Bloggsie, if there is any measurable extra cost in running terminal Class E, I don’t think I would be a supporter of it. However, you would know there is airspace in Australia where the workload on air traffic controllers is not very high.
Are you suggesting that an enroute controller in this airspace wouldn’t be able to do a Class E terminal service? Especially when you consider that giving a traffic information service is not workload permitting. It has to be given at all times, which means the sector has to be manned at all time to give the traffic information service.
At least with Class E, if there is an overload, an air traffic controller could delay giving departure clearance just by saying, “Standby.”
Yes, this might mean a delay for an IFR aircraft, and I certainly wouldn’t support this if it was going to happen all the time – but if it happened occasionally and meant that we were not paying higher costs for air traffic control, but receiving a safer separation service, I think I would be a supporter.
Of course, all of these things need to be appraised and discussed. The very fact that we have not even tried any terminal Class E airspace at a non-tower airport shows the incredible resistance to change – or possibly because of the lack of people with the ability to show leadership at CASA.
Bloggsie, you seem to go to extremes at all times – i.e. because I suggest that VFR could fly enroute without monitoring an ATC frequency, that must mean I totally support unalerted see and avoid. I have made it absolutely clear that I support pilots of enroute aircraft flying in the airspace normally used for approach and departure at a non-tower airport monitoring the CTAF frequency. This was part of the NAS we were introducing before it was half wound-back.
Do you realise if I had not come along, you would probably still be flying in uncontrolled airspace with no surveillance service at all, and still being operated by flight service – who were banned from looking at a radar (or indeed ADS-B screen)?
When I became Chairman, there was a proposal to introduce a system called FISADS, which was an artificial display screen showing positions of aircraft in uncontrolled airspace, taken from dead reckoning from the flight plan. This was even to be installed where there was good radar coverage. It was total madness, which I stopped.
Bloggsie, believe it or not, there is a chance that you are a better pilot than I am – after all, you are a “professional” – but when it comes to looking around the world, asking advice and copying the best, I think I might have an edge over you.