PPRuNe Forums - Dick threatens to sue AsA

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Dick threatens to sue AsA

In the Australian today (Tue 6 July 2004)

Quote:

My flight in peril: Dick Smith
Steve Creedy
Aviation writer

Entrepreneur Dick Smith is trhreatening to sue air traffic controller Airservices Australia, claiming a refusal to grant him clearance to fly over Sydney placed his family at unnecessary risk.
Mr Smith wrote yesterday to Airservices acting chairman Les Fisher, asking that tapes of his conversations with air traffic controllers be kept for legal action he is considering against the body.
The entrepreneur and airspace reformer said he was returning from Lord Howe Island in his Cessna 208 aircraft on Friday and asked to be allowed to overfly Sydney at 8500ft (2590m).
He said the clearance was refused and he was forced to descent to a lower altitude over the Tasman Sea where a safe ditching might not have been possible.
"More to the point, rather than be allowed to overfly Sydney at 8500ft, where an engine failure would have allowed me to land on at least one of five possible runways, I was forced to track over the densely populated northern suburbs where a safe forced landing would be highly unlikely," Mr Smith said.
"I am outraged this unnecessary risk was forced on myself and my family for no apparent reason."
Mr Smith said he was planning legal action after checks with commercial operators at Bankstown Airport revealed that Airservices consistenly refused similar requests.

Don't know what Sydney was using at the time or the weather conditions perhaps someone working at the time could shed more light on this.

Dick, instead of spending all that money on lawyers and the legal system, why don't you use it wisely and set up scholarships at flying schools to allow young people to get their PPLs?

In my journey through life, I have always found it useful to avoid eye contact with certain types of people.:rolleyes:

I assume that he needed clearance to DESCEND to 8500 from about 150000 ft that he would have needed to be to glide from Lord Howe to the mainland.

This is the problem with this bloke - he only considers part of the risk.

He is perfectly happy flying his family to and from Lord Howe Island, an 800m odd strip in the middle of the ocean in a single engine aeroplane at 8500 ft, an altitude from which he would only have been able to glide into the water for the vast majority of his flight yet gets all excited when a clearance is not available over Australia's busiest CTA at 8500.

Why didn't he make landfall around Port Macquarie - that is closest bit of dirt to Lord Howe isn't it? He would have had a heap of airports to land on then..

What a Dick! (Smith)

Quote:

"I am outraged this unnecessary risk was forced on myself and my family for no apparent reason."

Quote:

He is perfectly happy flying his family to and from Lord Howe Island, an 800m odd strip in the middle of the ocean in a single engine aeroplane at 8500 ft, an altitude from which he would only have been able to glide into the water for the vast majority of his flight.....

Reading between the lines, if the article is correct, there would have to be something more to this. What sort of person would place their own life and those of his family at unnecessary risk in the first place. What is he trying to prove?

A

dehav driver said it all!

What's he trying to prove?..well if the above article has any basis in fact, and it certainly sounds like dickspeak, I would suggest that ds has some serious mental issues. He's not behaving rationally!!!

Chuck.

This sounds like the cheap media grab that his mate BM got some time ago with family member(s?) chucking up in his nice Navajo.

When is DS going to realise that there are others using the airspace as well and that he doesn't have access to purple airspace?

What a fool.

Oh Dick. You should have applied to ****. Your the sort of guy that would slide straight in there with that attitude and persistence you have.

Spoilt Brat Syndrome?

Are we spitting the dummy Dick, just because you can't get your own way EVERYTIME?

8500' is a VFR level - could it be that the weather was unsuitable for VFR at 8500' or lower which precluded VFR flight at those levels? What was the destination?

PMQ is also a shorter distance over water, and, if you are really worried about a successful ditching, fly a twin, - oh yeah, we did that to LHI once but it turned into a one way trip if my memory serves me correctly!

Get over it dick, YOU GOT IT WRONG AGAIN!

BSB

PS - Maybe you just pi$$ed off one too many controllers!

Pathetic...Dick, the only cause of action you have is a lost one!

Pull your head in!

Here is the link for those who like to see it in living colour:

Link to The Australian article

Surely a letter to the editor wouldnt be out of the question for those with betterer English skills than moi

FH

And can ya believe that while he's outraged that AsA put his family at risk in such a manner he flew his own single engined aircraft (albeit a turbine) probably twice as far as he needed to over water and waaayyy beyond gliding range of land...instead of buying a couple of tickets on Sunnies to go over in a Dash 8:ugh:

Or perhaps he shouda flown over in his Slowtation..runways a bit short but then it's all about affordable safety after all :ugh:

Oh I remember now...he's had probs with LDA in his slowtation before:ugh:

But doesn't he also own a twin helicopter? Might have been the best option of the lot...multi engine redundancy and no ASDA/LDA problems...not to mention not risking the lives of those unsuspecting members of the public whose houses he might have crashed into instead of gliding clear into various and sundry parks etc.

Talk about desperate:uhoh:

Chuckles

PS. And I LURVE that piccy above:ok:

Plaz, that piccy is priceless mate...... hehehehehe:} :} :}

Pr!ck.

Mind you, I guarantee the feebs running AsA will bend over, grab their collective ankles and take it up the blurter like they always do. Mark my words: out of court settlement to follow.....

Adamastor. I wouldn't be taking any bets on your theory!!

Dick's legals may have a hard time arguing that ERSA flight planning requirements doesn't clearly state that overflights within 30NM of SY aren't possible below A100.

That said, if he'd planned via the normal ERC inbound route from the east (MARLN-SY) there shouldn't normally be a problem coming into BK during quiet periods (unless something unusual was happening at SY, such as an LTOP runway juggle.... ohhhh what a can of worms this could open..... in which case VFR get treated with the appropriate priority according to MATS).

And since when did Sydney have 5 runways? Depending on how you count, there's either 3 or 6.

ps. anybody noticed bindook.com going to a stylish melbourne ho house?

Hahaha. Now the site is just about a different type of pussies.

gg spelling

How many orbits would it take to get from SY at 8500FT to the circuit at BK?

Concur everything above, 'tis a grandstand he's playing to.

And presumably he was IFR from LHI too?

Chuck.