One of the most significant factors in the formulation of safe flying habits and good airmanship is the quality of ab-initio flying training. It is therefore important for anyone involved in ab-initio training to receive adequate guidance on the required syllabus and the methods of teaching.

In recent years, the Australian flying training industry has been through a large number of changes, with some arising from the Civil Aviation Authority's (CAA) implementation of a new 'Day-VFR syllabus, and others arising from major changes in the Australian aviation industry. While change has become a way of life for many industries, including aviation, it is important to ensure that student pilot training prepares new pilots for every flight that they will undertake. The syllabus of instruction, as well as the methods by which students are taught, should seek to encourage the development of responsible attitudes and ensure that an adequate knowledge of aviation is acquired. Training of instructors should also adequately prepare them for the task of being a teacher.

This project provides a critical review of the new 'Day-VFR syllabus and highlights some of the deficiencies that BAS1 believes exist in Australian flying training. The major part of this report is concerned with the 'Day-VFR syllabus; however, discussions on the adequacy of instructional methods and techniques, instructor training, and methods of checking and training, are also addressed.

Between January 1979 and May 1993, 35 aircraft accidents occurred in Australia during the take-off phase of flight at night. A primary factor in 15 of these accidents was considered to be some form of visual or sensory illusion, or spatial disorientation.

Investigation files from the 15 accidents were reviewed in an attempt to identify common elements in which spatial disorientation, or a visual or sensory illusion, was thought to be a contributing factor. Data were gathered on pilot characteristics, such as experience and age, as well as on operational information, such as aerodrome type and weather. Relevant regulations pertaining to the operation of aircraft at night and training for night operations were analysed.

The report concludes that the type of pilot training or pilot qualification did not appear to be a common factor in the accidents under consideration. Pilot experience also did not appear to be a factor in the accidents. The absence of adverse weather may be significant in the onset of illusions. Furthermore, it was considered that the absence of both ground lighting and a horizon was paramount in the development of the accidents, while the combination of a limited horizon with no adverse weather was the most probable condition under which illusions were likely to develop.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has commenced the publication of a safety bulletin for the helicopter industry. This follows an external review of the Bureau undertaken in 1999. The review contained a number of recommendations, from which the production of this bulletin has emerged.

The bulletin will be published twice yearly. From time-to-time additional bulletins will be published in response to requests for information on specific subjects from the industry. If a particular problem becomes evident from the ATSB's monitoring of trends in various areas, this too will be included in the bulletin.

The bulletin is composed of 6 parts. These parts are:

• Current accident and incident trends covering the helicopter industry. Also trends in various areas will be presented.
• Selected occurrence reports from the Bureau's database that involve helicopter operations.
• Safety Recommendations that are likely to either directly or indirectly affect helicopter operations and the background behind the recommendation.
• A summary of CAIR reports.
• Selected overseas occurrences that have either a safety message or are of interest to the helicopter industry.
• Information about the ATSB website and other activities that the Bureau is undertaking that are of interest to the helicopter industry.

The introduction of new technology to aviation has generally resulted in benefits to safety and efficiency but has also resulted in a range of new human factors and operational difficulties. BASl's Advanced Aircraft Research Project began in response to a number of perceived problems, which included data entry errors, monitoring failures, mode selection errors and the inappropriate manipulation of automated systems.

For the purpose of this study, advanced technology aircraft, or automated aircraft, are defined as aircraft equipped with cathode ray tubes/liquid crystal displays and flight management systems, such as Boeing 737-300, Boeing 747-400, Boeing 777, Airbus A310, A320 and A340.

The Australian Air Traffic Service (ATS) system provided by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is responsible for the provision of a safe, efficient, and cost-effective air traffic control and advisory service to the aviation industry within domestic and international (oceanic) airspace.

This BASI study conducted during 1992 was aimed at understanding the organisational factors and system characteristics, and the underlying failures which lead to certain ATS occurrences. BASI's endeavour was to provide the CAA with a method which would allow the cause of a particular problem to be tracked to its origin. Thus, potential remedial action could be applied at the source of the problem.

This report documents a six-month study to develop a framework of societal costs of aircraft accidents in Australia for the purpose of assisting the Department of Aviation in relating costs and benefits in resource management decisions and for assisting the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation in the management of aviation safety promotion programs.

A detailed set of unit and total cost estimates for Australian 1980 is presented together with a literature review and recent work on approaches to valuing human life.

Two cost components, fatalities and aircraft hull damage/loss, account for about 96.5% of total annual costs of $31 million.

The costs of fatalities and injuries are based on the value of future lost work efforts and are to be considered as minimum values only. Intangible social costs such as pain and suffering are not expressed in dollar terms.

Also the use of average cost levels is limited because of the skewed distribution of most accident cost characteristics.

Further research directed towards refinement of the data and the conceptual and empirical bases of these estimates is recommended.

Changes to the airspace management system which were introduced on the 12th of December 1991, firmly established the responsibility with the pilot for aircraft collision avoidance outside controlled airspace, and for avoiding penetration of controlled airspace. In doing so it was a radical modification to the Australian Air Traffic Services (AS) system.

In view of significance of the changes, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) undertook an evaluation. This evaluation took the form of the investigation of all occurrences which were deemed to be related to the AMATS changes in a four-month period from the 12th of December 1991. Additionally, a questionnaire was disseminated in the BASI Journal and deidentified CAIR reports were used to supplement the information available.

In the four-month period, 147 occurrences were categorised as AMATS related. The Bureau received 169 questionnaires and 51 CAIR reports.

Aviation Safety Indicators (ASI) was first published in December 1996 as a response to the recommendation to '...prepare and publish safety indicators' contained in the 'Plane Safe' report issued by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure.

AS1 is produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation and the Department of Transport and Regional Development. The first report brought together a wide range of data, primarily for the decade from 1986 to 1995, which set benchmarks for on-going monitoring of the safety of aviation in Australia.

The publication, to be published annually, contains data covering the period to the end of the previous calendar year. Thus, this second issue, or 1997 edition, includes data to the end of 1996.

In December 1995, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Transport, Communications and Infrastructure (HORSCOTCI) published its "Plane Safe" report, an inquiry into safety in the general aviation and commuter sectors of the aviation industry.

Recommendation (e) of the report was that:

"the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation prepare and publish safety indicators;"

In response to that recommendation this report has been produced jointly by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) and the Department of Transport and Regional Development.

The report presents a series of indicators which provide a broad view of the national aviation system and its operation. The indicators show trends in Australian aviation activity, in industry performance, in the number and rate of aviation accidents, and in the number of three significant types of incidents.

While some of the information contained in this document has been published previously, this is the first occasion on which such a wide range of aviation data has been compiled by these three organisations.

This study analysed occurrences involving:

• fuel starvation - the state in which the fuel supply to the engine is interrupted although there is adequate fuel onboard the aircraft, and
• fuel exhaustion - the state in which the aircraft has become devoid of usable fuel.

Fuel starvation has been a more common type of occurrence; however, the probability of the occurrence resulting in an accident has been greater for fuel exhaustion. starvation accidents and 8 fuel exhaustion accidents per annum in Australia since 1969. Fuel-related engine failures have constituted 34% of all engine failure accidents.