Smith’s friend and co-pilot on the flight to Ballina, former US Air Force F-16 fighter pilot and airline captain Richard Woodward, says the Australian system “drives me nuts”.
“You’ve got this very advanced national air traffic control system but, instead, you have pilot*s flying around in clouds saying to each other, ‘Hi, I’m here, where are you, let’s work out how not to crash into each other’,” Woodward says."
Even in the 'so called' J curve radar coverage is limited. I'm sure your local ATC would be only too happy to give you traffic & avoidance advice...........if they had the radar coverage. Class E to the ground with an approach service would also give them valuable experience to take overseas with them
ADSB is now giving coverage to the ground in the West Sale/East Sale area. Radar at around F110-120. Class E to the ground with an approach service would be awesome but 1 in 1 out? Would you be happy with that? Would you be happy with the local VFR dood (in VMC of course) flying through your IMC approach?