PlankBender, a most important post – thanks. You have said:
Dick, the thing I don't get is why you don't work with Airservices to try to influence … what seems like an honest attempt to bring aviation into the 21st century!?
You also state:
we get our avionics upgraded FOR FREE! … Now imagine how much safer and how much more attractive GA will be if every machine out there has a nice new colour moving map GPS like the Garmin 430 or something similar that displays traffic and possibly weather, combined with a crisp COM system.
The problem is that this isn’t what is proposed. As the post below by
Bushy clearly states, what is proposed is simply:
a box under the dash that tells everyone where you are like the transponder does, but which tells you NOTHING.
PlankBender, the reason I am no longer attempting to work positively with these people is that they are unethical.
I will give you some examples. You believe you will get a $15,000 voucher to allow you to buy some pretty fantastic equipment. The truth is quite different. The cost benefit case which was prepared for the low level ADS-B proposal was flawed. For example, on the benefit side of the equation it showed ADS-B ‘in’ – i.e. the displays you are talking about which show traffic etc. However it only put in the cost of ADS-B ‘out’ – i.e. the box under the dash as described by
Bushy – and that is all that was going to be subsidised.
The paper also showed a cost saving from removing the navigational aids, and used that as a benefit for ADS-B, when the two are quite separate.
When these flaws were pointed out to Airservices, rather than re-doing the cost benefit study, they did nothing. This is where the lack of ethics comes in. Many people thought that it was a simple mistake by those who prepared the cost benefit study. However the study has never been rectified, and Airservices allows people such as yourself (and others who gave “overwhelmingly” positive support for the low level ADS-B proposal) to believe the flawed study and that they will be provided with ADS-B ‘in’ and other flashy gizmos.
I believe you are in a similar position to the Naval aviators who were told a decade ago that they were going to get the best and most modern helicopters in the world. They were probably told they were going to have the best. In fact, after $1 billion of waste they got nothing. I believe the same will happen with the low level ADS-B project.
When an organisation goes down a dishonest path, nothing will save them – look at the Wheat Board.
Let me give you another example. Airservices prepared a safety case for the airspace changes which resulted in us having “upside down” airspace – i.e. high classifications where the risk is small, and low airspace classifications where the risk is high.
The Minister at the time was so disturbed he ordered CASA to obtain an independent consultant’s advice on the safety study. This study (called
Report on analysis of NAS 2b conducted by Airservices Australia) was prepared by Professor Terry O’Neill, the Head of the School of Applied Statistics at ANU – possibly the most qualified person in Australia to advise on this issue. The report clearly showed that the Airservices study was so flawed that the real results could be the opposite of what the Airservices Board was told.
CASA was so concerned that they advised the Airservices Board to be briefed by Professor O’Neill. If you were an Airservices Board member, I feel sure you would jump at the chance of having a briefing – you would want to be properly informed. What happened in the intervening 4 years? Professor O’Neill has never been allowed near the Board, let alone to give a briefing.
There is an explanation for this. The advisers to the Airservices Board are unethical and would have made it clear that once the Board members became aware of the flaws in the safety study, they could be held accountable. In effect, “If you don’t get a briefing by Professor O’Neill you will be able to say when an accident occurs, “We never knew that the safety study was flawed.””
It should be pointed out that the safety study still remains, and now CASA’s Office of Airspace Regulation is using the same flawed basis for their safety studies.
A similar situation is occurring with the low level ADS-B system.
Fortunately there are some Board members who realise that although most of the industry believes (as you do,
PlankBender) that a $15,000 voucher will cover some fancy equipment in the dashboard, this is not true.
Within the Airservices organisation, there is a cancerous code of dishonesty as part of the culture. It must lower the morale of everyone.
I have said before that I support ADS-B, but not a system of an “incompetent, never ask advice, go down a Seasprite route” catastrophe. That is what they are doing.