Just a question...
Now, I'm not really a pilot - I've only got 50 hours and I've not been flying in about 3 years - and I'm not an air traffic controller either. My "qualification" is a brand new degree in aviation management, but please don't hold that against me.
It would seem to me that NAS might work outside the terminal areas, where there is a low traffic density, especially outside radar coverage. My reasoning for this is that, without surveillance, Class E airspace is not really all that different to Class G airspace, which is what is out there currently. I'm told that with all the frequency coupling going on, monitoring the area frequency for relevent traffic is not really all that effective for gaining a situational awareness of the local traffic anyway - because of all that frequency clutter manufactured by AsA. What is the difference if a VFR pilot doesn't monitor the frequency at all and makes no transmissions?
Am I wrong in suggesting that there would not be much change, in a practical sense, outside the terminal areas? Don't pilots flying outside radar coverage rely on see-and-avoid separation anyway? If I'm right, does that mean that there are no real safety issues with NAS outside terminal areas? Is the problem really limited to terminal areas, where the airspace is being downgraded from Class C or D to Class E?
I'm not advocating NAS in any way here, because if I'm right, there's no real point in changing the system and wasting a lot of money doing it!
Oz Mate!