Peuce, you state:
I would also suggest that Air Traffic Control has had to manage far more safety and risk mitigators than before taking over OCTA.
You are 100% correct. That is because we haven’t moved to the system that was decided by the Board in 1991. You obviously haven’t read
Unsafe Skies. I would suggest you spend 30 minutes in reading it, and you will see what the story was.
The present system is a disaster for air traffic controllers and one day, one will be held responsible for an accident that was caused because we are at a half way point. I cannot understand why controllers don’t support either going back to the dual system, or moving forward to a disciplined system where air traffic controllers control aircraft and you do not have VFR aircraft on air traffic control frequencies and making announcements.
The present system is sort of like an amateurish, childish version designed by Enid Blyton.
The reason we have this system is because of constant, ill-informed resistance to completing the reforms which were started in 1991. Look again at the diagrams in Unsafe Skies (see
here). The airspace was to closely follow that of North America, which is a system designed by professional air traffic controllers with the prime aim of high levels of safety while ensuring controllers are not held responsible for accidents they have minimum control over.
For example, in the USA, the FAA would never design a system so all VFR aircraft in Class E were on the air traffic control frequency by law, had a transponder, and therefore were the responsibility of the air traffic controller who is not even providing a control service or a radar advisory service.
The present system is a disaster for air traffic controllers. Of course many of the airline pilots like it because they think are getting something for nothing, and that maximises the profits for their bosses while increasing the risk for air traffic controllers.
I was amazed that when the Government made the decision to go to NAS, many informed controllers phoned me and said this was a good decision. It was a small group of ill-informed controllers (without even enough confidence to use their own names) who ran a campaign against NAS, so we ended up with a half-way system of amateur airspace.