[Peetwo]

Join the dots - Part II

Slight drift here but to begin I'd like to go to a CASA quote extracted from the JSCT (Joint Standing Committee on Treaties) inquiry report into airservices treaties with Thailand, Timor-Leste, PNG:

Australian air operators and pilots are reminded to check all available and authoritative information about potential safety and security threats to flights before conducting operations in, over or near areas of armed conflict or turmoil. Air operators and pilots should determine if National Aviation Authorities or other government agencies have issued any notices, advisories, bulletins, warnings or other safety information about activities that may pose risks to flights in particular geographic regions or airspace. These should be assessed along with any relevant travel advisories from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

It is the responsibility of air operators and pilots to consider this kind of information and to make informed decisions about when, and whether, to operate into or over particular areas where local situations and circumstances may pose unacceptable risks. Operators and pilots are always required to be familiar, and to comply, with the applicable aviation laws of other countries in which they conduct operations.

Lastly, the ICAO, is compiling information promulgated by states regarding risks to civil aircraft arising from conflict zones. CASA reminds Australian air operators and pilots considering operations into or over problematic areas to pay attention to all current safety notices and bulletins, including from the following sources—and we have provided links: the ICAO conflict zone information repository; the USFAA prohibitions, restrictions and notices; and the European Aviation Safety Agency safety bulletins as well.

Fair bit of irony when you flip that statement and consider international pilots/operators contemplating launching into Australian airspace and then flipping to the Airservices AIP GEN 1.7 (notified differences to ICAO), only to find a link to this explanatory note: https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip...y_note.pdf 

Following that along eventually -   - the unwitting pilot will discover the relevant ASA webpage which has multiple links leading to over 1600 pages of notified differences to ICAO - GOOD LUCK with that!...  

Coming back to the UP on the suddenly announced CASA OAR review of the Mangalore Airspace with a question, will we now have to notify a difference to ICAO with a newly defined classification of airspace - ie the SFIS?

Back to the discussion...

Geoff Fairless

Alpha,


The process for analysing and changing airspace in Australia is contained in the Airspace Act, Regulations, and Ministerial policy statement (AAPS). None of these documents authorise CASA to introduce a Broadcast Area into Class G or any other type of airspace.CASA seems to have the authority to follow or ignore administrative law as it sees fit. Due, no doubt, to lack of oversight by the responsible Department and the Minister.

According to the AAPS the airspace, as it is configured should be Class F not G, better still Class D with a locally-owned and operated Control Tower:

• Class F: IFR and VFR flights are permitted. All participating IFR flights receive an air traffic advisory service and all flights receive a flight information service if requested.
  

To make decisions CASA OAR is supposed to follow the process described in the AAPS. They have not done so in this instance by allowing Airservices to do the consultation but keep their risk assessment a secret.

How CASA arrived at the decision to allow an airspace configuration not authorised by their legislation, that is, Class G/Broadcast Area/FIS, to be implemented we will never know unless someone in the Senate RRAT asks the question, or an FOI request is made.

I am really pleased, however, to see that we are on the same page.

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CaptainMidnight

CAR 1988 99A authorises CASA to designate an area in which specified broadcast requirements apply.


They've used that for many years.

(1)CASA may:
(a) designate an aerodrome as an aerodrome at which broadcast requirements apply; and
(b) designate airspace within defined horizontal and vertical limits as an area in which broadcast requirements apply.
(3)CASA may give directions specifying:
(a) the broadcast requirements that apply; and
(b) the radio frequency on which broadcasts must be made;
at a particular aerodrome, or in a particular area, designated under subregulation (1).

(4)If CASA gives a direction, it must publish a notice setting out the details of the direction in AIP or NOTAMS.

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Lead Balloon

And thus the cosmic cycle continues...


CM is correct. Any class of airspace can theoretically be the subject of a designation under 99A. It's about mandatory blabbing in the designated area, not about the class of the airspace in that area. It's been used many times because, as we know, more blabbing equals more safety. However, come the year 2003 99A will be repealed.

And another 'blast from the past' was GF's epiphany about class F.

It astounds me that there's anyone left who doesn't realise that airspace arrangements and procedures in Australia are determined by the JMSUAYGA Procedure.

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Dick Smith

 Problem with calling it Class F is that under ICAO class F has no requirement for VFR to have radio and we in Australia are obsessed with VFR having mandatory radio requirements!

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Lead Balloon

Problem with calling it Class F is that under ICAO class F has no requirement for VFR to have radio and we in Australia are obsessed with VFR having mandatory radio requirements!

The same "problem" arises with even greater force in calling it "G". But Australia has never been averse to notifying ICAO of the odd difference here and there.

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cogwheel

What we have at Ballina is closer to Class F than it is to G.



i don’t believe the class of airspace is the problem - for the record I quote my post on the BNA thread....

It’s not the airspace that is the problem. It is the failure of many pilots, including instructors to understand the required procedures appropriate to the circumstances. It is also a failure of CASA to ensure that such procedures are taught and examined to a level which will help ensure the level of communications is undertaken in such a way the risks are minimised. It used to be covered under “airmanship” but seems that is not taught any more?

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Lead Balloon

Isn't all 'G' in Australia 'closer' to F than G? AIP GEN 3.3 at para 3.3.7.2 says that:

Traffic information
...
In Class G airspace, a traffic information service is provided to IFR flights about other conflicting IFR and observed VFR flights except:

a. An IFR flight reporting taxiing or airborne at a non-controlled aerodrome will be advised of conflicting IFR traffic that is not on the CTAF; and

b. An IFR flight inbound to a non-controlled aerodrome will be advised of conflicting IFR traffic until the pilot reports changing to the CTAF.
So I'm not sure it's all about pilots not understanding and using correct procedures.

That said, the paragraph immediately before the one I quoted effectively says that the service is a 'workload permitting' one. Perhaps part of the education process should be to make clearer that it's a 'Clayton's' traffic information service for IFR. Maybe that's why Australia calls it G rather than F...

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le Pingouin

"Clayton's"? In 30 years of providing a traffic service I have never once been unable to provide all IFR-IFR traffic. Sometimes it's impossible to provide detailed directed traffic on multiple VFR aircraft to multiple IFR aircraft, there just isn't time. You might be a skygod, I'm not.

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Lead Balloon

Understood, Le P. I'm not a 'skygod' either.


I don't know too many IFR pilots who understand that the IFR/IFR traffic information service in G in Australia is effectively 'workload permitting'. Maybe the pilots involved in the Mangalore tragedy made an assumption that turned out to be invalid?

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le Pingouin

IFR/IFR traffic has ever been thus but the circumstances where it can't be provided due workload are pushing once in a career type levels.

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Lead Balloon

Indeed. And if we had a half-way competent safety regulator and an independent and half-way competent transport safety investigator, the attendant risks would be ringing alarm bells and mitigating actions would be recommended and taken. But this is 21st century Australia.

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CaptainMidnight

Re AIP GEN 3.3 - 4 para 3.3.7.1 stating [i]"A traffic information service is provided, depending on higher priority duties of the controller etc."[/i].

Certainly in the days of FS when they managed "OCTA", traffic info to IFR (and RPT & MLJ) wasn't workload permitting, it was mandatory to provide it (MATS said something like [i]"Traffic information shall be provided to etc."[/i]).


I suspect the revised text came in when FS disappeared and ATC took over their airspace, with some ATC sectors also being responsible for separation in the overlying CTA, which I assume someone decided was a higher priority than the provision of traffic info in Class G.

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Lead Balloon

Perhaps the 'hard-hitting' objectively independent investigation of the Mangalore tragedy by the ATSB will recommend reinstatement of FS? Nothing would surprise me these days.

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Geoff Fairless

I stand by my statement.


CASA OAR does not operate under the 1988 CAR, they were created as a stand-alone office within CASA and are governed entirely by the ICAO-compliant Airspace Act and Regulations. Section 11A of the CAR 1988 does, however, require the rest of CASA to operate in accordance with the above act and regulations or advise the Minister why they are not so doing.

Those laws do not include resorting to ancient CARs such as 99A, or Part 139 - CA/GRS or the Airspace legislation would say so.

Once again we see CASA, including OAR, not understanding their own legislation, or if they do, being too clever by half in their continued endeavours to re-create the "OCTA" of the pre-TAAATS era.

As many have written, in many different threads, they are a law to themselves.

MTF...P2