Originally Posted by
Capn Bloggs
What load of codswallop. Now we'll have every dogsbody pilot peering at their ADS-B In screens and asking ATC "is that return going to miss us?". TCAS does not require ADS-B, only a transponder (Mode S best). ADS-B In in busy CTAs/zones will be a distracting nightmare for crews.
Every pax jet is separated by SIDs and STARs, with either lateral and/or vertical separation. That is what is required here with the choppers. Playing TCAS dodgem-cars below 1000ft when you're trying to land is not the way to go.
Point 3 is the only one that makes any real sense. The rest sound good only to the great-unwashed.
As a non-technical poster on this forum I sure as shucks won't comment on the ADS-B content of the proposed legislation. But point 4 of the summary:
"Directs the Army OIG to initiate a safety coordination audit. The Army Inspector General has declined to voluntarily review the Army's aviation safety practices. The Inspector General would conduct an independent review of the Army's approach to safety."
Why does this not make real sense?
The NTSB will very likely (undoubtedly, I think) include, in its report, quite extensive findings about the Army's operations. It was at least very unusual, if not unprecedented, for the NTSB to issue urgent recommendations to FAA in the immediate aftermath of January 29 with regard to use of the helicopter routes. On these facts, why is it not sensible to require the Army to undergo an IG review?
Although without a service record, I do generally understand the idea that the Army's task and purpose is lethality, at least in the meaning of that term before the assemblage at Quantico earlier this fall. Surely operating in domestic airspace doesn't make safety irrelevant "becasue lethality", does it?
One other aspect of this tragic and from many perspectives senseless midair collision is that very dedicated professional people in the aviation field are going to have their respective actions and failures to act in the events of January 29 scrutinized in the most harshly critical light in a courtroom. Bluntly, their performance will be trashed - the Army pilots, one or more controllers, and as discussed recently on this thread, the airline aviators too. On these facts, and hoping that reasonable minds may differ, I think the IG review isn't just a sensible idea, it's a necessity. It is something owed to those people, who are not going to speak up in their defense, or in their eternal regrets, from the great beyond. The least the United States can do is to find out what to do better. I'll work for the IG project, gratis, .... if they'd take me.