This was lifted from another thread currently running.
PPRuNe posters postulate proposals periodically, promptly pointless pirouetting proceeds.
This statement is probably quite correct. However if airing problems and offering solutions fixes even one of the myriad problems in Aust aviation it's better than nothing.
Send a squadron 1000s of miles overseas to train so that you don't have to put on a few more track miles on you way between Dubbo and Sydney?
User,
If only it was that simple. Obviously you have never flown VFR or if you have you've never flown out of sight of your departure point. Otherwise you'd understand the problem better.
When weather is less than brilliant for a run from YBAF to YSBK it is often safer to track coastal out of the clouds and out of the mountains. All is good until Williamstown. I've spent so much time circling Broughton Island waiting for a clearance that I've had to change orbiting direction to prevent dizziness.
I don't mind reducing altitude to 500 ft if necessary so long as I can keep going. Why can't the restricted area follow the beach which at it's closest is over 3 nm from the airfield? I don't believe any aircraft using YWLM would not be able to achieve 1,000 ft or better in 3 nm. Beaches provide very certain navigation for VFR pilots. Stay over water and yer right. Drift over land and yer not.
Operation Pitch Black is another fairly regular disruption to NT flying. I wonder how many other countries allow their military to tie up a similiar area as we do in Australia for a couple of weeks for each exercise. At more than half a million square km the area is bigger than a lot of countries.
Before some of you get your knickers in a knot I'm not saying we shouldn't have Pitch Black. I'm just saying that more effort should be made to accommodate non-military aviation traffic. If air traffic controllers can safely handle GA and airline traffic into busy places like Sydney, surely the military controllers can keep Wild Wallaby and Bad Bandicoot away from the rest of us