I still find fascinating the complete lack of ethics from CASA and Airservices on this issue. As my letter of Friday 10 January 2014 to John McCormick stated (see
HERE), “
Exemption requests for other areas of airspace will not be approved
is totally illegal.
The industry at the time believed the advice was correct so did not put up a strong case for exemption requests in the non-radar airspace believing the statement of CASA to be supported by law. It clearly was not.
My suggestion is you read the letter again. It’s interesting how there have been no comments on this letter from CASA.
It’s interesting – I’ve copied my letter to John McCormick to Minister Warren Truss but he has not yet made an announcement that he will force CASA to comply with the law – the sensible thing in this case would be to delay the mandate for, say, twelve months whilst a proper consultation can take place.
The Cessna video which is linked on a previous post is interesting if you can stay there for the whole forty minutes. First of all it states that in Australia only about 8% of the business aviation aircraft have been able to become compliant. It then mentions, “
the goal posts have been moved” then such words as, “
the technical solution from our suppliers does not exist. In Australia the timing is very challenging” - that is, indeed, an understatement with business aviation aircraft being forced to fly at low levels using lots more fuel, required to fly lower in bad weather and also having to land unnecessarily enroute.
If you watch the video they mention Canada – how different to Australia! The ADS-B mandatory level is flight level 350 to flight level 400 but, most importantly, you can apply to fly in those levels without ADS-B if there is not another aircraft that is going to be affected.
I am amazed that Minister Warren Truss hasn’t said to CASA words to the effect, “
Comply with the law. If you have informed the industry that no exemption requests will be accepted when this is against the law, you will have to change that advice and delay the introduction”. Why hasn’t the Minister said this? In my view he has always seemed to be an honest person. Is it that he is not game to force them to comply with the law?
It’s interesting that John McCormick clearly stated that a reasonable dispensation would be allowed, however the people below him have simply ignored his advice. The only advantage in bringing in this mandate so early is a potential cost saving for Airservices by being able to reduce staffing levels. But surely they can delay this for twelve months whilst they comply with the law?
More importantly, if they are going to make a huge saving from this premature introduction of mandatory ADS-B above flight level 290 in the non-radar airspace, why can’t they compensate the small number of aircraft that are having to pay extra? If this is a small part of the total savings it would be a sensible and ethical thing to do.
See
HERE for a recent letter I sent to the Minister asking him for a meeting within three days. As of today’s date, eight days after the letter was sent, no response has been received.
I will repeat – I find it fascinating that CASA requires the industry to comply with the law but doesn’t seem to have to do so itself.
Once again, I will say I am not blaming the Air Traffic Controllers for this situation, however if they do force an aircraft into bad weather and an accident results, I know what the media will say.