It seems that some professional jealousy keeps creeping into the debate and clouding the views of those that do not utilise Australian airspace as part of their everyday job.
Merry Christmas Boyd!
I don't know why you are wasting your time here, anything like a factual report on a Civil Air beat-up simply results in a heap of name calling and gets all the Chicken Little "professionals" ranting against anyone not wearing six gold bars on each shoulder.
There is very real reason why a vast majority of working pilots contributing to this forum are against the outdated, dangerous and amateurish attempt to "reform" our airspace.
A lot of posts here by those against NAS have been factual, to the point and based on actual operating experience.
Lowering yourself to such remarks does nothing but further scare me when I think that amateurs like RV8 builder are ploughing through airspace I may be occupying without speaking up or even monitoring the right frequency because he can't understand why those 6 bar professionals are kicking up such a fuss.
Had there been a collision risk he would have spoken up or taken avoiding action. He was flying some family members to be with other family members for Christmas and was not in a suicidal mood.
As others have said, relying on the most inexperienced and casual users of the airspace to make decisions on whether a conflict situation exists is absolute ludicrously. TCAS is not meant to be a traffic separation tool.
We have gone back to the dark ages with airspace management in this country due to weekend aviators and others without professional practical experience operationally making decisions on our workplace envrironment.
I pray that it doesn't take a collision to wake these fools up into realizing the momentous mistakes they have made.