[Peetwo]

Harfwit and the Hobart airspace clusterduck continues -  


Via the Hobart Mercury...  

Talking Point: Flying into stormy weather

DAVID PATMAN, Mercury
November 14, 2018 12:10am

HOBART’S skies are getting busier. Whether it’s flights from new destinations bringing in visitors, tourist flights to the South-West, Antarctic traffic, international freight or a swag of trainee pilots, it’s a positive sign that Tasmania is booming. Hobart Airport, as the main gateway to Hobart, is a key enabler of this economic activity.

Coincidentally, Airservices Australia, the federal government business responsible for air traffic management, has released a shortsighted 20-year plan which makes some of the most significant changes to Hobart airspace in 60 years, citing increased air traffic. This has major public interest implications for Hobart, yet Airservices has badly mishandled the process.

The changes Airservices is seeking to make are not directly driven by Hobart’s growth, but by a larger agenda designed to replace older, human-centred air traffic control procedures with low-cost satellite-guided systems. This supports Airservices program OneSky, which will result in the centralisation of Tasmania’s air traffic control in Melbourne.

This is not just a few flight path changes, but a whole new system, and one seemingly out of synch with Hobart Airport’s five-year Master Plan.

The changes introduced to Hobart in September last year — which underpin the current plan —seek to remove the model of local air traffic controllers assigning sectors of airspace to pilots to ensure a safe distance between aircraft. Instead, an automated satellite-guidance system now steers aircraft on a set of fixed paths (highways in the sky) by interacting with the on-board computer.

Why is this a problem? Firstly, things can go wrong with automated systems, as illustrated by the Lion Air disaster. An unprecedented spike in safety incidents (Mercury, October 10) resulted from on-board computers being unable to follow satellite guidance. Although Airservices has referred to these issues as teething problems, documents released under freedom of information laws show it is so worried about them that it has reverted back to human control.

Secondly, according to documents obtained from Airservices underFOI, the system is intended for smaller regional airports with little jet traffic. Hobart is now one of the top 10 busiest airports in Australia, according to Department of Infrastructure and Transport figures.

All other capital city and major airports use a range of air traffic management tools to ensure safety, includingRADAR, ground-based navigation and the opportunity to fly visual approaches (which allow pilots to look out the window rather than relying on the computer). None of these is included in the Airservices plan for Hobart. Why not?

Thirdly, the new system concentrates air traffic at low altitude, often a long way from the airport, rather than offering a wide spread of airspace and allowing pilots to select the safest, most efficient route.

The resulting noise footprint can drastically change the character of a whole area, eg from a sleepy coastal town, peaceful tourist retreat or pristine wilderness area with low ambient noise to a noisy dead zone.

Finally, given the larger distances required between paths for safety in the new system, the more available airspace the better. Yet the plan places most of the flight paths in a small sector of airspace to the southeast of the airport, creating complexity, retaining the risky crossover point, and requiring longer flight times, since most connecting destinations are to the west (eg Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Antarctica, South-West Tasmania). Why hasn’t Airservices proposed opening up airspace to the west of the airport?

Following the disastrous implementation of the current paths in September last year, an investigation by the Aircraft Noise Ombudsman criticised Airservices’ cavalier approach to community stakeholders and recommended major changes to its consultation process. To address the recommendations, Airservices appointed a Canberra-based social planner without aviation experience to conduct workshops with people newly overflown by the current paths. The consultant’s main contribution has been to facilitate a series of emotionally harrowing sessions which dredged up memories of bushfire survival and the psychological impact of aircraft noise from participants.

Designed to identify social impact and affect the selection of more appropriate air routes, Airservices’ new proposal leaves current paths largely unchanged, and adds a new eastern route over Maria Island and Bangor, an option vehemently rejected as unsuitable by community stakeholders in November last year. Airservices has engaged the same consultant to run community information sessions beginning this week.

Who else has had an influence on the plan? Our group, the South East Coast Lifestyle Association, is aware that five safe and workable greenfield designs developed over the past year were reduced to just one, following a private meeting with an unrevealed stakeholder group on August 13. This leads to a perception of undue influence, especially given that following this meeting, public consultation was inexplicably delayed by three months. Airservices’ Stephen Angus referred to “net benefit” (Mercury, October 31). He should spell out where the benefits and costs fall.

This is a 20-year plan with implications for safety, the economy, tourism assets, social and environmental impact. Tasmanians are entitled to expect a thorough and transparent process which evaluates all the options, in which all stakeholders get to have their say through public hearings or submissions, so a well-informed decision can be made. This is part of accepted planning practice for major public infrastructure decisions, such as roads and large-scale developments, and a key part of the democratic process. This should not be left in the hands of a private consultant beholden to Airservices, and a narrowly focused government bureaucracy which clearly doesn’t get it.

Airservices’ inept and shortsighted handling of its 20-year plan poses significant public interest risks for Hobart into the future, and our parliamentary representatives must step in to get the plan back on the right track.

Some reasonable questions asked by the Mercury but IMO credibility was lost when the author said this...  

Why is this a problem? Firstly, things can go wrong with automated systems, as illustrated by the Lion Air disaster. An unprecedented spike in safety incidents (Mercury, October 10) resulted from on-board computers being unable to follow satellite guidance.

 
It is a bit a stretch and over dramatisation to use the Lion Air JT610 crash as an example of what can tragically go wrong if automated systems fail. But I'll let Shannon Wells, who is far better informed on this matter, straighten out the flaws in the Mercury article...  
Via Twitter:
 

Shannon Wells
@shannon_wells

Ugh southwest Tasmania flights are NOT IMPACTED by SID/STAR into Hobart - ugh cant anyone at @themercurycomau do some basic fact checks before publishing an opinion piece of which is potentially inflammatory? @ItsMeChrisJones @AirservicesNews #politas

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The amount of lives saved due to progression with automation in aviation is mind blowing and the author to cite these as problematic is stupid - this is a noise issue - nothing more, nothing less - the planes have to go somewhere

Ref: https://twitter.com/shannon_wells/status...4745480192

  
Still not a good look for the seemingly totally unnacountable Harfwit and his pack of OneSKY trough feeding executives...  


MTF...P2