Firstly, the casual observer may notice that I am not operating under a pseudonym, anything I have to say can be happily attributed to me.
I trained as a Flight Service Officer in 1978, and in 1999 conducted the CA/GRS trial at Ayers Rock… for my sins, I am still there.
A few people have asked me to weigh in on the Unicom discussion, so, for what it is worth here is my bit;
The present system of services in “G” airspace, as most of you are aware is nothing, or CA/GRS. From what I understand the intent of Unicom is to provide a level of service between those. If this is conducted under the rules for Unicom in MOS there will be a good deal of frequency congestion, but, as it was pointed out correctly by Airservices, if this is the case it will show itself in a trial. I do feel it is important that any trial be reviewed by an independent panel of pilots and operators, and not just “rubber stamped” as suitable.
With the CA/GRS operation, we determine from all of the traffic in the vicinity which ones will be “relevant” and pass only those to the individual aircraft. This is how the frequency congestion is minimised. A Unicom operator under the present rules will not be allowed to make these distinctions and inbound pilots must be given traffic on all aircraft, relevant or otherwise. Another consideration is the weather. Unless the Unicom operator is an authorized met observer, or has an authority issued by CASA, they can not provide opinions or trends on the weather, they can only issue factual statements such as a METAR/SPECI or general observation like “nice day” or “raining”.
If the Unicom service was to be introduced with a common sense approach it could work quite well, but unfortunately I don’t think that the operators will be free to make too many decisions. If the rules were changed it could be a very good thing, but then it would be a duplicate of the CA/GRS, why duplicate the service?
Both ATC and the proposed Unicom are inflexible. CA/GRS is not. With ATC there are many rules which they must follow. With the proposed Unicom there are many things that they will not be allowed to do. The CA/GRS is not prescriptive other than being required during the hours of RPT operations and a few other bits of things. It was designed to enhance the then MBZ procedures. We have the flexibility to make the system work, usually by helping, sometimes by screaming at pilots, like the guy in the Baron that tried to land into a backtracking B737 declaring he had plenty of room. The short story is we make it work with minimum intervention, and we can be flexible. CTAF procedures apply at all times, and pilots are free to disregard any information we provide.
What we need is a service that will allow trained people to make sound judgments based on their training and experience and stop trying to prescribe every eventuality. That also goes for many other areas of Australian aviation.
The CA/GRS at Ayers Rock and Broome are well thought out cost effective services and are generally well accepted. The regulatory framework is in place, and whilst we are told that it will not be mandated at any airport in the near future, any airport can on application to CASA introduce the service. This should be considered for expansion in “G” airspace. Personally it won’t matter much to me as I will be retiring soon. (Circuit Area Wollongong, Cancel SAR).
One other item regarding “retirement homes”, if any of you were around when Australian aviation had the world’s only “Operational Control Service” you may remember that it was very much a retirement centre. It consisted of many “past it” ATCs, assisted by their equally clapped out FSO underlings, not all were in that category by any means, but many of the ranks were not up to the job any more (it comes to us all). Their job was in Operational Control Centres (OCCs) and briefing offices checking professional pilot's flight plans to make sure they had enough fuel, and had provided for any required alternates or OPRs, (operational requirements, ML req additional 30 holding due busy). When they were satisfied as to the pilot’s competence they would then pronounce “Operational Approval”. Curiously it only applied to IFR flights, low time VFR pilots had to manage on their own. It was something of an embarrassment when dealing with international airline pilots. Frequently at Bankstown briefing and at the Sydney International Briefing office the staff outnumbered the customers. On the upside however, they did provide much needed knowledge during SAR exercises as most had a wealth of experience to offer. But don’t kid yourself, it was very much a retirement home. The system has changed, and improved since my time as a FSO but like any other profession some operators are more competent than others, and even the good ones have bad days. Just like pilots.
Last edited by John T Cooper; 12th Oct 2007 at 13:11.