Good Morning all!
I appreciate the candor and professionalism of all responses to my recent post.
I can agree with you that Dick has taken a very defensive posture and somewhat of an aggressive stand on NAS. I wasn't sure how his remarks would be received by VOR, when his opening reply referred to alleged defamation of character. I am sincerely thankful that VOR chose to diffuse this situation and move forward on the debate.
I am concerned that Mr Smith has chosen to use the media as a conduit to make personal attacks of his own against controllers, pilots and even the present QF Chief Pilot. I consider a PPrune a form of media.
With all this in mind...I still believe he has some valid points.
1. What the hell is Air Services Australia doing quoting anybody anything in Hawaii, when the airspace in Oz still needs to be fixed?
2. How can the outrageous fees being charged by Air Services Australia be justified, when the service they provide for GA seems to be quite minimal.
3. Who is now charged with regulating and amending the changes in the NAS rollback? Was any study done to reveal the risk of doing that?
4. Why the resulting confusion, leading to higher regulatory charges, lower student starts and general lack of agreement?
5. If Dick Smith is, "not in charge now", who is? Why haven't we heard from him/her?
If I were Dick Smith, I'd be tempted to come off the ropes swinging too! But, somehow, we have to prevent him from doing that by keeping the attacks objective and not too personal. If you make someone angry, they are bound to get upset, go speak to a reporter or hire an attorney. Let's just try and keep the arguments fairly "surgical", right?