MAAA Wingspan

24 WING SPAN NOVEMBER Hi, Joe Wangid’s the name. I’m a bit of an aeromodelling tragic! Let me tell you a story… Recently, at our club, we realised we needed to apply for a height increase with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) through the MAAA. You see, until October, my fun, friendly club was under the assumption we had a permanent height approval for 800 feet. However, to our utter surprise we discovered this was only for when we hosted air show events! Now, you’re probably wondering why I’ve been asked to pen this story and I’ve been wondering about that myself. I guess the thinking is by sharing the process we had to follow, directly from yours truly (after all ‘Wise Wangid’s’ the name!), it will demonstrate just how simple the process of applying for a flying height increase at your aeromodelling club is. We needed to take a step back and look at our club from a different perspective to ensure all our passionate pilots could fly higher than 400 feet. And we needed to determine how we would react to a full-sized plane flying over our field. So, basically we reviewed the info our State Association gave us and prepared some paper work with what they rather fittingly call a ‘Risk Assessment’. Now, to start with, as a committeemember I was a little apprehensive. But, I must say, things began to turn around swiftly and undertaking a Risk Assessment ended up being a really positive experience for the committee. We looked at it from the point-of-view of a spotter- how would they react if they flew a glider over 400 feet? We also looked at how we could positively discuss our height limits with friendly visitors fromother clubs and then we put it all into the Risk Assessment. Once the club committee were happy with what we identified as appropriate for our members, by applying some forward thinking toward the potential risk a full-sized plane would pose, we lodged our application to our state body. Doing the Risk Assessment really opened our eyes to other areas where we as a club could look at potential risks and hazards, (well, we certainly looked at our trusty ride-on mower a little differently!) and help reduce the risk for when we have public visitors but not in any way take away how fabulous flying at our club is. To be honest with you the preparation process for getting this “Area Approval” was fairly swift too. Once our State Association sent our application off it was only amatter of days till we gained approval to fly to 800 feet. Now, our aeromodelling club can continue to have fun fly-ins here and well into the future. Happy flying days indeed my friends! joe ‘wise’ wangid ON THE VALUE OF UNDERTAKING RISK ASSESSMENTS