can coexist with responsible ownership and an acceptable level of safety. If we want risk-based and proportionate regulation, we must be prepared to accept the accountability that comes with it.

So What Happens Next?

I don't believe the Part 91 Collective should automatically become another aviation organisation simply because it now has a name and a following. That was never its purpose. What it demonstrated was something more useful. Ordinary members of the GA community identified a problem, organised themselves, found the necessary expertise and engaged with the regulatory process until something changed.

We should preserve that behaviour even if we do not preserve the structure.

Amendment 36 is a good outcome. We should recognise the people within industry, government and the SACAA who helped get it across the line. We should also be honest about what did not work and what we need to do differently next time.

We need better representation. We need younger people involved. We need flying schools to participate. Commercial aviation needs to recognise that it depends on the health of the ecosystem beneath it. The regulator needs an engaged and technically credible industry with which it can work, and industry needs a regulator it can challenge constructively when necessary. Most of all, we need to stop treating General Aviation as something that somebody else is responsible for.

If the only outcome of the last 18 months is Amendment 36, we will have missed an opportunity.

It’s more important that the legacy could be a stronger, younger, and more engaged General Aviation community; one capable of working constructively with the regulator when we agree, challenging it properly when we do not, and taking responsibility when that responsibility is placed back in our hands.

That part is now up to us.

Des Warden

The views expressed are my own, based on my personal experience and involvement in the General Aviation community. They do not represent the views or position of my employer or any organisation with which I am associated.