Aircraft Import Policy Attacked

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30712, 30 March 1965, Page 10

Aircraft Import Policy Attacked

"The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, March 29

The aviation industry in New Zealand could suffer seriously from a shortage of trained pilots if Government policy on the importation of training aircraft was not amended, said the chairman of the Royal New Zealand

Aero Club instructors’ council, Mr B. N. Gault. The Aviation Industry Association recently expressed alarm at the present policy of granting replacement Licences only for tapdressing aircraft which had been written off.

Mr Gault said this was only one aspect of the aviation scene.

“Even more basic is the need for a constant flow of trained pilots into all branches of the industry. With the general expansion of New Zealand aviation the demand for pilots has increased enormously,” he said.

Aero clubs and flying schools, often associated with the clubs, were the only sources of supply of such pilots, said Mr Gault.

It was essential that aircraft capable of providing comprehensive training be available to the clubs, but the Government seemed adamant that no additional licences could be expected. Aleady Committed He said the Auckland Aero Club had been advised by the Minister of Customs (Mr Shelton) that funds allotted for buying planes this licensing period were already committed.

Another club had ascertained that £600,000 had been set aside for the year and had been spent in five months.

The Statistics Department, however, had said that the five gliders and 44 planes imported during the same period had, with spares, amounted to £453,712. If this was so, asked Mr Gault, where had the remaining £148,300 gone. The Auckland club needed additional aircraft for a training course beginning next month. Other clubs and flying schools were in a similar position. Pupil pilots paid their own way and with insufficient aircraft flying experience took longer and brought an additional financial burden. Agriculture “Harmed”

Agricultural production is being lost because of the Government’s import licensing policy, says the latest issue of “Avinews,” the official journal of the Aviation Industry Association.

The effect of the policy is to hold back one of the services to agriculture, the journal says. Although there have been assurances on the availability of spares to avoid the grounding of aircraft, the same cannot be said for replacement aircraft, let alone growth requirements. “Reduced to its essentials, it appears that the present policy will permit the granting of an import licence for an agricultural aircraft as an urgent necessity to replace an aircraft lost through a crash. The former practice of allowing for some reserve holdings of the major types of aircraft in order to meet this system has been, apparently, abolished and thereby our problem has been created.

“Regrettably, aircraft accidents will happen and we must face up to the outcome. Over the last five years the average number of agricultural aircraft written off from this cause is a little over eight a year. The range of variation is between five and eleven a year,” says the journal.