Peuce
I think you mean by stating,
However, unlike yourself, I would like to see the specific volume figures for the proposed link airspace
that you want to see the theoretical calculation of what the accident rate might be.
Peuce, the problem I see is quite often the theoretical rate is inaccurate. I am Patron of the
Australian Skeptics and over the years I have seen even qualified scientific people come up with theoretical claims that, when checked in practice, are found to be quite wrong.
Let me give you an example of how theory can be so wrong.
When Airservices reversed the E over D airspace of NAS-2B, they did so because the Board was told that the correct process of safety analysis was not completed before Airservices agreed to change the airspace. It was not that the airspace was not safe, it was the fact that the processes had not been followed and this could leave the Board liable.
The Board made the decision to reverse the airspace, and then had their “experts” complete a safety study to support the Board decision.
The interesting point was that the safety study was very much a theoretical study – it never once looked at what safety levels had been obtained with proven E over D in other countries – and mainly based its statistics on a group of Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers who sat around a table and “guessed” what the chance of mistakes being made would be.
I remember they got answers like “
a private pilot would make a 1 in 3 chance of not being on the correct frequency, whereas an IFR airline pilot would only make that mistake 1 in 1,000,000 times”.
But the most important point was that the resultant figures showed how many fatalities there were likely to be in the E over D airspace over a period of time in a place like Hobart. When these figures were interpolated into the US model using similar traffic densities, it showed that the USA would have had over 500 fatalities in a certain period if their resultant rate was to be similar to what was shown by the theoretical study. However, in the same period, the US had no fatalities, suggesting that the theoretical Australian study may have been 500 times “out” in terms of accuracy.
Let’s say you are going to take your family for a fly in a Boeing 747. You could get a group of people to look at the design of the 747 – no doubt cost a fortune – and then come up with their theoretical data of how safe it may be. But what happens if you were told that statistics from the past show that you would have a chance of 1 in 3,000,000 of having an accident and losing your life on a particular flight? If you were told that these figures were taken from actual flights over many years, you’d be far more likely to agree with this type of study.
Peuce, I have a feeling you want the theoretical study to exist so it can confirm what your “belief system” says the result should be. I would prefer to copy the results from the proven system, especially when you consider that the USA has used this type of airspace – once called “Visual Exempt” – over non-radar towers for over sixty years, with tens of millions of movements.