Originally Posted by Dick Smith
That’s what you believe, but I would have a feeling it’s been created to appease ill-informed people who don’t understand proper risk management.
If these broadcast procedures take away the attention from the Controller to concentrate on circuit traffic, I believe there’s a chance that safety will be reduced.
The problem is situational awareness.
With the current system at Broome, all aircraft in the area have traffic information on everything within 30nm of Broome. For slow aircraft it's a bit of overkill, but for faster aircraft it is essential to have a mental picture so that you can make decisions on traffic avoidance
before you get to the circuit area. Yes the most dangerous time for collision is close in to the aerodrome, but planning a safe course of action to avoid collisions close to the aerodrome happens much farther out. There's no point finding out about conflicting traffic 8 miles from the runway, you don't have enough time to efficiently do anything about it.
The new CTA is going to reduce this area of situational awareness from 30nm to 8nm. Having a mandatory broadcast requirement in E within 30nm (lets call it an MBZ) goes someway to improve the situation but there will still be plenty of "black" aircraft flying below the steps and therefore outside of the MBZ.
As far as I'm concerned the current plans for the CTA will be a reduction in safety. I'm all for having CTA but it needs to be done properly. Class E is inappropriate, an 8nm control zone is inappropriate, and multiple frequency changes at a busy phase of flight is also inappropriate.