Amos 2,
Leave Chief Galah alone. He's on our side, or are you too dim-witted to realise?


Balstoid,
No, just an over-reliance on ego. Reminds me of the classic: "Dick, your ego's writing cheques your skill and experience can't cash".

5Miles,
If the TCAS is U/S, the aircraft doesn't leave a major base until it is fixed. This caused a huge delay a few days ago. I wonder if DS would like to pay $500k for spare TCAS units just so he can swan around in the ether being avoided by everybody else?

Vref+5. There's the rub. It'll be the minority that hits you. It's always those unusual factors in accidents. The trouble with NAS is, that factor doesn't have to be very unusual (like a light aircraft with an inop/inaccurate transponder). Or even a pilot of a slow aircraft who thinks he can avoid a jet.
Blastoid. They don't have to be separated to an ATC standard, they just have to miss. But how a Tobago pilot can know he will miss an opposite direction jet is beyond me. If the jet had altered course at the last minute (for any one of a thousand reasons clearly not apparent to the Tobago pilot), how would he have got himself out of it? Too late for the radio then. I am yet to hear any of the NASites describe how slow aircraft avoid fast ones.

NAS is not as safe as the previous system. What gain has been made to justify that increase in risk?