[Peetwo]

Dick & TASWAM revisited.

Excellent post "K" but because of the more 'general' relevance to this and other forums/threads I have copied across and added to the post over on the M&M thread: CASA, ASA & ATSB - Up for tender? ...

However while on ASA I noticed today that Dick Smith is back in the Oz banging the ASA drum.. :

Hobart approach stuck in manual
12:00amPAUL CLEARY
A hair-raising descent into Hobart has prompted Dick Smith to renew calls for an overhaul of air traffic control.

Paul Cleary
The Australian
12:00AM February 3, 2017
[img=0x0]http://pixel.tcog.cp1.news.com.au/track/component/author/a08d9264e3d273919bd17ac796225521/?esi=true&t_product=the-australian&t_template=s3/austemp-article_common/vertical/author/widget&td_bio=false[/img]
A hair-raising descent into Hobart airport last week has prompted veteran aviator Dick Smith to renew his calls for an overhaul of air traffic control at the popular destination.
At a time when air safety regulators say satellite-based technology is making Australia’s skies safer, Mr Smith says controllers at Hobart are still using a 1930s-style air traffic control system.

Mr Smith said Hobart controllers had the digital system known as automatic dependent surveillance broadcast (ADS-B) but were not using it. Instead, pilots are ­directed to manually descend using charts.

The ADS-B system is meant to replace “ambiguous radio instructions with data-linked screen messages in cockpits” for all aircraft operating in Australia from today, according to acting CASA chief Shane Carmody.

In letters to CASA, Air Services Australia, the ATSB, and Transport Minister Darren Chester, Mr Smith explains how he flew into Cambridge Airport at Hobart in a Cessna Caravan with six passengers on board and was told by traffic control to step down using a chart, rather than using ADS-B.

“At that time I was in cloud, in icing conditions and in quite severe turbulence,” Mr Smith writes.

“Locating the required chart is bad enough ... to work out that I was on the 186 degree approach, realise it was Sector B that was required, and then do the stepping down in accordance with that chart is complex — especially when flying single pilot in such weather conditions.’’

Mr Smith said that when he contacted the tower, he was told that “controllers are not rated for the ADS-B, and for them to try to step down a plane every 1000 feet or so would be far too great a workload”.

But Airservices Australia (ASA) said radio instructions were standard at all 29 control towers, including Hobart “and all aircraft are required to follow published instrument approach procedures”.

“An instrument approach is an International Civil Aviation Organisation safety procedure,” a spokesman said.

He said ADS-B was being used at Hobart for “increased situational awareness and enhanced decision making in relation to separation of aircraft”.

But Mr Smith likened air traffic control at Hobart to the circumstances that led to a crash at Lockhart River in Queensland in 2005, which killed 15 people.

Mr Smith told the minister that if nothing changed, there would be a serious accident and it would take a royal commission to bring about better safety.

After Mr Smith raised the issues last year, ASA introduced rules to tighten control of air traffic into Hobart following concerns about the state’s radar system, known as TASWAM.
A CASA spokeswoman said a “full airspace review” conducted last year did not identify any “significant” concerns about safety in the vicinity of Hobart.

The report on this review is being finalised. The spokeswoman said the report found “existing airspace classification and architecture is appropriate and should remain unchanged”.

Major airlines flying into Hobart seem relaxed about safety and efficiency. A Qantas spokesman said: “We’re very comfortable with the air traffic control systems in place at Hobart, both from a safety and an efficiency point of view.”

  
MTF...P2