Roll on November 27th. At least we'll be uninterrupted by irrelevant drivel on the area frequency when my co-pilot or passenger calls traffic.
Anybody worried by these changes should promise never to fly in the US.
In what way is the US system inclusive and the NAS not so?
I've flown VFR in gliders and GA private aircraft in the US. In radar coverage in dense traffic airspace you may use the radar service but the rest of the time you look out. No area frequencies and no requirement for enroute communication VFR.
I've flown a glider over the airport LBJ went into in Air Force One when he went home (long runway) at less than 1500 feet because it was being used as a turnpoint in the contest. I did this along with 64 other people in 64 other gliders that hour. Nobody thought it remarkable.
The contest used other places like Laughlin AFB(4000 jet movements a day) as turnpoints too. Mix in biz jets, lots of private GA, Navy jets out of Corpus Christi on medium level cross country navs all with no radio alerting and you very quickly get good at scanning and seeing other traffic. Again this is regarded as unremarkable.
One day flying back into the sunset getting a little low and needing a thermal I spotted two corn husks above the horizon. Saved again I thought for a moment then the "corn husks" turned into two F4's going by.
What would you guys on the area frequency have been doing -looking at the map for the frequency boundary?
I've also seen lots of GA aircraft in 2500 hours of cross country gliding in Oz. The only ones who respond to my wing waggle are crop dusters which says something about the lookout standards. Relying on the radio to alert us are we? Well guess what - there are things out there from gliders down to eagles who never were on the area frequency.
I'm really looking forward to the blessed silence enroute particularly with my new ANR headset.