Brain Fade;
If the tower needs a 6 mile final to get depatures out due to the visiblity restrictions that the tower has, what good does it do to go visual and tighten things up when they can't have you tighten it up???
By reading here, I can see the issues that they have at EDI. I am NOT a controller there nor do I fly in and out of there, but I can understand the constrictions that they have. If they didn't have the vis problems from the tower, I am sure that they could load the runway up and get folks off faster, but that isn't going to happen, nor would it be safe...
I sit on a lot of different boards that oversee aviation safety issues. I also get to hear from the pilot community a LOT and they always want things FASTER and NOW as well as wanting to be first because THEY can fly better or faster than the person that they are being made to follow... But when we want them to do something that really makes them perform to make things work then we get the, well that is NOT safe, we don't want our members to have to comply with those sorts of restrictions etc... It goes around both ways... The folks at EDI have explained why you have to fly the way that you do there. No two airfields are exactly alike. Many have problems or restrictions that other places don't have and aren't readily noticible to those in the cockpit, but none the less the restrictions are there. If the pilot community has constructive ideas as to how EDI can possibly move aircraft faster then I would suggest that the pilot groups that fly in there sit down with the controller groups and airfield management to try to work out a SAFE solution.
regards
Scott H. Voigt
NATCA Southwest Region
Safety and Technology Chairman