CASA’s CEO John McCormick has signed the instrument that empowers AWAL to administer Limited Category according to our approved manuals. AWAL can now issue all approvals and paperwork required to get a “new” limited category aircraft flying, or to keep an existing one flying.
This has been the BIGGEST hurdle AWAL has faced in the 2 ½ years of hard work towards self administration, and has taken 8 months of constant work by AWAL and CASA teams. It was very pleasing to be told by CASA that our presentations have been “highly professional”.
It is particularly gratifying to achieve this milestone in the face of public comment by certain well known identities in the aviation industry, who had been involved in the AWAL self administration in its earlier stages. They openly forecast that AWAL would NEVER achieve self administration, and that CASA would close down the project “any day”. The favourable outcome has been achieved by the hard work of an AWAL team lead by President Steve Crocker, and equally hard work by CASA’s team headed by Greg Vaughan, and managed by George Dukats.
As could be expected with such a big project, a few glitches had sneaked past checks and double-checks to emerge late in the day. However, with the good intentions on both sides, these minor obstacles were overcome, and documentation will be fine-tuned over the next 6 months to get everything absolutely right.
So, what does this mean to the owner or operator of a Limited Category warbird? Firstly, it means that Limited Category is ongoing, and the threat to ground all aircraft in this category has been removed. Secondly, close attention by AWAL to operations of limited category aircraft, particularly those used for adventure flights, will ensure that operations are conducted to a satisfactory standard by appropriately qualified engineers and pilots.
AWAL will be required to carry out all the administration functions for limited category aircraft on behalf of CASA. Therefore AWAL operations cannot be run on the goodwill and personal sacrifice of a limited number of volunteers. AWAL will need to retain the paid services of key people. In fact we have already started that process, with the appointment of the Director of Self Administration.
Some of the self admin roles are still being undertaken by board members, and the workload will now increase.  The initial program for the next few months will be to set up management systems so that we can carry out these new functions efficiently. The second program will be to provide as many benefits to AWAL members as we can. (One major benefit recently announced is the fuel discount program for warbird operators). We will also be upgrading our website, which will be developed as one of the key ways to provide feedback and information on warbird operations, including airworthiness issues etc. Last year we modernized the underlying code of the website so that updates and additions could be made more readily.

All of the proposed self admin functions will come at a cost, but AWAL is committed to ensuring that these are kept to a minimum. Over the next few months AWAL will review the costs of providing the various member services, such as the issuing of initial airworthiness certificates and maintenance schedules, and adventure flight approvals. Watch this space for further information.