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Old 2nd May 2008 | 22:19
  #27 (permalink)  
gpn01
 
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 434
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From: UK
A couple of thoughts...

The willingness for safety "at any cost" - this simply isn't realistic. Everybody, whether that be a GA pilot or an airline business, makes a tradeoff between relative risk and the associated cost. Airline manufacturers could make aircraft safer by, for example, improving crash survivability (such as on board water sprays). They don't because this increases the weight of the aircraft, decreases the available load and increases the cost. IF we REALLY supported the principle that CAT must at all costs be made as safe as possible then a starting point would be to be ban ALL GA and military traffic (thereby decreasing the probability of collision) and insisting on considerable investment in ATC facilties (and passing the charge on to the airlines who'd build it into the price of a ticket).

Improving safety through additional controlled airspace - The latest set of airprox data (jan-Jun 2007 - http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/docs/423/ukabbk18.pdf) states that:
"Airprox where controllers did not seperate CAT aircraft or exercised poor judgement.... featured 11 times, an increase of 37% over the same period in 2006". Overall, GA airproxes remain pretty much unchanged year on year, whilst controlled airspace ones have increased. Would this not suggest that the area that needs to be improved is INSIDE controlled airspace, not outside ?
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