Scran
Thanks for spending the time in answering the questions. I will PMU and have a talk on the phone.
Scran, what you don’t seem to answer is why we have to be so different. When I fly in the United States and Canada and other countries I am not held by the military – they facilitate movement of traffic when it’s close to a tower.
The controllers in the United States tell me that if their Class C airspace did not have tower airspace to the control zone boundary, that it would restrict operations tremendously and they would have to hold aircraft. That’s exactly what happens here.
You no doubt remember Brian Kendall when he was in a management position in air traffic control. He assured me that before he retired, he would have tower airspace at all Class C airports in Australia. In fact, he only succeeded with Canberra and a little bit of airspace from the Sydney tower to Cape Banks.
Your colleagues have explained that to handle decent amounts of traffic at Williamtown they have had to break the rules. However, if we had tower airspace which is proven in other countries, they would not have had to do this.
Simply what I am saying, Scran, is that expert professional controllers tell me that they could not operate Class C airspace and, in fact, Class B without the controller being responsible for the airspace to the control zone boundary.
Here we do not do this at a place like Williamtown, and aircraft are consistently held.
You amaze me when you say that a tower controller can be responsible for the visual separation of traffic and, at the same time, be administering a radar standard between IFR and VFR aircraft. This is pretty-well unique in the world – especially when there for civilian operations – which Williamtown often opens solely for.
If you look back on the original airspace plans proposals you will see there was a definite plan to go to tower airspace at all of these Class C airports and the military control zones like Williamtown and Sale.
Clearly this was an accepted proposal to go ahead with and strongly supported by Brian Kendall with his years of experience, but you now don’t seem to support this, preferring to support the status quo.
In relation to any letters I wrote to the military, all you had to do was write back and explain the truth. For example, once I wrote and asked why Williamtown does not have tower airspace to the control zone boundary as they do in other leading aviation countries. I simply never received an answer to that one, because I think people probably looked at it and thought “that would be a good idea, it would facilitate the movement of traffic, however that will require change and that’s a helluva lot of work and there will be these concrete minded troglodytes who will run a campaign against it”.
Then, Scran, I don’t think the problem had anything to do with it being an air ambulance flight. I have been held when there is a 182 aircraft operating to the runway.
If the air ambulance flight had used the terminology “cancel IFR” when they were on the visual approach, can you explain if I would have been held under those circumstances? i.e. two VFR aircraft. I somehow think not, but there is no leadership shown in telling aircraft when it is sensible to cancel IFR so traffic does not have to be held in risky circumstances.
I can understand why you are so angry – it just confirms what I believe, and that is the senior people in the military lack leadership qualities. Otherwise, they would have openly examined the target resolution procedures and tower airspace, and provided a simple official explanation – in the last twenty years – on why it can’t be used here.
They haven’t done this because I believe any good inquiry into this would show it should be the way to go.