Hi Bloggs - some answers
- I offered my solution in my post of 13th. The Ballina CA/GRS staff are all ex-ATCs, all they need is some authority instead of the half-baked situation that currently exists.
- I understand that Dick had to get rid of the FS organisation because no-one wanted to pay for it. So the FSOs who wanted to were re-trained as ATCs and IFR pilots now get a surveillance based traffic service OCTA (Class G)
- Flight Service Stations are a US service that "communicates directly with pilots for pilot briefings, flight plans, inflight advisory services, search and rescue initiation, aircraft emergencies, and Notices to Airmen" (FAA web site). Australia had Flight Service Centres and Flight Service Units; we still have Flight Service Centres but they are part of the two Air Traffic Control Centres.
- Whether an AFIS/CAGRS is useful depends on the rules and whether pilots know what they do. My experience is that because of the half-baked rules and that there are only three units in Australia most pilots (particularly of the PT jets) do not know the CA/GRS can provide directed and relevant traffic information. Because pilots are still obliged to talk to each other within the CTAF, even when there is an AFIS/CAGRS, the ground operator becomes just another voice on the frequency adding to workload. Hence the system is "half-baked" and "half-cocked".
- Your final comment about putting in a tower when CASA does not require one, goes right back to our Australian view that we don't need to do something until the Government decides we should. My view is that the aerodrome operator/owner is the appropriate organisation to decide what is required at their airport. Are you trying to say that no airport has ever installed anything unless it was required by CASA?