If TCAS is mandatory what about radios at IFR airports
I agree that TCAS is a great "last line of defense" and I hope you also agree that it should be used as such?
With a fairly small fleet of aircraft in the 10 to 30 seat field it may be a good idea to fit them all with TCAS, but why not make it all turbine aircraft or all passenger carrying commercial aircraft? After all the pax in the back of a Baron is entitled to the same level of safety as that of a pax in a metro II or 23, etc.
We have numerous odd "lines in the sand" in our curent regs and so maybe getting that sorted out is a good starting point.
There is one major safety improvement that we can make and wouldn't cost much. Lets lobby CASA to make it mandatory for all airports with an instrument approach to be a CTAF-R! Oh and get everyone to turn their radios on and talk when they get there!
I know that a great deal of regional aircraft operators would be able stop using their TCAS as a sudo radar systems to dodge VFR traffic not required to talk at an airport.