Ozbusdriver, in no way am I trying to absolve the pilot of anything. I’m simply stating that the ATSB got it wrong. That is, they stated clearly in their final report that the only way the GPS would fly on dead reckoning in that situation would be to enter the information manually. This is wrong.
In practice, the GPS will fly the route if it goes into dead reckoning for any reason – and in fact fly that exact route if the wind is in the right direction. No proper certified GPS should be able to do such a thing. The Trimble GPS should follow the flight manual details – i.e. require manual inputs.
Surely if a trained 747 pilot can take off at Tenerife without a clearance, any human being can do anything. We are not infallible.We can miss warning messages or they can fail.
Have a look on my website
here. I have posted John Chew’s statement.
Peuce, I agree regarding controllers’ clear responsibilities and appropriate facilities – I always have. However you seem to have an incredible misunderstanding. You state:
As an aside, if "...we are lucky to get one IFR into Benalla a day ... ", then by making it controlled airspace, are we really allocating the resources where they will do the most good ?
Most certainly, because we may be able to stop a controlled flight into terrain accident. The last one killed 6 people there. You seem to think that IFR services are only related to collision protection between aircraft. In fact, there would be at least 5 times as many collisions with the ground compared to collisions between aircraft. If we can use air traffic control and radar to help prevent this, we should.