FTDK, ?????
I begin to see why Australian aviation is oppressed by the bureaucracy. As soon as somebody points out a high handed bureaucratic restriction which has no good purpose, the sheep start bleating for the shepherd.
red dirt, the taxpayers paid for Oakey. We own it. The Army gets to use it because our politicians let them. Last I heard the military in this country is subject to civilian control which is as it should be.
You may note that Amberley airspace only goes active when the RAAF is using it.
I have no objection to Oakey having restricted airspace if they need it although you may like to look up the airspace on the sectional covering Fort Rucker, Alabama, the US Army aviation headquarters and tell us why the US Army can manage a vast fleet of training helicopters with much less restricted airspace than at Oakey.
My objection is to an arbitrary change to a long standing arrangement which was beneficial to local aviators and had a safety benefit to them in the event of bad weather at YTWB. I've used it myself and that day two other light aircraft were there for the same reason.
If the RAAF/Army want to do a dummy spit because they got orders from above to relinquish some little used restricted airspace it doesn't speak well of them and they are inconveniencing people who had nothing to do with this decision. No good reason has been given for the change.