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From that man again in today's the Oz...

Rural airport fights cost-cutting plan to axe beacon  

• by: EAN HIGGINS
  
• From: The Australian
  
• July 07, 2015 12:00AM
  

Reporter
Sydney




Flying instructor Hugh Brownlee has joined the campaign to save Horsham’s non-directional beacon. Picture: Aaron Francis Source: News Corp Australia
 
Against traditional civic action campaigns such as “Save Our School”, “Save Our Park”, or “Save Our Library”, the catchcry “Save Our Non-Directional Beacon” sounds a bit esoteric.  

But that’s the slogan with which the people of Horsham in western Victoria are lobbying politicians in their battle to keep an air navigation device at their local airport.

In a bid to save money, Airservices Australia, the government-owned body that runs the nation’s air-traffic-control and navi­gation system, is soon to decommission about half the 415 fixed navigation aids across the country.

According to Hugh Brownlee, the chief flying instructor at the Wimmera Aero Club, it is an ­example of how Airservices ­focuses on the interests of the big airlines rather than the many small businesses of general aviation. Non-directional beacons are radio transmitters that send out signals picked up by automatic direction finders on aircraft.

They can be used to home in on an airfield for a landing ­approach, or, in combination with other NDB signals, give the pilot a fix on the aircraft’s position. Horsham is not an airline destination, but it has considerable general aviation activity.

Airservices says old-style fixed aids such as NDBs are redundant with the introduction of new technology, particularly satellite global positioning system navigation aids.

But the aviators at Horsham, backed by the Horsham Rural City Council, say the NDB, which also provides the signal for weather information, represents a critical safety feature.

The council’s director of technical services, John Martin, said Airservices was attempting to shift costs by suggesting if the council thought it needed the NDB, it could pay for it.
“We have implored them to maintain it,” Mr Martin said.

Aviators and the council have lobbied local Nationals MP Andrew Broad, a pilot, and Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, who is Transport Minister.

“In our view, Airservices’ plans compromise our safety for the sake of their convenience and cost,” Mr Brownlee wrote in a letter to Mr Broad.

GPS is not infallible: a Victorian coroner found a faulty GPS aid on a light aircraft was to blame in 2004 for a crash in bad weather that killed six people near Benalla.

Under new regulations, aircraft rated for instrument-flight rules can get by with a basic GPS system as long as they have an “alternate” positioning system like automatic direction finders.

But with fewer fixed navigation aids to make the ADF work, aviators say they will lose their “alternate” system and be forced to install much more expensive GPS systems costing between $10,000 and $40,000.

A spokesman for Mr Truss said the Horsham NDB’s fate was sealed, and referred to “the better capability provided by satellite-based technology and the cost savings from not having to replace and maintain the older nav­aid network in its entirety”.

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