... but before you answer that .... answer this
http://www.raaa.com.au/Issues/Articl...20Apr%2007.pdf
But amongst all of this recent activity, the February SCC Airspace Users Group meeting stands out as a source of hope for the future. In stark contrast to the unpleasantness which characterised the NAS process in the past, at this meeting the representatives of various industry organisations from both the commercial and recreational segments generally agreed on a way forward for the regulation of airspace once CASA takes responsibility.
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In general terms, the meeting agreed that CASA should embrace the regulatory processes developed post-NAS by Airservices’s AERU (Airspace and Environment Regulatory Unit). AERU, very much to its credit, recognised that decisions on airspace changes should only be made on the basis of fact, determined in a transparent process, instead of blind assertion as in the case of the NAS changes. Consequently it developed and implemented a risk-based process to identify and prioritise potential problem areas, and then by way of aeronautical studies conducted in accordance with ANZS 4360:2004, aimed to identify the most appropriate solutions to each particular problem. This process was developed to consider three main aspects: the safety and efficiency of the public transport system, the cost to the industry, and equity of access by all users.
The success of the AERU process is perhaps best illustrated by its effectiveness in resolving some recently expressed concerns about Avalon. There had been calls for a control tower to be established at Avalon to separate RPT aircraft from transiting VFR traffic. However, the AERU process determined that the actual problem occurred some 10 miles from the airport, and that creating a control zone, which would have cost industry dearly and could have impacted to some extent on GA’s access, would not have resolved the key problem. AERU’s aeronautical study based process determined that the issue would best be solved by some relatively minor changes including the provision of aVFR route past Avalon.
Thus through a proper review of the facts and the development and consideration of a range of options, the AERU process resulted in a solution which demonstrated the required enhancement of safety and efficiency, but (apart from the cost of the study itself) at no cost to the industry and with no restriction on access by GA.
In addition, AERU’s transparent and consultative approach meant that the decision was accepted as a matter of routine. It would be hard to find a better model for future airspace decisions. That the representatives of the various recreational and commercial groups at the meeting endorsed the adoption of this process by CASA, is cause for some optimism after the black days of the NAS debacle.
The continuation of NAS is still government policy, but no-one either in government or industry wants to see a repeat of the NAS2b or NAS2c fiascos. Those episodes were the result of trying to impose what we believe were safety reducing measures on an industry which philosophically is not prepared to accept reductions in safety. At the outset, the RAAA (along with other bodies) argued that the more contentious proposed NAS changes should be subjected to aeronautical studies, but the NAS Implementation Group refused to even countenance such an approach, to its cost and to the cost of the government, the industry and the travelling public.
One is entitled to ask the question “Why would a body charged with upgrading the national airspace system, supposedly in the national interest, refuse to conduct such a study or series of studies to prove the safety of the changes being proposed?”
There is a lesson here for all charged with safeguarding the travelling public. Today’s Australian aviation industry is maturing rapidly and is strongly focused on safety. Apart from a professional and ethical interest in safety, safe operations are increasingly critical to economic survival. The industry is now too sophisticated to allow safety to be trifled with as perhaps it once was in order to achieve political or ndustrial aims. It demands at least as professional an approach to matters of safety as it does to other
critical aspects of business. And it supports CASA’s move towards risk management.
AERU has demonstrated a professional method of dealing with airspace issues, based on transparent aeronautical studies conducted in accordance with that standard, and that method has been endorsed by both ‘sides’ of the airspace debate. If government can adopt an equally professional method of reviewing and implementing the rest of its proposed National Airspace System, (and all the signs, beginning with Warren Truss’s airspace discussion paper are good), then we can avoid a repetition of that unsavoury
series of events which we would all prefer to put behind us.
If that saga was the catalyst which brought us all to this point, then perhaps it may have been worth it. We look forward to the Minister’s Airspace Statement with guarded optimism.
… and your riding instructions as a board member of the CASA will be what Richard???
