We have moved this topic from Ballina to Remote Towers, so to revert to the subject of the post...............
Ballina is, like Wellcamp near Toowoomba, in a particularly difficult position from an air traffic control point of view.
It sits astride a well-worn aviation corridor sandwiched between Class C controlled airspace to the north, Class E above, and ADF R Area to the south. It also has retained an NDB which is used for IFR training and many VFR aircraft use the airspace to remain OCTA. It also has other airports using the CTAF plus private ALAs in proximity to them all.These combine to create a multi-use piece of airspace of far greater complexity than say Broome or Karratha. This is then exacerbated by scheduled passenger traffic, the protection of which is the primary role of CASA and Airservices.
Both have decided that the pilots of the public transport aircraft do not need any air traffic service (other than Airservices IFR traffic information in Class G airspace), deeming the risk to the passengers of the public transport aircraft to be as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP), as required by the safety management systems they should be utilising.
There are a number of risk mitigators at CASA and Airservices disposal yet they choose to pick a non-ICAO compliant radio service which CASR regulations (CASR 172) states explicitly is NOT an air traffic service.
What else could they do?
1. Install surveillance, specifically SSR - this will detect all of the transponder/ADS-B equipped aircraft;
2. Control the IFR entry and departure tracks utilising either Class E or C airspace - either would do if there was surveillance;
3. Control Ballina aerodrome traffic with Class D airspace - this would capture everybody with a radio;
4. A combination of Class E and Class D - this would be the lowest risk option.
A cost/benefit analysis is then normally applied
I am not going to attempt that here, I will only ask how much is an A320 or B737 worth, how much is an individual life worth, is a Ballina-based secondary radar too expensive, is a single-person ATC Tower too expensive?