And there, ladies and gentlemen, is THE agenda that has driven this gang since the eighties.

Concur 100% Chimbu chuckles :D

Oz more a matter of not wanting to be watched over YBBN,YSSY than the GAFA.

Remember the light aircraft lane over LAX being used as an example of 'worlds best practice' and "why cant it happen over SY"?

Yes CC, far safer to overfly YSSY than that dirt road airspace up the lane from Brooklyn Bridge and having to share with trolls who use their radio too much.:suspect:

Maybe, the quote should be changed to "Do not want to be watched ANYWHERE" .....that about covers it.

I think we are getting closer the mark here. My feeling is that the Class E advocates are acting on behalf of a group who is afraid to call ATC for a clearance. They use the 'But I might get knocked back or delayed' as an excuse. It boils down to confidence and knowledge (ie, taking the time to research the required R/T) of how to operate in a controlled environment.

Some people on here bang on about delays or clearance denials 'this one time'. How about the hundreds that are issued daily through Class C to VFRs? I can't think of a time I have ever knocked back a VFR in Class C, whether it was into an international terminal area to land, a busy capital airport terminal area with terrain issues, or a very dubiously "radar covered" area sector surrounding a D tower.

Is it just the terry-towling brigade trying to get Class E so they don't have to use their radio to call ATC because they don't know how?

Cheers,

NFR.

PS. I don't use my real name on here for varied reasons. Many people know who I am and what my background and experience is -Dick is one of them (and I have asked him to keep it under his hat, which he has done, to his credit). My personal belief from working Class E and Class C is that, given the current traffic levels and the forseeable increase in the medium term, Class C protection can be provided for ALL airspace users for the same cost as Class E in the current setup of Class D towers.

I'm not so sure I agree with this theory, but there are thousands of RAA pilots out there who would _welcome_ a chance to be trained to operate properly in class C/D - but we're not allowed to! Nevermind a 10 hour GA student can do his first solo in controlled airspace, class C/D is too tricky for us. :ugh:

Superdimona

You can have that, of course it requires a bit of training, its called a PPL, and for those of you who want to it will only take about another 5-10 hours I guess to achieve (for the most part).

I have a pretty good idea you know who I am so come over to my hanger and have a chat if you want it explained further, otherwise wander up and see Bryan.:ok:

PM me if you wish I'll send you my phone number.

J:ok:

NFR, on the money.:ok:

The argument that if we change our airspace design we will become the meca for aviation training is a furphy! CC is correct and he has used the argument many times...IF ATC disappears, GA is not affected. However, RPT is severly constrained. ATC is a tool evolved to facilitate the rapid and safe transit of heavy RPT. Heavy RPT pays for a service. In class E RPT and IFR is paying for a service that they do not receive.

At this level I can understand...Under the IFR, you fly by reference to your instruments. Your position in the sky is derived solely from information deciphered from your panel..On steam gauges this is not a direct depiction...mental effort is required to calculate and deduce your ACTUAL position in space. In IMC it is your lifeline in how good you can manipulate this raw data in real time. Because its IMC receiving a traffic service from ATC is also part of that lifeline. You are protected from unknown VFR because the conditions preclude VFR flight.

Change the story to a perfect VMC day Same IFR, same ATC service. Excepting now, you are maneuvering your aircraft for arrival by those same reference to those instruments, still requiring the same attention to deduce and maintain your track , but now you must spend a considerable time with your attention outside the cockpit scanning for UNKNOWN VFR....and your paying for this service?

But the heavies have got TCAS, they can see the mandated transponders of VFR flying in the same airspace. I asked this very question when I was planning and investigating my first ever trip away. I investigated EVERY possibility for that trip...even down to try and work out the timetable for airlines arriving at my destination so I could work out if I would not be in conflict...analy retentive, you might say. One person actually responded that as long as I had my transponder on they would see me...as long as I had my transponder on......by default we are using a last line of defence device for something it was never intended for...trafffic mitigation!

Its OK to have class E in non-surveilled airspace, not by default but mandate transponder equipped VFR become visible to TCAS equipped HVY RPT. To the plebs reading this for the first time..TCAS does NOT depict where a converging conflict realy is in space. TCAS will always show a collision risk DEG45 off the nose, even if the conflict is at your one oclock or eleven oclock position in reality....This is why TA or RA the pilot is told to climb or descend. Azimuth? the thing doesn't know where it actually is, only that the algorythm says its going to hit you......and this is what the bean-counters are going to tell the crews and ATC that there is a vanishingly small risk and no need for class C airspace...and the "traffic mitigation device" will say one thing and you will look out the window and see something else???

Go back and look at the threads regarding Hamilton Island airspace and Williamtown Airspace and how VFR are ALWAYS held at the boundaries. Ask yourselves, why is Smith pushing so hard for class E? Its not for the safety of paying passengers:ugh:

I know where this is heading but the short answer is YES!

To qualify this answer, I would like to see the cash BEFORE the screams for a MANDATE like last time. Have you forgotten the lies and broken promises already?

There has never been an agenda that I know of to fly without being "watched" where being "watched" is a requirement.

There HAS been an agenda that I support, which recognises the very very very great possibility of those in the GAFA copping air nav charges for being "watched".

If being "watched" where there is no requirement to be "watched" means I will have to pay for an installation to be "watched" and then a TAX for being "watched", then I'm against it.

Understand?:rolleyes:

I have been racking my brains, long and hard, trying to work out why the Nastonauts are so dead set keen on Class E airspace.

Lets assume for a minute that most of us have got it wrong and it does cost (marginally) more to operate C than E. Is it so much of a difference that a reasonable person would trade off the added safety of C? I don't think so.

So, are they VFR operators who are scared of talking to ATC? The characters on here are pretty forthright ... I couldn't see them being too backward in coming forward.

There appears to be only 2 options left:

1. They are VFR operators ... who don't want to be seen ... and don't want to be bothered with clearances to do what they want:suspect:
2. Or, they have a religious-like fervor that Class E is the redeemer of all things evil in airspace management:*

To, me, both illogical reasons, and I suspect the real answer is a mixture of both.

Is it possible to "turn" them? Is there anything we can do to change their attitude? Perhaps an intervention? :E

I suspect that something along the line of old dogs and new tricks might be appropriate here.:ugh:

Folks,
I am going to put my final two bobs worth in, on this subject, by coming back the the basic principles of ICAO airspace design, and that is achieving the design separation assurance standard at the lowest airspace classification, starting with G.

Again, by definition of the design principles, once the separation assurance standard is achieved, higher classes of airspace will not achieve a real reduction in risk, because the separation assurance standard is already so high. Whether you agree or not is immaterial, that is no more than your personal opinion.

Indeed, several orders of magnitude higher ( lesser risk) than losing a complete aircraft on an auto-couples Cat II/III approach, or the probability of an aircraft CFIT (without regard to GPWS) during an approach (or departure) designed to current PANS/OPS standards ---- all the above have had a core element of risk management built in for many, many years.

Clearly, I am quite happy to accept the ICAO approach to risk management.

That the basics of ICAO airspace design is not accepted by a range of pilots and ATC individuals in Australia says more about Australian aviation attitudes to modern risk management, than it says about the veracity of the basic ICAO risk management standards.

Strangely, pilots don't complain about the hazard levels in instrument procedure design, but the inherent hazards and the mitigators employed to reduce the final risk, still leave a level of risk that is not ALARP, as most of you interpret ALARP. Indeed, there is no such thing as a SID or IAP that would not be "safer" with a higher minima, but that is not the way such design works. In fact, if you employed the same logic applied here to C over D versus E over D, there would be no low weather minima approaches, and probably no 200' CAT 1 ILS. We would revert to a minimum of 300 or 400', as was the case in Australia back in the '60's and early '70s, long after the rest of the world has adopted CAT 1/200' as the basic ILS minima.

As one example, we continue to kill pilots with monotonous regularity, during asymmetric training, because we have not adopted a proper risk management approach, either at a regulatory or field level.

Whether you like it or not, CASA is bound to use a risk management approach across the board, witness the work being done by Aerosafe as a consultant to CASA, putting the meat on the bones of the basic policy of risk management.

I have not the least concern about "being seen", indeed all my own aircraft have had ARINC standard transponders, either King or Collins, all of that nonsense about "stealth" operations is a red herring, as far as I am concerned.

We simply must adopt the best risk management standards in aviation, will we ever?? I don't know, but I have been pushing such adoption since well (years) before AS/NZ 4360 Issue 1 was even published.

For those of you who want to have a bit of fun with the statistical term, "vanishingly small", it may be the equivalent of zero in maths, but "vanishingly small" is never "nil", or in other words, risk can never be nil, short of abolishing the activity. If you decline to understand/accept that, it is no skin of my nose, but it does make the probability of your arguments being accepted ( in a technical, not political sense) , dare I say it, vanishingly small.

That you might succeed at a political level, by scaring the beejesus out of politicians, does not invalidate ICAO airspace design principles, it just proves how hard modernization of anything to do with aviation is in Australia.

As to mandatory ADS-B/C, that has been done to death, but essentially nothing has changed, since the "recommendations" of a group that had neither fiscal or real world responsibility for their recommendations, were dropped like a hot brick by Government.

Tootle pip!!

Earth calling Lead - communications seem to be down
 

Lovely Lead,

Can I now have an answer to post #427? Mate this is like pulling teeth. I have asked you again and again, but it just seems to be an 'inconvenient truth.' Let's not let the facts get in the way of driving through 'airspace reform' at whatever cost. Your latest missive was merely a diversion.

Frank introduces the red-herring of ADS-B and we get a tome that is totally unrelated to the argument at hand.

mjbow2, sorry, I don't monitor this 24/7. However, as regards your comment:

Who actually said that? In context and with references please.

Lead, you continue to dodge, weave and live in self-denial.

Post #427 Lead and post #457.

That's the problem; when the argument continues in a rational vein, the irrational retreat.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I can understand what Leadsled is saying.... and, in theoretical and statistical terms, I believe he is correct in what he is saying.

HOWEVER, and it's a big however, a lot us see the product of those methods as rubbish.

So, not only do your methods need to be "by the book" ... they have to provide a "reasonable" outcome.

If we see the fruits of your loins producing a product that says it's more appropriate ( forget about more safer) to "pretend" that VFRs don't exist ...then you have to understand that we are going to question your methodology.

Do we have a realistic chance of changing ICAO Methodologies? ... not in the short term! So, our only avenue in getting what we believe is "appropriate" is to scare public servants with ... dare I say it ... a common sense approach.

Hopefully, that will trump your statistics.

It is usual form that the Nastronauts will try attacking the man, the anonymity furphy, and straw-man argument after they lose the debate based on facts and sound argument. Then they slink off. This will go quiet now (until the next tilt).

Your silence on the pertinent questions, Lead, is deafening.

Your last sweeping 'big-picture' post is instructional. Slavishly applying ICAO-based modeling etc. and disregarding the fact that a higher level of safety is possible (even if not 'required') in Australia for the same spend smacks of either breath-taking stupidity, or a hidden agenda.

E over D/around C with aircraft potentially invisible to the system = 0 assurance of anything.

:ugh::ugh::ugh::rolleyes:

Lead
 

Earth calling Lead.

Posts #427 and #457.

Lead, I know I am being a pain, but you can make the pain go away by simply answering the questions.

How easy is that?

PS I feel far more comfortable with Chimbu's take on things. Chimbu; next time I shell out my hard earned readies to take Mrs Howabout OS, I'd like you up front! Plus, I prefer going with Mr Boeing in the best piece of kit ever made!

Hi Jabawocky,

Yes I do remember you :)

Without derailing the thread too much, I've done a fair bit of research, and sadly it's much more of a pain then that. I've had GA schools want to start me back at Straight and Level :ugh:

Why do I need an ASIC ($), a medical ($) lessons in an expensive to hire aircraft that I do not to intend to fly after training ($$$) and another big flight test at GA rates ($$$$) just to transit the odd bit of class C/D? I just don't see why we are forcing people to spend thousands of dollars extra. Most people fly RAA because they can't afford the expense of GA. They may have to go over tiger country or through bad weather OCAS when they could have easily zipped through class C.

Literally _today_ I got stuck somewhere when my planned route home was clouded in. I was in an aircraft with a transponder and reliable 4-stroke engine, capable of doing 100 knots (not a chair with wings, powered by a lawnmower engine). If I was allowed to do a 'Controlled Airspace' endorsement (which was almost in the bag but our new CASA leader decided to knock back) I could have easily have cut through some class C and been home perhaps 5 minutes late.

Instead, because CASA (who are supposed to only make rules on safety grounds) won't let me train for class C, I had a choice between scud-running overwater with low visibility at 500-1000 feet (bugger that) or diverting to another airfield and waiting it out. Several hours and multiple 'go and see' flights later I managed to be home.

I've spoken to controllers before, and they didn't see a problem with a properly equipped and trained RAA pilot flying through class C - they encouraged me to always ask for help if I needed it. I'm happy to get the training but they goverment won't let me receive it. Why do the RAAs 9200+ members need PPLs when Glider pilots don't :mad:

PM will be sent.

cheers

Yeah - well if it aint Boeing I aint going.....either:ok:

Folks,

Re. #427 and #457, have any of you had a look at the Minister's Charter Letter, aka. the current Civil Aviation Act 1988 Minister's S.12 direction, or any of the other Government policy documents that bind CASA and the great majority of Commonwealth Government departments and agencies. Did you carefully check the Minister's Second Reading speech for the Airspace Act 2007???

Perhaps you have done CASA and OAR a great service re. NAS ----- no longer referring to US NAS ---- but maybe that doesn't really change much.

Judging by the whole Class D towers issues, including the draft determinations for Broome and Karratha, or the statements of John McCormick, in many venues, such as Senate Estimates, it looks to me like US NAS is still flavor of the month.

I am not going back to re-read the White Paper, but memory says there were some interesting comments there about airspace.

The reality is that, given the totality of the Air Navigation Act 1920, Civil Aviation Act1988, the Airspace Act 2007, the OBPR mandatory requirements, the Legislative Instruments Act 2003, and Productivity Commission "mandatory guidelines", and the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act 1997, the outcome should still look pretty much like US NAS.

But, as I have said several times, the final outcome will be determined by how successful the efforts by the troglodyte lobby.

Universal A, that's what we need, that will eliminate a very high percentage of fatalities and injuries. Of course, it will only do this by eliminating most of GA and small airlines, and make the rest of Australian aviation a luxury mode of transport for the very wealthy.

But!!! Hey, you can't put a value on human life, can you!!

Drop all this techno economic rationalist affordable safety nonsense about risk analysis and cost/benefit justified regulation, ignore the High Court definition of "safety", go for the big prize, unaffordable safety, why not even absolute safety.

Tootle pip!!

Spare me please! :{

Political and bureaucratic nonsense, Ledsled. We had two airproxs within 3 months of your fabled E airspace being implemented here. And your rambling on about...the Productivity Commission? You're joking aren't you? What on earth (or in the sky) would it know about C verses E?

Your problem is that you're trying to hide behind verbal diarrhoea and rubbish printed on paper. You and your fellow Nastronauts are desperately scratching up any titbit of text (mostly created or influenced by Dick) that might support E via the USNAS. But you know very well that C provides a safer service than E for the same cost, that VFR doesn't pay a cent in C and that they hardly ever get dicked around (pardon the pun) by ATC. I think I might get Luke Skywalker to pay you a visit; maybe you can be rescued from the dark side. Then again, maybe not...

Leadsled,

The simple answer to your "tongue in cheek" but serious comment is this.

You are in the market for a new car, your budget is fixed with a sensible limit, and a Kia is looking about right, until you discover a nice little C180 Mercedes Benz, you find the price is only $500 more and still within budget. You have read all the research on car safety and the crash tests etc and there is a demonstrated benefit in the Benz, and its effectively the same cost. The choice is simple.

J:ok:

Except for the on going maintenance cost ofcourse.

For the first 5 years only then may as well throw the euro trash away!
But enough of this, best get back on track:ok:

LEADSLED,

In the old days, Dick used to call the "non believers" luddites. Now we have a new name:

Perhaps to dispell the Nastronaut myth that all Australia aviators and Controllers are just change averse, here are some PPRUNE quotes from a few years back. Note what they are talking about is SURVEILLLANCE Class E:

Leadsled, here's something else for you to ponder...as you are so fond of how things are done overseas...2015 in Europe

Interesting! Neither a concept or idea but a plan for future direction. Flexible Use of Airspace. Flexibility requires capacity and resources. Resources include surveillance. Capacity requires bums on seats to re-configure airspace as required in real time....just need more runways and apron space to take advantage of the airways benefit.

How much of this has been taken into consideration in Australia?

DNS...that's exactly what the gang of three and a half want us to do..throw our collective hands in the air and surrender:ugh:

DNS,

Keep up the fight, lad. Bad things happen when good men do nothing.

Folks,
At the risk of repeating myself:

I continue to support the ICAO Risk Management approach to CNS/ATM resources allocation. For those of you who want to be the only soldier in the battalion in step, march to your own drum, or whatever, be my guest.

I have also said, time and again, that aviation regulatory reform in Australia (and that includes proper risk analysis) has been blunted and reversed time and again, by sectional pressure groups, with the results for all to see.

When was Australia last held up as a shining example of aviation regulatory efficiency. (And please don't quote TAAAAATS, after all, it is only a not very up to date version of Eurocat)

One thing Mick Toller (former CASA DAS/CEO) was right about, was his description of Australia as: "An aviation Galapagos, where all sorts of strange mutation have developed in splendid isolation".

Our rather poor safety record (compared to US), including near hits and collisions, rather does suggest that that such splendid isolation/isolationism doesn't produce the best safety outcomes. All it reflects is our isolationist inability to learn from other, often (ie: the US) with vastly greater ( might I even say: statistically significant) experience.

If any of you understood the background of the modern risk management approach to operation/technical issues you would understand; NOT using risk management analysis can, by definition, ONLY produce less than optimum results, and WILL result in both higher risk and economic waste.

Quite frankly, your continual assertions about "C must be safer than E", in risk analysis terms, are meaningless, if for no other reason than "Safe/Safer" are dimensionless terms, and to use an overworked expression, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it". It's not as simple as that, of course, but that will do for a start.

Once you have achieved a 5E-9 probability of collision, no additional resources/higher class of airspace is going to make the slightest difference to the likelihood of a collision.

I note that nobody had taken up the point that the design risk criteria for instrument procedure design and losing an aircraft due to CFIT during the departure/approach is several orders of magnitude greater than the probability of a collision, ie: the separation assurance standard.

How many aircraft/lives have we lost, in Australia, during departure or approach phases of flight??

Interesting piece of psychology, that those of you with a window seat happily accept this (much higher) risk, but become as unhinged as the media about a midair.

Why am I not surprised that you don't want to take that one up?? You do understand the (statistical) reasons for the shapes of the current obstacle clearance envelopes in instrument procedure design (compared with the previous shape), don't you ???

Damn, there I go on again about statistics.

Tootle pip!!

Incidentally, the design risk for an unknown volcano pipe destroying a high level nuclear waste repository, with the widespread threat to life and health that would entail, is only 1E-8.

I wonder what that tells us about hysterical media/aviation pressure groups, where aviation is concerned. That a mid air, although tragic for all concerned, should be regarded as more important (ie: greater protection measures must be taken) than for an event likely to cause widespread nuclear fallout.

Ref: <http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUSM.V14A..06C>

Ledsled,
"Dimensionless terms"? Rubbish! It was measured, in the three months after NAS 2b was introduced, with two airproxs. Why do you continue to refuse to acknowledge the statistics?

What on earth are you on about? No losses (or concern) during App/Dep due robust procedures (which, for NPAs, I might add, we regionals have forgotten more than you and your international experts will ever know; some of us Australians were decades ahead of the rest of the world when it came to CDA NPAs).

On the other hand, I'm worried about a midair in E because THERE ARE NO DEFENCES OR PROCEDURES, only the big sky theory.

Show me ONE post on Prune where somebody is suggesting we go higher than C. IMO, you and others get a gee-whizz feeling out of C>B>A, when in fact practically speaking there is no difference. YOU mob are the ones who don't have a handle on practicality or reality. It's either CTA or OCTA with the half-pregnant E jammed in the middle. Get rid of it.

Typical Septic Tank attitude. Following on from my comments above, without the help of anybody, we developed a first-class airspace system that both protected and facilitated development. Fair enough, the need for mandatory VFR full-reporting had passed it's use-by date, but on virtually all other aspects of aviation in the last 15 years, most of the changes have been unnecessary and costly, and have turned pilots off aviation. Yes, you and your ICAO "nuts" have done the job, as well as unnecessarily endangering fare-paying pax with your Free In G (I'm glad that failed) and now Free in E campaigns.

OKAY

I will bite. the reason is that humans are prepared to accept higher risks when they are in control of themselves and their surroundings. An RNAV into some rather hilly areas for example Lockhart River or even the RNAV or ILSinto Hobart for that matter is possibly a good example of what you are talking about?

Now when you are in control of your destiny, you are prepared to take on managing and mitigating against those risks. You know where you are, you know there is a surveyed approach, you know where the nasty bits are, and you know what to do in the MA. You also know if you cock it badly, you die!

On the other hand Captain Bloggs and co....(just to coin a phrase :ok:) he is happy no doubt dealling with those risks, its the ones he has no idea about, no control over and are not consistently in the same spot and he can't see that has him a little less than happy.

So yes I can see why he is happy dealling with some approaches Vs unknowns. this is not unique to the world of aviation either Mr Leadsled, have a look around industrial safety, sports such as motor racing etc.

Cheers:ok:

J

Lead of the Sled,

I get it now. At the subsequent class action, the relatives of the deceased will be told that:

The lawyer(s) - read stacks - for the plaintiffs will ask a relatively simple question:

"So Mr Lead, you achieved 5E-9, 'whatever that means M'Lud' (as a well directed aside to the jury), yet we had a fatal mid-air collision.

"Would you mind explaining how this came to pass when my information, from current and competent air traffic controllers and pilots (I'd like to enter these affidavits for the record M'Lud), suggest such a tragedy could have been avoided with Class C airspace. Class C airspace at no, or minimal, extra cost, would have guaranteed separation between this aircraft and the light aircraft that collided with it. Wouldn't it have Mt Lead? Wouldn't it have?"

"Not necessarily; you see 5E-9 is a theoretical metric beyond which.."

"Excuse me, you are telling me that this is theoretical, that you actually based your decision on theory, that people died because of theory?

"But, but, we achieved 5E-9"

Etc, etc.

Lead, it just wont wash when it's revealed that passenger carrying RPTs are playing dodgems with unknown VFRs. Any proponent that signs off will be toast in the event of a (God forbid) mid-air that was avoidable.

But I suppose you are safe because your signature won't be on the paperwork.

You might label us troglodytes, but self -interest (as alluded to) doesn't come into it. We are genuinely sh*t-scared that people are being put at unnecessary and, avoidable, risk.

Bloggs,

All that statement illustrates is how little you understand risk management ----- perhaps you would like to tell us all about numerical values of "safe" ----- in fact, why don't you start by defining something called "safe" ---- what is "safe".***

Perhaps you could point me tho the Australian/New Zealand Standards for "safe" management ( as opposed to AS/NZ 4360).

As to the two NAS 2b incidents, they didn't measure anything, but clearly you don't understand that. As I have said in a previous post, and if you were capable, re-read the whole reports, not just the reports of the RPT Captains involved --- you might just find alternative interpretations ----- but I don't expect you will.

In particular, the NAS 2b incident north of Brisbane, have a very close look at the actions of the RPT crew, and I mean a very close look, and ask yourself, if you are, in fact, an RPT pilot: Would that have been your response to a TA followed by an RA, or would you, perhaps, have done something different, and perhaps avoided the RA.

As to accepting the "risks" during departure/approach phases, there is certainly something of the acceptance of risk when a person thinks unjustified self confidence, and lack of knowledge of what might be out of your control.

It doesn't, however, have anything to do with the system design risk for procedure design, which is all about assessing the reliability of the components of the system (including the pilot) ---- and arriving at a final set of criteria which are nothing more than a compromise ------ with the pilot flying having little or no knowledge of compromises.

The number of approach or departure phase accidents, versus mid-airs, tends to illustrate the point.

Once again, it is revealing of Australian attitudes that the implicit assumption is that the "professional" will always behave in an appropriate manner, and in the case of the dreaded VFR "Terry Towling Brigade Bug Smasher", it will always be that pilot who is the collision risk threat. That it is always "the other pilot" who is the threat.

However, the record doesn't support such a proposition, see the various reports available, Ambidjii being only the latest. Indeed, the "might is right" attitude is not limited to "professional" v. "private", we have several very interesting incidents where pilots of larger turbo-props have attempted to assume priority over smaller turbo-props -----

Tootle pip!!

*** There is a very useful High Court definition of "safe", which does absolutely nothing for your desired/assumed definition of safe.

Sled,
Red herring. The fact is that these two aircraft came as close as they did because of the airspace that you and Dick claim has a vanishingly small chance of a MAC. That claim is obviously rubbish, or are you going to trot out the "well, they missed, didn't they?".

And yes, I have read both ATSB reports and I see no problem with the behaviour of the RPT crews. All I see is that these two incidents demonstrate the fundamental failings of E airspace. Take the blinkers off and get out from behind your risk analysis spreadsheet.

Please stop peddling this nonsense. 1/I have a healthy regard for my inability to constantly be looking out the window from FL245 down (why do we have E above FL200 when CARs prohibit it? :cool:) to the top of the zone and 2/I am very aware of the inability of a VFR pilot to see and avoid an aircraft such as mine, especially when I am rapidly closing on him from behind his wingline. Unalerted See and Avoid DOES NOT WORK.

As to VFR doing the right thing, the ONLY reason you guys want E is so you don't have to participate; I am therefore not holding my breath for VFR to hop onto the ATC freq announcing where he is or whether he will be a confliction to me (as he is required to currently do in G above 5000ft).

This just goes on and on doesn't it?

Lead - why do you want E if C is available at the same cost?

Leadsled,

As Bloggs said, it doesn't matter if it's the Nitro's fault or the Glycerine's fault ... once you put them together in the right situation .... KABOOM!

As we've continually said .. no matter what your analyses, statistics or theories produce, nor despite how correct they may be, there always has to be the final "common sense" test.

At the moment, your product fails the common sense test ... and that, I believe, is how 12 ordinary men and women would see it.

Leadsled is matters not one wit whether the mistake is made by the RPT pilot or the GA pilot. Humans make mistakes hence we design systems that mitigate those mistakes, ergo, controlled airspace.

If two aircraft come together in controlled airspace there has been serious, most probably serial/multiple, human failings but its not a system design fault.

You're touting a system that can produce aluminium rain without human error. The GA pilot may have assiduously turned the transponder to mode C and in good faith believe its working properly - that doesn't mean it is.

Precisely CC. E is specifically designed to allow aircraft to come within close proximity in an uncontrolled manner.

And Leadie old fruit, it doesn't matter whether pilots do something stupid or not in any airprox - the pilots are human & will handle things less than optimally at times. That has to be allowed for in any modelling.

E airspace is specifically designed to allow them to get into that position in the first place, allowing the mistakes to have serious consequences.

Apply your vast statistical skills to analysing the actual data around Launceston when they had E over D. Probably closer to 1e-4 than 5e-9. Strikes me as a severe failure of the modelling. It is totally nonsensical to apply average risk figures to a specific locale - it assumes an homogeneous environment with minimal variations. A very large & unjustified assumption.

The fundamental differences here were demonstrated to me recently. On the new Perth to Bunbury highway, a major intersection was built, no doubt using all the appropriate risk-management and design principles ie "world's best practice". It was, in my view, a very easy intersection to negotiate from all directions.

However, serious accidents quickly started occurring at this intersection, probably causing some gnashing of designer's teeth. The result? The speed limit was in one direction on the highway was quickly reduced from 110kph to 80kph. No doubt there were some "Dick Smiths" on the road who said "WTF are we doing 80?! bla bla bla". The rest of us said "fair enough".

That's what we're saying to you, Ledsled and fellow Nastronauts. There's a problem, regardless of what your studies show, and for you to ignore it when there is no major benefit to be lost by implementing C instead of E, you will be negligent. But then again, as has been said before, you're not signing the paperwork, are you?

Baffle them with bull$hit. Lawyering 101, right Leadsled?

What is your agenda? You must have one, because your stated reasons thus far are not reasonable. Continually demanding a certain level of service, because that is what the risk modeling demands, even though a higher level of service (and thus, safety) is available at the same cost, is not reasonable. No matter how obfuscation and smokescreen is used.

Imagine if all this effort was used for good instead of evil? "The charging regime", for example. Imagine AsA being directed to use a tried system- worlds best practice etc. etc. on........moving to The US charging regime.

Do you/Dick ever look at the big picture and wonder what actually needs fixing? Instead of the platitudes/weasil words etc being used for this E crap?

Lead,

Given your influence and your profile as a B744 captain, and as a risk management expert, I'd say there's a pretty good chance that you'd be asked to explain why 'risk management' didn't work.

We came with in a poof-teenth of serious prangs under that atrocity called 2b. The history is there, and you want to repeat that episode?

I'd start compiling my explanatory brief now - like tonight.