[Peetwo]

TICK..TICK..TICK - What will it take?

From off the 'bump in the night' thread post #

Next we had NX on those YMML incidents etc.

OK so that is OST's non-plussed, NFI on all these pesky, pain in the ass "GA issues" - with some input from the Witch Doctor stating the standard "small operators" don't signify mantra.

And this was the Harfwit - Creedy prepared - take on the same matters:

  

 


As much as the Dick Smith detractors will say that he is overdramatising issues for his own agenda -"..yada..yada.." - there is no denying that he is in a fairly unique situation when it comes to experiencing the highs & lows (pun partly intended ) of the day to day functioning, warts and all, of the Australian ATC/Airspace system.

The following is an example from the first part of Dick's appearance at the 18/08/15 ASA Performance hearing:

"..Compared with other countries, in Australia you are almost in complete silence all the time. I have said to the air traffic controllers, 'But couldn't you do a little bit more of a workload and actually give us an air traffic control service where we need it?' And quite a few of the controllers have said to me, 'Well, of course we can, but don't tell anyone I told you that'! I fly to Ballina from time to time, and you get this superb service from Bankstown's air traffic control; you just do what you are told. You get told to taxi out to the runway, and you ask for a clearance for take-off, and you take off, and the controller says 'Turn right to 120 degrees', and you meet the airway, and he or she says 'Turn left' and you follow the airway under air traffic control. The most amazing thing is that as you get to 8½ thousand feet, that is the only place on the whole trip where you can actually run into somebody. Up at 45,000 feet the airways are separated, going towards Brisbane and to the right by about 10 miles, from the one coming the other way, and up at 45,000 feet where I fly it is very unlikely for anyone to be there anyway. But when you actually get down to below 8½ thousand feet, the statistics show that is where the mid-air collisions can happen and it is where you can run into a mountain. I then get told, as the pilot—and I am a single pilot when I fly the plane; I do not have a copilot to start writing down call signs—'Traffic is'. In the worst situation, I was given four other aircraft, because the Lismore approach happens to be mingled up with the approach to Ballina. I write down on my pad, 'Four planes', and then I change off onto the aerodrome frequency and I start calling these planes and trying to sort out where they are.


To an Aussie pilot, that is just normal; that is the way we do it. But if you are a pilot from another country you simply cannot believe that a leading aviation country in the world can have something that is so archaic. If we brought in some class E airspace, as planned 20 years ago, instead of the en route controller—it is not an additional controller—giving you traffic information on three or four aircraft the controller would look at his or her radar screen down to about 3,000 feet and below the radar screen they would look at their flight strips on the electronic display, and they would separate you. It is called procedural separation. They would say, 'Hold at 6,000 feet' or 'Do the approach', and they would say, 'I'm holding an aircraft on the ground to depart.'


What I find incredible is that after 20 years we have not gotten even one airport in. And I have said to people who are against it—because resistance to change is staggering—'Let's just try one; if it is going to require hundreds of extra controllers then we obviously cannot afford it.' But my advice is that it will not. To the pilots who say they do not need it I say that I think after flying in it for three or four months you will find that it is a fantastic system.."