snarek
Thanks. On with the debate.
One of your 'truths' about the ML incident:
Cessna hears Virgin decent modified to 18,000. Virgin has Cessna visual and requests descent through Cessnas level, this is denied due to lack of lateral separation (my interpretation: this is an interesting point, the Cessna is still VFR in E, the rules allow this, has it occured the TCAS alert may not have triggered. Nontheless it also shows the controller was separating the aircraft as if they were both IFR).
Nothing could be further from the truth. As I understand the incident, the three aircraft were at FL170, FL175 and descending to FL180.
The Virgin aircraft was instructed to maintain FL180. This is patently
not the 'controller was separating the aircraft as if they were both IFR'. (Separation between these aircraft would be 1,000FT vertically or at least 5NM by radar.) Whatever else the controller was doing at the time, he was
not - at this stage - providing IFR/IFR separation. While one aircraft was VFR, he was not required to.
Whatever other benefits you may wish to ascribe to Class E airspace and to NAS2B changes in particular, it is incumbent on all to acknowledge that the events leading to three aircraft within 500FT of each other vertically, with only two of them subject to a clearance
could not have happened up to 26 November.
Whether or not having these aircraft in this position and leaving the avoidance to TCAS is
desirable and the proper basis for a safe and orderly airways system is open to debate. But at least we should acknowledge that this incident/non-event
is NAS related. It could only happen under NAS.
What I see as a safety flaw, you may see as a design feature, allowing flexibility. That is why I would like to see this issue debated using facts, statistics and proper safety studies, not just Dick Smith's beliefs and feelings - or mine for that matter. Either the US system is safer or less safe than the previous Ausralian system. Either it is cheaper or more expensive that the previous Australian system. (The recently released Eurocontrol study states that the Australian system was more effecient in terms of economics and efficiency.)
Why not allow the truth to be revealed?