P2, yeah its all bollocks. If the firies don't want to do it, anyone else would do.
At a little airport in Florida, popular as a weekend retreat with the NY hoi poloy because of its golf courses. Friday afternoon is like the battle of Britain, lots of heavy metal corporates mixes up with training traffic and choppers. A calm voice on Unicom sorts it out, no "Instructions" just advice. The Unicom operator is a retired navy pilot, stuck in a wheelchair from an accident. Unicom was his hobby and probably what kept him going.
An Australian example, which I have de-identified because here it is illegal, strict liability and all that. Flying into a country airport on a crap day, made my inbound call and up came a voice with advice that the wind was calm, the QNH was xxxx, weather appeared lighter to the North, darker to the south and "Traffic Heard overhead". At this I held at 25 miles and tried to contact the aircraft overhead. The mysterious Unicom operator then came up and said the aircraft has made a missed approach and had headed away from the airport. I asked him to keep an ear out should he come back, waited for a while and called inbound again. Unicom advised weather lighter to the north so I shot the approach from that direction and successfully landed. What occurred that day under Australian Bullshit rules was totally Illegal, from all aspects, except the midair that was a real possibility.
That's why I say CAsA in all its glory do NOT write regs for safety, they write them to abrogate their responsibilities and Liability for anything, particularly safety, in fact they have become a positive impediment to safety.
At a little airport in Florida, popular as a weekend retreat with the NY hoi poloy because of its golf courses. Friday afternoon is like the battle of Britain, lots of heavy metal corporates mixes up with training traffic and choppers. A calm voice on Unicom sorts it out, no "Instructions" just advice. The Unicom operator is a retired navy pilot, stuck in a wheelchair from an accident. Unicom was his hobby and probably what kept him going.
An Australian example, which I have de-identified because here it is illegal, strict liability and all that. Flying into a country airport on a crap day, made my inbound call and up came a voice with advice that the wind was calm, the QNH was xxxx, weather appeared lighter to the North, darker to the south and "Traffic Heard overhead". At this I held at 25 miles and tried to contact the aircraft overhead. The mysterious Unicom operator then came up and said the aircraft has made a missed approach and had headed away from the airport. I asked him to keep an ear out should he come back, waited for a while and called inbound again. Unicom advised weather lighter to the north so I shot the approach from that direction and successfully landed. What occurred that day under Australian Bullshit rules was totally Illegal, from all aspects, except the midair that was a real possibility.
That's why I say CAsA in all its glory do NOT write regs for safety, they write them to abrogate their responsibilities and Liability for anything, particularly safety, in fact they have become a positive impediment to safety.