BROOME TOWER
Dick,
Your statements on a D class tower for Broome International airport provide clarity to the on going debate NAS debate.
You pick and choose from agencies, documents and individual statements the parts you want-yet then criticise and discard the same sources when they fail to support your ideas.
You state I Dick Smith will get a D Class Tower at BME just you wait and see.
There for all to see is the problem with NAS and your influence.
No requirement of a study,no reference to Australian Standards and criteria, no consultation with users, no historical examination of incidents,no comparision with similar USA airports, no calculation using the FAA D Class tower selection criteria.
Why a tower? It is simple I Dick Smith "think" and have now decided BME shall have a tower!!!
Dick, let me give you a tip. BME will have a tower when a Design Aeronautical Study by appropriately qualified professionals using a proven analytical system either AUS,FAA or ICAO says it is needed and CASA, following industry consultation, confirms the findings and AsA agree on how it will be introduced.
Then and only then will the aviation industry need to bear the costs of establishng and operating the tower and the GA aircraft based at or operating into BME need to bear the expense of equiping their a/c with transponders. While we the owners will close down the loss making CAGRS service and retrain and redeploy our CAGROs to other duties most likely being tower ATC.
This is how you change a small but crucial part of an airspace system. It is not your decision, nor: mine,the BIA board, the CEOs,the Arport managers or the Ministers.
The proven system requirements of the BME Terminal Airspace makes the decision and the responsibile airport owner, airlines, aviation users and Authorities task is to impliment the required change in a cost effective planned transparent and orderly manner.
What you or I, think or wish, is irrelevant. If the recent BME DAS had concluded a tower was needed we would have advised CASA and AsA and the industry and set the process in motion without delay.
If NAS had followed this methodology all the angst and vitriol and errors would not have occured, opposing views would be forced to be based on data and analysis as this is the only way to effectively counter a studied informed consultative decision. Prove it wrong or in need of revision by concerted analysed studied argument.
Sure it takes longer but it is safer and more cost efficient and takes the majority of industry with you.
Rember in God we trust all others, including Dick, must have Data.
Cheers Mike Caplehorn
Chairman BIA Group