Thanks for the copy of the page from the glossy brochure, dated 27 November 2003, Dick.
I note another thread on PPRuNe, called “NAS Operational questions” that was started on
6 June 2003 – i.e. more than 5 months
before the effectivity date of the glossy brochure.
The first post on that thread asked a number of questions, including these:
Dick Smith, Open Mic - or anyone else who is involved – please comment if you would. Hopefully, you can dispel some of the myths and misunderstanding (including my own).
…
2) Frequencies
What frequency (if any) should VFR aircraft monitor when in:
a) Class G airspace?
b) Class E airspace?
3) Frequencies (Follow-up)
Where will the frequencies be published for VFR aircraft?
…
A PPRuNer with the handle ‘triadic’ posted these answers, on the same date:
…
2) None - turn the radio off and listen to the stereo
3) VFR use radio? Why publish the freqs?
…
Why would someone ask, in June 2003, about frequency information for VFRs OCTA, if the plan was always to put the biscuits with that information on the chart?
If that was always the plan, why didn’t triadic nominate the biscuits as the answer to the questions?
I also note that you said, earlier in this thread:
The RAPAC members by in large resisted change and were not interested how the NAS was supposed to work
They wanted to continue to fly by radio and insisted the old system be reinstated but did not understand the implications. I phoned dozens of individuals but got nowhere.
Thet is why we now have this present problem.
I’ll ask one last time: Are you asserting that you always intended the charts to include area frequency biscuits for use by VFR aircraft OCTA, wherever they happened to be?
Why would you have volunteered those biscuits for use by VFRs OCTA, when your position then and now remains not only that VFRs OCTA don’t need to know those frequencies, but should be ‘banned’ from broadcasting on them?
It might just be my concrete idiot mind, but it doesn’t make sense to me. What makes sense to me is that you were forced to put the biscuits on the charts for use by VFRs OCTA.
In any event, that is all academic. (Entertaining, but nonetheless academic.)
The current safety issue continues to be whether broadcasts from aircraft operating in and out of places that aren’t depicted as aerodromes on aeronautical charts are causing disruption and confusion for ATC comms in fact. I realise you and triadic reckon that there are thousands of these hives of activity, and we’re being saved from aluminium confetti because everyone’s just ignoring the ‘new’ broadcast rule. I reckon that’s the syndrome known as “living in denial”.