Capt Claret, sorry for long wait.....
I have been especially busy with the snow these last two weeks, luckily the company paid me a whole bunch of overtime, now I can afford to sit by my fireplace and write back.
I used to fly for the old Tillair and actually lived in Alice Springs in 1987.
The basic problem that the Australian Airspace model continues to have is:
1) Too much IFR with non-reporting VFR.
2) Too little radar coverage.
3) Non Controlled Airspace that extends too high, close to trunk-line airports.
Your BAE-146/ Avro experience on descent actually sounds very typical for any airliner. Although I fly Hawker 1000s now, I am typed on the 73' and used to teach the 75/767 for a major airline here in the US.
The NAS could benefit from what I can only refer to as a shallower upside-down wedding cake. I would put the top of the E Airspace at only around 15,000 feet. Anyone that needs to be on supplemental oxygen or needs to have traffic cleared for an emergency descent, shouldn't be doing it VFR anyway.
Anything above, say 15,000 feet should be Class A ICAO, requiring an IFR clearance, end of story.
Like Americans, Australians value their freedoms, but there is one underlying freedom that we must not ignore. The general public, who may or may not partake in aviation, has a right to be reasonably protected from aircraft crashing through their living room windows while they eat dinner with their families.
Most countries, including the United States, require instrument ratings for commercial rated flights outside of 25 miles radius. This is certainly a difficult propositon for pilots that fly for months in the outback without seeing a cloud, so I don't really see it as a practical Australian proposition.
Restricting airspace between RPT and GA flights that are not operating IFR is the only sensible response to a country that does not have adequate radar coverage to emulate the "American" system. There is no reason to prevent IFR flights by private and other General Aviation aircraft in a positive control zone, they must simply be IFR equipped, rated and reporting.
Something tells me, I'm probably going to have to go back down there one of these days to help sort some of this mess out.
Last edited by Chris Higgins; 12th Dec 2003 at 11:08.