Originally Posted by
Bodie1
Is this not a 'no brainer?'
At the moment, in Class G as an IFR you get Directed Traffic Information on other IFR and known traffic on VFR (observed by ATC on radar and in contact with ATC).
ASA are offering IFR an 'upgrade' from DTI to Separation. Where there was G, now we'll give you E. Now where there's info, we'll separate you. But not only that, we'll mandate transponders for VFR in E, unlike the US where there's no requirement for a transponder.
Why is IFR against an upgrade to their safety?
I don't get it.
So far as I can tell, the ‘logic’ of the pilot detractors is:
(1). They don’t ‘know’ whether and where VFRs are in E because the VFRs don’t have to tell anybody they are in E.
(2). They
do ‘know’ whether and where the VFRs are in G - or at least when the VFRs are in the vicinity of an aerodrome where carriage of VHF is mandatory.
It’s a combination of a fear of a known unknown (I know there are VFRs in E but I don’t know where they are because they don’t have to tell me) and a mistaken belief that VFRs in G are a known known (the VFRs have to tell me where they are when in the vicinity of the aerodrome I’m doing my IFR procedure in/out of).
In this ‘logic’, VFR pilots are somehow more incompetent in E than they are in G. Apparently they can manage to have the radio tuned the correct frequency more often in G than when they are in E, manage to get their position and estimates correct more often in G than when they are in E, and manage to make better judgments about when to speak up in G than when they are in E. Go figure!
And then there’s the weird and whacky world of the internal politics of Air ‘Services’ and the Office of Airspace ‘Regulation’.