NAS @c
Dick,
you know who I am, for others, I am the Chairman of Broome International Airport and an admirer of Dicks achievements in business,aviation and adventure
I have a number of observations that are at the core of the MBZ debate.
1. The only sudy on MBZ radio compliance vs CTAF(AUS) showed non compliance at CTAF airports was 500% higher.
2. NASIG has yet to find, since being asked 8 months ago an airport in the USA that is similar to our major regional airport with 20,000+ a/c movement Class G airspace, no radar and 737 RPT ops.
3 On reading the a/p example given by NASIG to the Senate I rang the airport to check and corrected the advise goiven to them by NASIG. THIS USA SKY RESORT AIPORT HAD MANDATORY CALLS 10 MINS OUT ON APPR. OR BEFORE TAXI. I also needed to advise the Senate that contary to NASIG advise there was radar down to 4000 ft AGL and when IFR conditions pervailed they used a one in one out procedure with Denver center placing IFR a/c into a holding pattern until the first a/c had cleared the runway then allowing the nexy a/c to descend below the radar floor which is high due to the surrounding mountains.
4. The USA has FSS sited at airports giving DTI via a ASS Airport Service Station, these can use radar as well as comms monitoring to check on known traffic.
5. In response to our FOI on the department we have been advised there is no risk or safety analysis done for adopting CTAF(USA) at our major regional airports!
6. When I asked John King (who did the NASIG road show) privately, was there to his knowledge airports like Broome (giving him a rundown on a/c type and movements) on CTAF in the USA? after discussing with Martha he said NO. I note about one week later Dick you issued a press statement that Broome was to have a tower neither CASA, AA, or ourselves had been informed of this nor had NASIG! Since then the matter has not been raised.
7. Since 1994 unlike the USA CTAF airports we have had no midair collisions at our MBZ airports.
So todate we have, no number of comparable airports in the USA, no radio useage data or study, no risk analysis of our terminal airspaces that will be effected by this change.
Broomes independent design risk analysis which has taken 5 months to comly to ICAO and Australian standards and cost $40,000 involving four Doctorates in Stats, Engineering and Risk analysis will be complete at the end of this month.(including your imput)
Any proper risk analysis of terminal airspace must be site specific as traffic volumes, traffic direction, trafic peaks, terrain, aircraft type and mix,weather, airport characteristics, availabilty of radar and many other factors influence the outcomes
The USA in the FAA carry out such studies to determine risk at there major regional airports. Infact at the a/p mentioned above they had just complete a study to see if a D class tower was required.The answer was no, but the a/p is asking for a gov funded radar at their ehanced dedicated Unicom "tower" its presence and the FSS service plus radar coverage would have been parameters in the FAA study.
You can look at the USA airports and see many of their gov funded D class towered airports are at "smaller" a/ps than our major uncontrolled regional airports.Though as also stated above the traffic volume is only one parameter in determining risk. It does indicate that at least a FSS providing ASS at the airport as a step prior to a D class tower maybe overdue.
But NASIG are not analysing this or any other option for terminal airspace at our important busy regional airports even though they exist in the USA airspace NAS that we are adopting.
Instead without even examining and analysis any major regional airport terminal airspace we propose to change from a system with no accident since 1994 to a unproven new airspace procedure. Note: unproven as unlike enroute procedures terminal procedures are site specific. Just as you don't have one type A chart for all regional a/ps, you can't have a one size suits all approach to terminal airspace.
This proposed change from MBZ to CTAF(USA) is not an aviation methodology based on learned analysis of data and risk.
We have here an idiological approach to terminal airspace design that if successful will increase risks and may ultimately cost lives.
Dick, you need to answer the above concerns not with "I believe"," it works there" etc but with data, analysis and study addressing all the parameters of a terminal airspace change.
Please draw breath and think again before pushing this agenda.
cheers and regards Mike