As a regular flyer into Ballina the unicom seems like a sensible solution for the RPT. Sounds like a good idea to train up the firies to give an extra service (not saying it will ever happen). Dont think there are too may professions where you would need to do as little as airport firey at Ballina
.= Not knocking them by the way, sure they are great fellas/ladies and well trained but its not exactly going to be flat strap all day. Great job if you can get it.
This whole thread reminds me of this:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png
But cant people have a difference of opinion here and articulate point without taking cheap shots? Doesnt seem to happen when i talk with other pilots face to face. If someone has a different viewpoint so what, just argue politely why you disagree. Bringing up wealth-envy or off hand remarks from 20 years ago doesn't improve the argument. People get so worked up about any criticism of the current system you have to wonder why they are being so defensive. There are parts of our air traffic system that should be defended, but others are entitled to disagree.
I reckon a lot of it is just "knowledge signalling"..i know more about aviation that others. My last post i was commenting on something that was my job for almost 20 years and a couple of people started ranting how i didnt know the first thing about it. I dont know anything about being a 737 driver, so Im not going to jump on a related thread and tell them to harden up about rosters, you knew what you signed up for, the regs are fine, there is a robust fatigue management culture and we used to have it harder back in the day. Just because i know a little about it doesnt make me an expert. Maybe its the fatigue from pilots expressed in the thread above that makes them so angry here all the time.
Dick Smith and a few others fly in other countries a lot. Why is it so offensive to some people that he suggests other countries do some things better? I personally think Australian air traffic front line is great. But the regs they seem to have to operate under, in particular with military airspace (which I used to use..great swathes of airspace closed down so i could have a bit more room to maneuver close to base) is way to restrictive. Just an opinion.
I think the thread and its arguments are more about frustration with the current setup then the Unicom at Ballina. More just lack of trust in the system that now any change is seen as something bad. From wandering off to find a JP every 2 years to get a new photo signed for ASIC, bull**** notams that are so long and full of ass covering exercises such as a beacon inoperative 5nm away that few read them, licenses written in a code rather than just saying what it is..could go on and on. Most pilot are just tired of the bul**** stuff and want it simplified. That is not taking it back to "follow-me girls" (was there every such a thing?I remember follow me cars when flying into some USA airports but not girls) but just something to make it simpler. Just look how it took private companies like AVPLAN or OZRunways to simplify flight planning to what it should be by making a plugin to NAIPS while our bloated public service spend hundreds of millions re-writing regs that few pilot will ever read because every ass needs to be fully covered and blame sheeted back to the pilot who did not follow said regulations. if it werent for those companies we would still be logging in through Naips and converting English into code (I bet that comment gets some worked up
But thank god for AVPLAN.OZrunways ) Probably being a bit harsh on CASA there, every now and then casa put out something we can understand.
Anyway im thankful that i fly for enjoyment now and not a living and those people that do it professionally good luck with it because it seems bloody grueling. But just because someone has to do it for a living doesn't mean their opinion is the only one that counts. Go easy on people who dont agree. Im amazed Dick Smith is even here commenting, let alone answering every nitpicky question that is thrown his way. Good to read everybody comments