Dick Smith and NAS Design Safety Case

[twodogsflying]

On Tuesday last week a meeting was held in Sydney for the Design of the November "E" airspace design safety case.

Apparently, the panel could only look at the differences between the US NAS and OZ NAS only.

A number of people from all areas of the industry where invited to attend, but with only 5 days notice, it was impossible for all to attend.

The interesting thing was Dick Smith was there as well, working on this project.

The problem I have with his participation is, he is the instigator of the airspace, he was the one who advised the Minister to drop lamp and adopt the NAS for Australia and he is a member or the ARG reporting to the Minister.

How can this safety case be independant with his presence?
How can CASA be satified with the result?
How can the Minister be satisfied with the result?
How can industry be satisfied with the result?

This is another case of no transparency with the adoption, application and design of the NAS.

We are being rail roaded by a Single Issue, Private Pilot Adventurer.

TIME HAS COME FOR ALL WHO ARE AGAINST THIS "AIRSPACE" TO CONTACT THE MINISTER DIRECTLY!

This idoit and others are playing with my life and the lives of my passengers, just so he can flying around without having to use a radio!

[Creampuff]

From the House Hansard for 21 August 2003 (at: http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/reps/dailys/dr210803.pdf)

Mr MARTIN FERGUSON (Batman) (4.39 p.m.) —This evening I want to speak about cronyism and the very important story about the three Dicks who have the Howard government in their pockets. It is a story about Dick, Dick and Dick and their reach into infrastructure, transport and safety policy-making in Australia. Their power is derived because they are mates of the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister. Not just any Tom, Dick or Harriet can access this power; only the elites who have the Howard government in their pockets.

Let us look firstly at the influence of Mr Dick Estens on communications and infrastructure. Mr Estens is a fellow farmer and a very close personal friend of the National Party member who holds the seat of Gwydir. Who better to roll in to calculate how many pieces of silver it would take to change the views of National Party members on Telstra privatisation? Dick Estens, the loyal local Nat and mate of the Deputy Prime Minster, was given the power to determine what it would take to buy off his mate's colleagues. Mr Estens, a man who had had no prior communications experience to speak of, delivered the whitewash, as requested, ignoring hundreds of submissions decrying the quality of telecommunications.

Then we have a very special Dick: Dick Honan—another mate at the Liberal Party court. Mr Honan's company comprises about 90 per cent of the ethanol industry and has been selected for a leg up of close to $50 million from the taxpayer. Any other Australian businessperson unable to stimulate demand for their particular product would be told to fix it themselves—but not when you are a friend of the Liberal-National Party court. Dick Honan just visited his mate the Prime Minister and did a deal for a slug on the taxpayer to prop up his business. The PM also threw in the services of his deputy to market his product; he was told to hold special meetings with fuel producers, retailers and fuel users to force them to ignore what their customers were saying and to use more ethanol.

Then we have the final Dick: Mr Dick Smith. Dick, to be fair, is an enthusiastic amateur pilot, adventurer and successful marketing man. Mr Smith and the Minister for Transport and Regional Services are not the best of mates. They had a very public stoush in the lead-up to Mr Smith's leaving the CASA board. Mr Anderson, as we were told then, was not going to work with him again. We then had Mr Smith embark on a strategy to get back into the tent. He threatened to stand against the minister in Gwydir.

Before we knew it, Dick Smith visited the Liberal Party court and soon announced that he would not run in Gwydir. We do not know what happened in those discussions but, soon after the election, the minister put him in charge of airspace design and reform. The design and development of our airspace has been outsourced to Dick Smith. The result is that not one person on the Airspace Reform Group has air traffic control or airline pilot qualifications.
The proposed NAS system does not have widespread industry support and it will put the Australian travelling public at risk. It is one thing to lose ownership of Telstra, and it is another thing to spend millions of dollars to prop up a friend's industry; but to risk the aviation and the travelling public's safety to deliver a political outcome—in essence, to get Mr Dick Smith not to run or support a candidate in Gwydir at the 2001 election—is unforgivable.

I consider the Howard government to be shameless in its reach for political patronage. This week we have had the member for O'Connor, better known as `Ironbar Tuckey', now become known as `Wee Willie Tuckey'—`Will he or won't he go Tuckey'. I simply say that the facts speak for themselves: he should go. He gives this House a new version of `family assistance'. Forget the laws that ordinary Australians are expected to live by. We have seen the member for Berowra using his ministerial powers to fatten his campaign funds and to look after friends—forget the rules that others have to live by. They have lost perspective and they are a disgrace. They have ignored the integrity of the Australian political system.

[trafficwas]

It is starting to get close to the date of implementation and they are only now doing a safety case. No wonder Dick was there. Getting those bureaucrats to produce an outcome - as long as it agreed with the plan that Dick has.

[Spodman]

I was there, so was Dick. He was very much in the background, he didn't run the meeting or take a prominent part. I probably got to beat my gums together more than he did, (but there were probably more listening to him...) He freely vented opinions when given the opportunity and held court to any who would listen during (the excellent) tiffin & din-dins.

I can't really comment on the policies involved, but the project has followed a realistic process. Their previous contention that we were implementing what the goobers do was not accepted by CASA. They did accept that a lot of things will be done as the goobers do, so a design safety case is being done on the bits that are not. This is, I believe, a reasonable concept.

It is being done now because it was considered not neccessary previously under the rules, so the implementation safety case was done first. The project won't go away just because additional requirements are placed on it, if it is still practical to meet those requirements.

[WALLEY2]

Interesting,
the AAA(airports) are fighting a lone stance on CTAF and are wondering where everyone else is; at least they have and are still having their say at the highest level.

I wonder if it was pointed out at the meeting that ICAO specifically states that the safety analysis team needs to be totally independant of the originator and owner of the matter under review.

This is to avoid the Caesar judging Caesar anomally which must not be allowed in areas as important as aviation safety.:hmm:

[QSK?]

Minister John Anderson, Dick Smith and other members of the Airspace Reform Group please take note.

On page 22 of the Sept edition of the "Aircraft & Aerospace" magazine is an excellent article written by Dr Neal Fulton of the CSIRO detailing his assessment of what is wrong with Australia's airspace and how it should be designed. He appears to be eminently qualified to do this, and why he has not been engaged as part of the NAS IG is beyond me.

Some interesting extracts for forum members' review. Sorry its a bit long-winded but these quotes are quite significant, I feel:

1. "The performance of present airspace rule and procedures, and the way they are implemented, are simply not to current acceptable, achievable or affordable standards".

2. "Airspace design is matter of public risk management, not individual performance."

3. "NASA researchers in 2002 said (referring to the US system's hemispherical level rule) that "Current enroute air traffic rules are not as fail-safe or as fault-tolerant as they could be"". Also "The collective results show that the quadrantal rule is more efficient in reducing conflict than the prescribed semi-circular rule."

4. "Until 1991, the number of unknowns (ie Australian aircraft) was very small, typically fewer than two percent of enroute aircraft. After 1991, this percentage has risen to as high as sixty to eighty per cent."

5. "In 1972, the FAA said that reducing the number of unknown aircraft within the system is one of the most productive steps in collision avoidance....."

6. "...research shows that the concepts contained in the core elements of the Australian airspace system pre-1991 were functionally far ahead of other international practice; NOT BEHIND AS SOME CLAIM (my emphasis)...."

7. "The question again rises as to why Australia changed to a far less dependable system..."

8. "See and avoid must be classified as a SUPPLEMENTAL (my emphasis) means of communication for proximity warning and resolution. It cannot provide dependable communications under all circumstances of proximity" and "Enroute airspace as a general system should be designed to operate as if see-and-avoid were not available."

9. "...the present rules of the air (cuising rule and radio usage) have actually degraded the performance of see-and-avoid to below levels achievable prior to 1991!"

10. "...the first stages of CDSP modelling technique has been applied to radio frequency boundaries (eg the MBZ/CTAF structure) showing that alert times required between proximate aircraft CANNOT BE ACHIEVED DEPENDABLY (my emphasis) when the boundaries need to be crossed."

Finally, before anyone asks. No, I'm not a controller! Nor am I employed by Airservices or CASA. I'm just a mug PPL holder who flies occasionally for business and pleasure, but one who is becoming increasingly concerned that the percentagle of unknown aircraft has risen from 2 to 60% over the last 13 years, particularly considering both my vision and physical reaction times today are not the same as they were when I first got my licence in 1974!