[Peetwo]

"..Sir Angus has refused to do so, saying “We want our firefighters ready to respond … not handling the radio”..."

Head in clouds??



Nah..more like..



---ka'ching---

From Planetalking this arvo, Ben weighs in on the debate...

Dick versus Angus over air space reform in Australia

Ben Sandilands | Jun 27, 2015 1:14PM |

Are we wasting millions, and destroying general aviation, by inadequately and unfairly introducing new air traffic control technology?

Dick Smith, aviator, businessman, and supporter of good causes

From the PT article Ben in reply to a comment... 

 "..Fair enough. I was only trying to paraphrase those who made such statements in the Australian newspaper stories.


One reason I have for the most part avoided GA stories is that they usually ignite fire fights among readers, with occasional burning arrow aimed at the blogger that has dared to even raise any particular GA topic you care to name.


This taught me that in GA just about everyone hates everyone else and that there is anything but general agreement on anything in general aviation.


Not saying that is right or wrong, and your comment is very useful. But this is a part of aviation coverage I usually try to avoid..."

...   sad really but Ben does have a point when it comes to general debate on GA issues, especially when it comes to Dick Smith.

Being a paid subscriber of the Oz Ben maybe interested to know that on this Dick Smith GA campaign the stats would suggest that Dick is in ascendancy i.e. those in support of the Dick campaign.

Going off the 39 comments (as a baseline) 35% were not in support of Dick, 12% were neither for or against, leaving 53% in support. However there is also another observable change in the commentary; that is Joe Public is becoming far more informed because of the Dick Smith campaign.

Here is a spread of positive Dick Smith comments from the Paul Kelly Article (why no negative DS comments - well they are all basically poorly written repetitive snipes with little or no intellectual value whatsoever), first from some self-confessed layman   : 

Desmond 5pts
Featured
2 days ago

I do not have any expertise in satellite systems or any other system in aviation so can't comment on that, however it does appear to me, as a layman, that Smith has a valid point. It appears that aircraft in controlled space are fine and Smith has no argument with that. His main thrust is that of uncontrolled air space at regional airports where on approach pilots are flying blind in relation to weather and positioning of other aircraft in the area. He is saying that firefighters or others employed at these airports should be able to provide visual observations to pilots, plane positions, who is on the tarmac, weather conditions etc as occurs in the USA.

This makes logical sense to me.

Yet CASA says they will not allow that as those observations must be provided by a trained official.

CASA is not prepared to place trained officials at regional airports to facilitate ground observations.
Catch 22.

This is insane.

It is like people on an uncontrolled beach are not allowed to warn swimmers that they can see a shark in the water, only a trained life guard should be allowed to warn swimmers of such danger, but the beach has no life guard.

I don't agree with some of the stuff Smith comes up with from time to time but on this particular point I think he is right and common sense is giving way to stuffy beaurocracy!!!

I can only assume Houston does not want to take on the union to implement a sensible practice.

Bernard
2 days ago

I know this is off topic guys BUT "Sir" Angus...Really, I feel like I'm back in the dark ages. Next it will be Lord this and Duchess....that.

I heard Smith on 2GB yesterday and what he said made total sense. Dick Smith was specifically talking about the fact that once you are below 8,000 in  regional air fields then, as a Captain, you are relying on sight and radio communication between aircraft to ensue safe approach and I assume landing and takeoff.

From a layman's perspective, if that is the case, then surely implementing the WAAS system should be a priority across the country. Can someone confirm if it is true that  that CASA staff are on a bonus system which means the less that they spend then more they reap, surely cannot be the case.

john
2 days ago

Dick Smith often mouths off about things on which he has limited knowledge. But not this time.

Dick Smith would know more about landing aircraft at small airports than most people alive and that covers more than a few countries.

Sir Angus Houston, get off your high horse - If you denied pilots and troops the best of information when you sent them into action, you would have been charged with dereliction of duty.

This is like the attitude of the Defence Force which refused help to fight a fire at Lithgow and their attitude led to a bushfire which decimated the Blue Mountains taking a horrific toll.

linda
2 days ago

Much of what Houston says is convincing but his answer on firefighters providing weather information at regional airports smacks of bureaucratic obfuscation. Firefighters are surely capable of observing and reporting on the weather without being distracted from their primary duties, and information of that kind could be useful to pilots. Dick Smith is right about this one, but given his reputation as a bit of an obsessive in this area,  I fear that his advocacy of a correct position in one case may not help it to be implemented.

Lindsay
2 days ago

If it is a choice between believing the statements of Dick Smith or Angus Houston it is a no contest: Dick Smith every time. Why? Because Angus Houston is a political animal who always says, in public, what his political masters want.

    
Next a couple of comments from aviators:

Ted
2 days ago

Kees, as a practising pilot flying of the beaten track away from the famous j curve on the east coast, I am afraid I have to agree with Dick Smith.

There is nothing wrong with the American Uni com system, which is operated usually by FBOs.

These fixed base operators are not trained weather observers, air traffic controllers or firemen, but they are as a rule experienced pilots.

The information that they give to arriving aircraft is the wind direction and speed and the operative duty runway in use, so an approach can be be planned without having to do an overflight of the field.

They give an heads up of known traffic, any local airfield serviceability issues and an approximation of the the weather, rain, snow, cloud base etc without going into semantics .

It's there as a valuable guide only, but ASA and CASA are terrified of liability issues.

The pilots neither need nor require a fully operational departmental system, but very happy with a low cost, no cost friendly operator at the field to give you a heads up.
This is the argument that Dick is on about.

The worlds best practice mantra trotted out by the department is not shared by pilots that are familiar with the American system.

This one needs some editing (hint..hint.. ) but you will get the gist.. :

Botswana O'Hooligan

2 days ago

@eng  It used to be that most positions in ATC and the FSU were staffed by ex RAAF types and the Air Navigation rules were all contained in a small A5 tome about one and a half centimetres thick. The Air Navigation Orders were about A4 size and were about an inch thick. Both publications would now fill a couple of wheelbarrows despite the fact that aeroplanes still depend on a wing each side, go no faster and in fact take longer to get from capital city to capital city than they did when jets were first introduced to Australia.

We are back to the old days of fifty plus years ago when we had but VAR, DME, ILS, and a radio compass, and sat in holding patterns wending our way down to the bottom of the stack before we could land because there was no Radar, no VOR, and no GPS. Now of course we have every known aid to man available to us and even the Ipads some pilots use would have more computing power than Neil Armstrong and Co had for their lunar landers and we are back to sitting in holding patterns wasting huge amounts of fuel in a time when everyone is supposedly green.

It is basically a waste of time building a jet aeroplane that goes reasonable fast because the ATC system simply cannot handle them and thus we are slowed down to 250 knots below ten thousand feet and right back to 170 or so knots on final approach which is simply ridiculous for it is akin to driving ones car with the handbrake on. Blokes like Mr Smith, an amateur pilot if there ever was one judging by his escapades, didn't and don't do any good, and won't do any good now, and if the now Mr Houston, a lovely bloke by all account's, represents the ATC system we should all head for the hills, by train of course, because the RAAF ATC system, and he was the head of the RAAF, is just a bloody disgrace for Townsville and Darwin are about the scariest places to take a jet aeroplane because of the ineptness of their RAAF ATC people.

The system is so bad that this old man who gets a staff discount on airline travel, prefers to drive the thousands of kilometres to get somewhere rather than go through the drama of security checks, the delays, and the holding at destinations and wonders in the dark watches where we all went wrong for we were once at the lead in things aviation with the invention of distance measuring equipment, flight data recorders, and cockpit voice recorders with a safety record second to none.

Finally going back to Ben's comment reply he went onto say...
"..At a deeper level, and as a former student of public administration, the executive/administrative divide in Australia is a worry. Successive aviation ministers have their responses to serious anomalies, like Pel-Air, and passenger accident liability, written for them by the very people who are being criticised for poor decisions, and I don’t think that is helpful, whether in bank and finance regulation, or air safety.."

To which Jen Jensen made this excellent comment..

[*]3
Jen Jensen
Posted June 28, 2015 at 9:09 am | Permalink
Ben Sandilands wrote “At a deeper level, and as a former student of public administration, the executive/administrative divide in Australia is a worry. Successive aviation ministers have their responses to serious anomalies, like Pel-Air, and passenger accident liability, written for them by the very people who are being criticised for poor decisions, and I don’t think that is helpful, whether in bank and finance regulation, or air safety.”

That is the crux of the matter.

We all hope that Angus Houston and Mark Skinner will reform their departments and not be seen to be in “Yes Minister” mode. It is imperative that they both sort out the issues with fresh eyes, not just parrot the department think.

[*]
Don't lose heart Ben...
MTF...P2