Howard Hughes, Here is a much belated answer to your posting of 26 March 2007.
You stated on this thread:
Since day one of the airspace debate, I have been saying that we can't adopt the system you propose without the necessary infrastructure! When ever I raise this point in threads, you never seem to respond, you are quite happy to deal with the peripheral issues, but not this major question.
So as I have not yet received a satisfactory response, I will ask again, "How can we institute a US style airspace system without the necessary infrastructure".
Howard Hughes, I have answered this many, many times. Why don’t you give me a phone call and I will go through it again? I will try to cover it here again too.
We don’t have as much infrastructure and radar coverage as the USA as we have roughly one fifteenth of the amount of traffic in the same land area. However between Melbourne and Cairns, the area where we have our mountains and the greatest density of traffic, we have a radar system which is as good as anything the US has.
For example, at airports only 130 miles to the west of Washington DC, there is no radar coverage in the Class E airspace above Class D airports. The US has an extensive radar system, however there are mountain ranges and this gives the same line of sight problems that exist everywhere in the world.
My philosophy is simple. Why can’t we have the proven safe US procedures, which maximise the use of radar and controlled airspace, where we have the same radar coverage advantage?
The situation at Benalla would be very typical of airports in the Appalachian Mountains on the East Coast of the USA.
You state:
Take Benalla for example less than 200 klms by road from Australias second largest city, yet it does not have suitable radar coverage, this is what we are dealing with!
As explained, this is absolutely typical of similar airports in the USA. Their system maximises the use of radar and controlled airspace, so you know as a pilot that you will have air traffic control assistance until you leave radar coverage.
This is not the Australian, system as we do not even have a procedure where a pilot in uncontrolled airspace informs the controller that he or she is no longer in IMC.
By the way, I’m not apportioning blame to anyone – other than to those who have the power to make the necessary changes to maximise the use of radar, yet are not doing so. I have found that many controllers with whom I talk would like to see better procedures introduced – it just doesn’t happen.