Roaring Rimau, no, the only aircraft that I was being separated from was the Metro.
By the way, the tower doesn’t appear to “own” any airspace. I remember years ago we used to have this ridiculous situation at Canberra. Then the Canberra Tower was given the airspace to the control zone boundary, and pilots flying in below 3,500 feet could simply talk to the tower – and delays were completely removed.
Why doesn’t the Williamtown Tower “own” the airspace to Nobbys – or at least over the coast? I understand there was a move at one time to follow international practice and have Australian radar towers control the airspace to the first step of the zone. This has happened at Sydney Airport to the Botany Bay heads, but that is about it.
How is it that at airports in other countries, no matter what traffic is present, a VFR aircraft can fly in similar airspace in VMC conditions without being held?
When the airspace becomes a CTAF, with situations when there can be more than one IFR airline aircraft at a time, why is it that a traffic information service suffices?
The more I am told about this the more I am convinced that it is exactly as I originally said – absolute dismal leadership from the military people in Canberra. Proper procedures even copied from a country such as New Zealand would completely solve the problem.
There they are, flying around in F/A-18s, which I understood came from the United States, but they are not prepared to follow any of the US enlightened airspace procedures. Wouldn’t you think that one of them would lift the phone and speak to one of the military ATCs in the USA?
Then again, asking advice is not the way to go for people who lack ability and self-confidence.