How many dollars did ASA spend on their GBAS system that they tried to develop with Honeywell. Ground Based Augmentation System | GBAS |
There is a pervasive trap in the adoption of new technology that snares almost all businesses and governments at some time.
That is the phenomenon of the good being rejected in favour of the pursuit of the mythical perfect.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in Australia. Let me give you a simple example that illustrates this completely:
I have a friend who at one time imported Nolan motorcycle helmets. These are and always have been at the very edge of state of the art in the field and they are also made in the worlds most advanced helmet factory in Europe and meet or exceed both European and American standards.
...Except they hadn't been tested to Australian standards had they? They couldn't be sold in this country without that little Standards Australia mark on the label. In Australia the heads and necks are more fragile and the bitumen harder than in Europe. or so we are lead to believe. The factory was incredulous - you want us to do these stupid tests and jump through Australian hoops? OK, but it is going to cost you. What a waste of time and money to keep some Australian bureaucratic prick in a make work job.
These days evey box of cornflakes comes with a WAAS enabled GPS in it. Has Australia adopted WAAS? Nope. Instead it pursued its own purpose built system that not only is expensive,
but it cannot be sold to the rest of the world.
The country is littered with examples of purpose built Australian technology or "customised" technology (read unuseable anywhere else) when something off the shelf from Europe or America would do almost as well - and at a fraction of the cost. The case of the entire avaition regulation suite is a case in point. Why don't we adopt the FAA rules?
If I was dictator, I would mandate that any time a DIN anr UL standard existed for something that met 90% of Australias needs it must be adopted. The same with any communications or transport technology. Keep australian standards for things that are totally unique to Australia - like Koala enclosures.