Or that See and Avoid really works: ask the pax that died in the 727 and DC 9 in the USA that had midairs with bugsmashers...
Bloggs,
50-60,000 flights PER DAY in the US, and that is the best you can do.
Just how many years have they been spread over. The expression GET REAL comes to mind.
In fact they are not the only mid airs in the last hundred or so years in USA, but if you work out the figures per flight, you have a lot more chance of winning the California State lottery than having a mid-air in US.
If those odds concern you, I suggest you quit flying and find a "safer" way of spending your time, even
never getting out of bed in the morning has a greater mortality risk.
In the case of the B727, it was the B727, under full ATC control, in a CTA (probably the equivalent of Class C at the time) that still hit the light aircraft.
Notice Lead Slead doesn't mention the B737 vs Tobago incident near Launceston when E airspace was operating without radar.
CLX
Triadic mentioned "culture", here we saw a "culture" that the "professional" pilot is always right, and any "bug smasher" pilot is always a hopeless incompetent ---- in fact the Tobago pilot had very substantial experience, and if you gave equal weight to both PIC's statements, it is a very different picture that emerges, to only considering the matter from the point of view of the airline aircraft .
There never was any collision risk, the pilot of the Tobago had the airline aircraft in sight at all times. E is NOT depended on having radar coverage.
I notice you don't mention the TCAS incident north of Brisbane, where one of the allegations that came up in the investigation was that the PIC of the airline aircraft inexplicably turned towards the light aircraft (flown by a highly experienced professional pilot) resulting in the TCAS warning being generated.
Throughout the whole so called NAS "trial" , a joint aviation industry body considered EVERY reported incident, some of the reports from "professional" pilots really did reveal "cultural shortcomings", all of a sudden, training aircraft doing circuits at Port Macquarie were being reported as collision risks. The airspace wasn't even E, but suddenly E was the fault.
One piece of nonsense I well recall was that "some" Regional pilots were so irrationally anti Class E that into and out of Ballina, they would let down in the Evans Head R, and fly low level in G back to Ballina, rather than transit E on climb and descent from C. I personally experienced this one, flying VFR to Evans Head (not my day job), I was at 2000, they passed under me. I will refrain from mentioning the airline --- and it was not all their crews, just the irrational ones.
The fact is, Class E is one of the most widely used airspace classifications used for low and mid levels, world wide, it works, the record proves it.
The notion that Class G is "safer" than Class E for IFR aircraft is as about as irrational as you can get --- it just "flies" in the face of the facts.
Just keep your eyes open when in VMC in class E...
Exactly, just like G or any other class of airspace, some of the most dangerous airspace I have regularly operated in is Class A, what's in a name, nothing. Not that Class A is dangerous, the area I am thinking about, it would make no difference what the classification was.
One of the "cultural" aspects I did allude to was the one that "perceptions of risk" have to be procedurally dealt with, even when it is demonstrated that the risk does not exist, I have never come across this attitude outside Australia. Not limited to the "perception" that E is dangerous, or E must have radar coverage, therefor E should not be used, but G is OK, despite no separation service at all for IFR aircraft.
One of the things CASA or Airservices could do is run an educational campaign to get message across that the separation assurance standard is the same in all classes of airspace, A through G, A through G does not mean "safest" to "least safe", deteriorating standards of "safety" or increasing risk.
That is the whole point of the CNS/ATM ICAO system, the same risk level is achieved through all classes of airspace.
Eurocontrol even publishes regular reports of the achieved computed risk levels versus the target risk levels. Australia doesn't even publish the target in any accessible form.
Tootle pip!!