PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Accident Near Mangalore Airport - Possibly 2 Aircraft down
Old 10th Mar 2020, 11:22
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Mr Approach
 
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Triadic the UK CAA were as confusing with their use of the ICAO airspace classifications as Australia. The London airspace changed when the European Authority decreed that airspace, once designated as a class could not then be "modified" to suit local conventions.The then London Class A (ICAO - IFR only) was full of VFR helicopter operations flying VFR under local exemptions, this was banned by the European authorities so it had to become Class D. By the way this also occurs in the Sydney Class C where, under an exemption, police helicopters are not subject to Class C separation. This effectively makes it Class D for those operations and note that London did not become Class C. According to the CASA web site CASA intends to enshrine that exemption in changes to CASR Part 172 (Air Traffic Services) instead of following the European lead and changing the airspace classification to suit the traffic requirements. In other words Sydney Class C should be Class D the same as London, and for exactly the same reason. In fact all of our Class C Control Zones have the same helicopter problem however do not hold your breath. Once again the ICAO idea that pilots should be able to look up a chart, see and airspace class, and know exactly what service they can expect, is totally lost on the people fiddling around with regulations

Class E is a whole world of hurt for me having endured 30 years of ignorant push-back from ATS and pilots alike. I saw it work in the US and you can still see it working in many You Tube videos. Pilots would get the idea if it was everywhere, but having small blocks of it here there and everywhere makes it a foreign environment instead of the normal. To do that unfortunately would cause Airservices to have to create more sectors and therefore start losing money. Currently unlike the US, Canada, and many other countries, their service is required to make money (cost recovery) and pay a dividend to the Federal Government.

Our Government seems to have truck loads of money to spend on buildings full of public servants ensuring that old people are not claiming the old age pension when they have assets, (NZ has no such process everyone gets the OAP because it is cheaper to do it that way!) but nothing to spend on employing more ATCs (also de facto public servants) to ensure that all citizens flying in cloud are adequately separated from each other. The Federal Parliament should be embarrassed if not ashamed at such neglect.
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