NFR, on the money.
The argument that if we change our airspace design we will become the meca for aviation training is a furphy! CC is correct and he has used the argument many times...IF ATC disappears, GA is not affected. However, RPT is severly constrained. ATC is a tool evolved to facilitate the rapid and safe transit of heavy RPT. Heavy RPT pays for a service. In class E RPT and IFR is paying for a service that they do not receive.
At this level I can understand...Under the IFR, you fly by reference to your instruments. Your position in the sky is derived solely from information deciphered from your panel..On steam gauges this is not a direct depiction...mental effort is required to calculate and deduce your ACTUAL position in space. In IMC it is your lifeline in how good you can manipulate this raw data in real time. Because its IMC receiving a traffic service from ATC is also part of that lifeline. You are protected from unknown VFR because the conditions preclude VFR flight.
Change the story to a perfect VMC day Same IFR, same ATC service. Excepting now, you are maneuvering your aircraft for arrival by those same reference to those instruments, still requiring the same attention to deduce and maintain your track , but now you must spend a considerable time with your attention outside the cockpit scanning for UNKNOWN VFR....and your paying for this service?
But the heavies have got TCAS, they can see the mandated transponders of VFR flying in the same airspace. I asked this very question when I was planning and investigating my first ever trip away. I investigated EVERY possibility for that trip...even down to try and work out the timetable for airlines arriving at my destination so I could work out if I would not be in conflict...analy retentive, you might say. One person actually responded that as long as I had my transponder on they would see me...
as long as I had my transponder on......by default we are using a last line of defence device for something it was never intended for...trafffic mitigation!
Its OK to have class E in non-surveilled airspace, not by default but
mandate transponder equipped VFR become visible to TCAS equipped HVY RPT. To the plebs reading this for the first time..TCAS does NOT depict where a converging conflict realy is in space. TCAS will always show a collision risk DEG45 off the nose, even if the conflict is at your one oclock or eleven oclock position in reality....This is why TA or RA the pilot is told to climb or descend. Azimuth? the thing doesn't know where it actually is, only that the algorythm says its going to hit you......and this is what the bean-counters are going to tell the crews and ATC that there is a vanishingly small risk and no need for class C airspace...and the "traffic mitigation device" will say one thing and you will look out the window and see something else???
Go back and look at the threads regarding Hamilton Island airspace and Williamtown Airspace and how VFR are ALWAYS held at the boundaries. Ask yourselves, why is Smith pushing so hard for class E? Its not for the safety of paying passengers
