Folks,
Controlled Airspace and Engine Failures
Could I respectfully suggest that those of you who are actually professional pilots flying multi-engine aircraft bone up on the criteria, on which engine-out performance is based.
"Controlled" (for our purposes here in Australia, D and up) airspace design DOES NOT attempt to provide "controlled airspace" protection for an engine out or any other non-normal situation.
"Controlled airspace" exists for the purpose of separation of aircraft, and to a lesser degree, obstacle clearance ---- in normal flight, but the latter is still the ultimate responsibility of the PIC.
Have a think about it. Given the variety of aircraft types and possible engine out performance (or lack thereof) scenarios, short of controlled airspace to the ground, how would you do it ? You don't, and that's true for ICAO as well.
Equally, for operations where the PIC is expected to take advantage of controlled airspace where it is available (per. Ops. Manual), no PIC is expected to add "remaining in controlled airspace" to his or her lists of tasks in handling any emergency situation, engine out or whatever.
Thus, the fact that something heavy going off 16L/R at YSSY might go straight through the Victor VFR lane, in the event of an engine failure (it has happened --- birdstrike on two engines, B747-200) is accepted as a reasonable statistical risk. The same goes for 16 at YMML, etc. For anybody who thinks it should be otherwise, don't hold your breath, you'll only go blue in the face. It ain't going to change.
Call it what you will, "Risk Management/Cost-Benefit analysis"/ AS-NZ4360:2005/Affordable Safety/the Airspace Act 2007 (take you pick - they are all fundamentally the same) is here to stay, despite a valiant rearguard action by several groups.
The size of Military airspace at Williamtown, Richmond or anywhere else, has nothing to do with keeping civil aircraft in "controlled airspace" in the event of an emergency. Last time I noticed, Richmond zone boundaries were based on two ancient and seldom (if ever, now) used TACAN approaches.
The fundamental of military airspace design policy in Australia has long been "We won WWII, it all belongs to us", and unlike many countries, in Australia civil makes its own arrangements with "What's left", notwithstanding all sorts of various joint airspace/user agreements.
Tootle pip!!