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Old 5th July 2004 | 15:20
  #38 (permalink)  
ATC Watcher
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Joined: May 1997
: ATCO
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From: Europe
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BOPralph : I see what you are trying to say, but you are shooting at the wrong target.

ICAO is not a superpower , it is an assembly of States representatives ( sometimes with different agendas up their sleeves.)
ICAO is us, collectively.

For your info . ( and very briefly, as I could write for hours on this )
TCAS is not an ICAO invention, it is a pure made in USA thing , and which was introduced by a US Presidential order against ICAO recommendation at the time. An ICAO group was working ( too slowly I agree) on a universal ACAS. But with TCAS out there , with no guidance material outside the US airspace, and pressure from other States to do something , ICAO had to backtrack and modify its work to accomodate part of TCAS.

The initial ICAO ACAS training manual came AFTER the US documentation was out. . Those US docs did not mention the absolute need to follow RAs on nearly all cases , especially if conflicting with ATC, for the typical US legal reasons. Therefore the term " Advisory " came about.
ICAO wanted more time to study implications before mandating such a system. The US denied them that and went ahead unilaterally. The rest of the world had to follow ( Sounds familiar eh ? ).

TCAS was hastily introduced and many of the shortcomings and flaws were tested in life traffic. ( and to some extend still are today ) This is the sad truth.
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