Read what I said again - I don't fly in US airspace - nor African. Africa is virtually all TIBA.
Been a while since you flew over India/Pakistan clearly - chances of meeting a light aircraft VFR no details over either country? Cannot happen. That is not to say you cannot die in that airspace, thank god for TCAS, but that is a matter of underfunded and terminally overloaded ATC system - India is a joke. I flew over India enroute Jeddah - home just a few days ago - utter nightmare, as is Saudi airspace. But there is no one airborne and unknown to the system - whether the system can find their details is a different thing.
Apparently one of our crews had a TCAS RA over India/Bangladesh/Burma (cant remember which) recently. That was because the system is underfunded/understaffed/broken and someone, NOT our crew, made a mistake - not a
design feature as you would have in Australian airspace.
The ONLY complaints I hear about Oz ATC from international pilots are;
AsA PAY ATTENTION!!!
1/. Occasional 'Non standard' phraseology (Usually from Brits and what they usually mean is different to UK - who have their own differences from ICAO but that is ok)
2/. Overly complex departure clearances. Its simply bizarre that Australia doesn't have stop heights on SID charts like so many other countries. Clearance from LHR as an example would be "ABC cleared to XYZ, Dover 5 Golf, squawk 1234" rather than the complex, long winded nausea we get in Oz.
3/. Occasional TIBA airspace - simply no excuse.
4/. Being jumped on from a great height for being 2nm off track (say going around a CB without asking for a clearance in the middle of the GAFA) when the airway you're on is 20nm wide.
5/. The utterly bizarre cock up that is the BN STAR charts.
It is utterly incomprehensible to me that anyone could think a 2, 4 or 6 seat light aircraft should have right of way over a jet aircraft full of passengers but that is what E over D/around C actually is. The same volume of airspace being 'controlled' for IFR and uncontrolled for VFR is a nonsense. Its like being a little bit pregnant - a nonsense concept. The fact of unknown aircraft being in the same volume of airspace means the airspace is uncontrolled.
If the workload for an ATCer in a D tower/where ever is too high for C/D then that
IS NOT and indication of a failure in airspace classification
but of its management - it needs more eyes NOT 'ignoring' that fact by making
some of the traffic invisible. That is
exactly like a 5 yr old sticking his fingers in his ears and yelling lalalalalalalal.
It costs money to have the extra eyes I hear you say?
Well woohoo hand the man a lollipop
Its a sad fact of modern life that EVERY section of Govt/public service is overburdened with 'management' at the expense of competent service/coal face staff. Yes Minister was a documentary not a fictional comedy.
The industry DOES NOT exist to create non operational management positions at AsA.
E airspace is a 'get out of jail free card' for less than optimum human resources management. If having an A380 with 500 pax descending through airspace relying on TCAS to point out unknown light aircraft crisscrossing in front of that aircraft (why do I get a mental picture of a blind man crossing a freeway with a white cane?) and talking to no one is an example of 'worlds best practice' WTF is an example of worlds worst practice?
Clearly in the view of Dick et al having the A380/B737 in C airspace and the towelling hat brigade filing flight plans or being denied access to that airspace volume