Trash ‘n’ Navs
You seem to be a little closer to the survey than you let on. ‘Squawk IFF’???? Do you know what IFF stands for, or did it just slip in?
My concern with the survey rests on the fact that a reduction in amendments seems the only option that the decision makers in AsA consider. It is making a bad product worse.
If I fly VFR predominately in South Australia, with an occasional flurry into Victoria, why should I have information from the rest of the country? I just had a quick look at the document on the web and base the following figures on those data. I maybe off a bit in my addition and may have counted some pages twice twice.
The ‘OTHER’ section contains about 200 pages. If I’m VFR only, I don’t need the IFR waypoints or the Route Flight Planning Reqs. The whole section could be hived off and updated occasionally, either as required or annually. When was the last time the EMERGENCY section was updated? What about the conversion tables? Instead, AsA reprint these pages with every issue. How many documents are printed? 10,000? 20,000? Multiplied by the number of pages. What a waste!
I might never fly into Sydney INTL, Melbourne INTL, Brisbane INTL or Adelaide INTL. That saves another 26 pages per issue. Then remove all the airport information from outside of South Australia. What do I need helicopter information for if I’m a fixed wing pilot? And most of the restrictions on navaids and taxiways and obstacle limitations don’t interest me. I don’t need to know all the types of oil served at the refueler. Just the fact that there is a refueler with a phone number and hours of operation are enough for me.
By the time all this is done, I might only have a document with 50 pages. I’ll do a hand amendment every time if there are only a few pages to update.
Now you’re going to come back and say formatting and proof-reading individual documents will be prohibitive. You might be right, but software has changed enormously in the last few years and I believe the software to do such a thing is available. Entries can be coded. I’m sure there is coding of a type entered in the master document already. The full document can be proof-read once. All other sub-documents can then be pulled from the one master and formatted automatically and printed in batches.
But that might take some research and expense. It seems AsA would rather continue trying to work with a bad product and tossing up surveys for Option A or B to support the status quo.
While we’re on the subject of cost saving. Why do we have three VFR charts for areas like Coffs Harbour? Why is it that the area selling the charts within Airservices finds it necessary to turn up to each Flight Safety Forum at great expense? Couldn’t a local retailer do a better job for less? In fact, why is that area retailing at all? Couldn’t they just bulk ship to local retailers? Seems to work in the US and elsewhere. The aviation industry is paying for all this.