Thank you for your interest, Mr Smith. We were aware of your kind and magnanimous offer to provide a cheque for $5000 to the Royal Flying Doctor Service – however, it would take a little more than that to tempt us to remove our anonymity. As has been pointed out by other respondents on this and other threads, it is anonymity that gives PPruNe its power. Yes, sometimes there are frivolous, funny and even odd postings across the network, but at times much good is done by allowing free interchange and exchange of information that would otherwise be hidden. We think that is worth a lot more than the $5000 ‘reward’ you offered.
We would, however, encourage you, in the spirit of magnanimity, to make the donation anyway – as a sort of quid pro quo for the sometimes spirited and always entertaining interchanges between us!
Now to the more serious topic of airspace reform.
Our posting regarding the need for a free and open risk management framework contained some comments about pre-biased outcomes. In particular, the posting needs to be read in conjunction with the draft policy statement that contains specific direction about airspace changes, including continued roll-out of the National Airspace System.
We think we have been clear in the past that the changes proposed under NAS are not, in and off themselves, inherently ‘dangerous’ – what we have raised concerns about is the need to carefully manage the changeover from the current operational environment, to any new operational environment.
You often cite the ‘dirt road’ versus ‘super highway’ example. Simply putting a set of stop lights on a dirt road will have little effect – unless it is carefully educated – and the country drivers affected understand what to do when they come across that stop light (there was a tragic reminder of that, we believe, just recently in country Victoria).
But even before that, a fully deployed risk management system will allow you to determine if you even need that set of stop lights.
Simply saying that something is safe, does not make it so. Simply copying an established system, even the US system, and superimposing it on Australia does not necessarily make the Australian operating environment safer. You need to properly assess the risks associated with the whole system, including pilot and controller training and procedures, the institutional and regulatory framework (which we note that you are working on), the economic framework, and so on – and then determine which parts of the system truly need to be upgraded or changed.
We are concerned that the risk framework has been framed to facilitate the introduction of a predetermined outcome – not to truly test the risks associated with operating the current system, and to identify mitigations against those risks – which MAY include elements from your ‘proven US system’, but may, as well, include other more progressive solutions.
We are not opposed to the risk framework – we would simply like to see it cast in a more neutral posture, providing an environment within which changes can be made which will decrease risk and maximise consensus.