jul-aug2012

Flight Safety Australia
Issue 87 July–August 2012
15
transport aircraft, he says. ‘We can check every engine’s
power usage at any time, its rpm, vibrations, efficiency, thrust
percentage of load—that’s just the motors. It even plots
your flight plan on Google Earth. Every single flight you do is
recorded and can’t be deleted.’
But Martin is dismayed that other operators, with much less
sophisticated equipment, and a less conscientious attitude to
regulations are devaluing his investment, damaging the image
of the industry and putting the public at risk.
‘We are deeply concerned that our ability to expand the
envelope of what we can do in future will be inhibited
significantly by those who don’t do the right thing and cause
problems. It happens in many industries, I suppose, where
the few wreck it for the many.’
‘I have had to knock back jobs that could not be done in
compliance with the regulations, only to find out other
operators have taken them on,’ he says.
‘The problem is that cheap equipment, almost overnight, has
become readily available. While it sort of works most of the
time it’s only a matter of time before these components fail.
Internet operator forums for these machines tell the real story,
he says. ‘They’re full of comments like “ it just crashed”
or “it flew away, I couldn’t control it”, and “it just does massive
circles in the sky”. Everyone’s asking everyone else how
to fix it.
‘Our machine is almost self-governing. It uses GPS to hover
automatically within a cubic metre. If anything goes wrong
we have the information to show what was happening,
and that information is generated by the machine not by us.
It’s impartial data.’
Aviation requires the best, he says. ‘When you go to the
airport you don’t see anything other than a Boeing or Airbus.
You don’t see half-price or quarter-price Chinese copies.
That’s not because airlines don’t want to save money—they
would buy them in a heartbeat. It’s because people’s lives are
at stake and only the best will do. I think that’s an appropriate
standard for all aviation.’
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