THE IRON MAIDEN
Hi mate, this question was pi$$ing me off ever since in came in, and the boys flying the jets at work didn't even know, now I phoned DOTARS the other day like it said, and firstly the woman ASKED ME TO SPELL "CTAF", I thought "oh dear this ain't good" haha, but then she took my name and number and someone in the 'know' called me back yesterday. Now when overflying a CTAF, its true, it only has a lateral boundary, not vertically. Yes it used to be 5000', now this gentlemen said you as the pilot need to make an informed decision to whether you will conflict with traffic in that circuit with regards to height. He said if you are at 8500, maybe forget it, but if your at 5500 well yeah have a listen, and make a broadcast if your concerned theres jets/turbines buzzing around. Personally I have 2 coms, and 126.7 plugged in 24/7, flying with 1 coms is a bitch hey. Hope that clears it up mate, another interesting thing he said was I told him I fly to a lot of cattle stations and he said "personally I wouldn't even bother broadcasting entering/base/final etc. because no one will even know where it is. He said make a call on area freq to let people know where you are if you like, but don't even bother. Well me, I need all the practice on these new procedures I can get, so I will be making calls (for now anyway) for a little longer till I get up to speed. Safe flying
CHD