LHRT
"James,
What logical reasons could you or Max honestly muster up to justify this to not be benficial to safety ?, "
Answer is, if you want this to be done 100% of the time make sure the controllers is not overwhelmed doing this to the detriment of their other separation responsibilities. i.e look at the traffic densities, peaks and troughs and make sure you have the staff to cover these. Don't confuse a lack of chatter with a lack of work, though sometimes this may be the case.
In the Benalla situation, it was the Route Adherence Monitor (RAM) that went off , not the Minimum Safe Altitude Warning (MSAW).
Away from the Benalla case, if I vector an aircraft outside of their planned route corridor I will get a RAM alert, alarms and flashing signs. If the computer believes that on an aircrafts climb profile it will enter a Danger Area it will give me a Danger Area Infringement Warning (DAIW) even though I have cleared the aircraft only to a level under the area.If an aircrafts estimate for a position off radar does not agree with the system I will get an Estimated Time Over (ETO) alarm. We get alarms all the time. Don't think that these alarms only go off to alert when things ARE wrong, they are to query us when the machine thinks something might be wrong, tp prompt us to check. When you are doing a lot of vectoring every aircraft may have a RAM alert.
Have a think about all the Aerodromes and ALAs along the East coast between 45nm North of Sydney and Coffs Harbour. Taree , Port Macquarie, Forster, etc etc. I will have a check at work and get a list for this one controller , and how many underlying airports there are and get back to you.
The controller doing this would also be doing sequencing for Sydney and Williamstown( Newcastle), and dealing with northbound departures out of Sydney, and military traffic into and out of the RAAF areas, co-ordinating with other sectors plus departures out of these other aerodromes.
When the pushes are on we are working our backsides off. What about during bad weather everyone attempting Instrument Approaches.
In these situations its like having a large military. In times of peace , we reckon they are over resourced and under -utilised, but in times of trouble we get upset and wonder how we ever let things get so rundown.
During slow periods it may be achievable, but when busy?
As I said happy to do it if mandated but give us the resources i.e People and computing power, to do it. Affordable Safety. I agree this would be beneficial to safety, but it will cost.
Ask Dick how many hours he has spent 'sitting in' with controllers in the last three years. Not how many he may/ may not have just spoken to, but how much first hand experience he has of sitting at the consoles in the last three years.
Last edited by max1; 25th Sep 2008 at 00:09.