NAS Reform? What planet are these fools on?!
Just had a 'courtesy' call from the 'Department' in response to my protest call last week at the implementation of our 'new, better, safer, cheaper' airspace system.
Reasonably polite chap but certainly didn't like what I had to say though regarding safety and the impact beancounters and enthusiastic amatuers have had on the world of aviation. Liked it even less when I asked would he apologise to the families of the victims of an accident that was a result of a lack of Air Traffic Services previously available until these so called 'improvements'. Of course that won' thappen, it will be: "Crew failure to maintain sufficient lookout" or "inappropriate radio frequency selected" or "Crew failed to manage cockpit workload sufficiently to provide adequate scan for traffic". It ceratinly won't be "the changes implemented to ATS were poorly thought out in the eagerness to slash spending"
This US system is predicated on RADAR coverage to almost ground level across most of the continental US. His answer: that 'new technology' would take care of this (he meant ADS-B when I prompted him as he didn't recall the name of it). This was obviously from someone knowing very little about how much such systems cost etc. Of course a C150 through the radome of a 737 will kill all aboard just as well as a DHC-8 or C402 passing through it but he didn't have an answer to that.
It will be with no joy that I will make a public issue of this call after the aluminium shower.
He also stated that he had flown into several small airstrips with one Mr S_ and it all seemed quite safe to him, but he didn't have any qualifications or flying experience of course so had no idea of the cockpit workload in say a Dash8 on descent or just how fast they go and how hard it is to see another aircraft when you don't know where to look after all .... it may not even be on your radio frequency!
He tells me that he fields about 60 calls a week regarding the NAS Reform and I am the only one opposed to it! Of course that is 10 a day.. lot of ppl to be ringing up to pat them on the back!Could this be true?.. If so ignore this post.
I gave up on PPRuNe some time ago as generally the signal:noise ratio was rather low but here is an issue worth speaking on. Maybe I am completey on the wrong track here. This is what PPRuNe excels at and was orininally intended to do. Have your say.
Suggest anyone interested give their little 'Airspace Reform Hotline' a tingle on 18 0000 7024 and state their point of view. Be prepared to give your name and ARN. No need to be rude just state you want a record of your protest call made for future use when, God forbid, Australia has to bury a lot of people because we had people running the show who were more interested in acconts and political expediency than the lives of those they are supposed to protect. And they just wouldn't listen.