Ferris, one part of the United States which has similar traffic densities to Australia is Alaska. It does not generally stratify its airspace – i.e. have high and low level sectors – for exactly the reason you describe. If the sector is too big, the air traffic controller’s radar has to be set on too large a scale for the ATC to be able to monitor approaches correctly.
Can you answer this? Between Sydney and Melbourne, why do we have stratified airspace, with a high level sector and low level sectors? Surely we could use the same number of controllers by not stratifying the airspace. This would reduce the sector size and allow us to provide a proper safety service to a place like Benalla.
By the way, I have listened to all of the comments in relation to the US versus the Australian system. However, most of this is tied up with resistance to change. There are undoubtedly some places in Australia which are similar to some places in the USA where they use Class E airspace to low levels.
I believe that as I pay for a full enroute ATC service when flying IFR in my aircraft, I should get just that. This is not the present system. Currently when I get to the place I really need ATC (i.e. at lower levels in the terminal area – doing an instrument approach) I am handed off to a “do it yourself” system where I have to become my own air traffic controller.
As I have said before, I do not believe that we should, or could, put Class E airspace in at every instrument approach. However I know that we can put Class E in to low levels in some enroute approach airspace. Safety will be improved and there will be no measurable increase in cost.
However under the present circumstances where air traffic controllers and people at Airservices have closed their minds and say it will not work, we obviously will never move anywhere.
Last edited by Dick Smith; 17th Apr 2007 at 07:21.