LeadShed, which Union are you referring to? I think you have mentioned this previously on another thread, could you please elaborate on your assertions/specific concerns/allegations?

“Sir Angus Won’t Allow the Fireies to Provide a Unicom Service”.
 

So ASA will be hiring more controllers then? If so, they're already balls to the wall trying to get through current demand.

No. AsA won't need more controllors. I understand Ballina will put on three part time retired controllors to operate the CAGRO.

But yes. The RFFS establishment formulae is a croc. Huge MIS allocation of safety resources.

Dick, what were the criteria for the establishment of a ARFF service when you were Chairman of CASA?

SunnySA,
Probably that the airport be an international airport, to meet ICAO requirement.
I think the present ratbag criteria was put in place after Dick resigned, anybody have the actual timeline? The fact remains, these fire services are very costly economic waste. The circumstances under which they were established were, to say the least, very questionable under any rational process.
See my previous posts on the subject.
None of the above, a statement of fact. I sat in conference room in Canberra that day, watched it all, the DoT Assistant Sec. sitting beside even agreed with me, but nobody else there was going to stand in the way of all hallowed "air safety".
It could almost be called "emotional blackmail" (not my term) but it all comes under "the mystique of air safety" --- for a full description of that term, see the first volume of the Lane Report in about 1986.

Tootle pip!!

Just another band-aid solution to mask no infrastructure/resources

I commissioned the Russel Smith report into RFFS. It recommended RFFS only at international airports.

If anyone wants a copy contact me and I will send it.

No. He is not related.

It should be understood that specific RFF categories are required in order for airports to be utilised for ETOPS operations. Therefore there is a cost tradeoff. An airport that is virtually never used but had an RFF service may contribute to significant cost savings for airlines nominating it as an ETOPS alternate. Learmonth is a good example of such an airport.

Folks,
From The Australian today.

------------------------------------
The former head of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority says his five-year campaign for safer skies came up against repeated resistance from Airservices Australia, which dragged its heels against *reforming airspace management along US lines.
John McCormick, who stepped down from CASA last year, said that he met opposition each time he moved to have Airservices, the government-owned body that runs the nation’s air traffic control and navigation system, extend controlled airspace.
In his first interview since *leaving the aviation watchdog, Mr McCormick said Airservices seemed reluctant to implement measures that involved its air *traffic controllers directing aircraft over a wider range of airspace where reliable radar was available. “Their objections were not based on safety; to my belief, they were internal Airservices *issues,” Mr McCormick said.
In one case, Mr McCormick said, he had to issue a directive to have Airservices’ air traffic controllers take charge of aircraft around Avalon airport in Victoria, a move he believes may have *prevented a potential serious air accident.
Mr McCormick said he supported calls from businessman and aviator Dick Smith and others for Airservices to have its fire and rescue crews at regional airports without control towers to provide pilots with basic local air traffic and weather information via radio, as do their counterparts in the US.
Airservices chairman Angus Houston has vigorously opposed the suggestion.
Mr McCormick said it made sense because Airservices’ prime responsibility was air safety and the firefighters were its employees. “You have to say, ‘What are they there for … what do we want them to do’,” Mr McCormick said.
Mr McCormick, who started his career as a RAAF fighter pilot before becoming a Qantas pilot and later a senior executive with Cathay Pacific, put his weight behind restarting the effort begun in the early 2000s to move to the US and Canadian national airspace system.
In those countries, whether radar is available or not, commercial aircraft are always under direction by air traffic controllers almost right to the runway. “They say they have implemented it, but of course they haven’t,” Mr McCormick said of the unfulfilled plans to introduce the North American system.
Australia still has a mishmash of regimes in which some airports are in designated controlled airspace, but most others, including some with significant airline traffic, are not, requiring pilots in cloud to talk to each other to work out their relative positions and avoid collisions.
The Airservices media unit yesterday refused to provide information or comment.
Mr McCormick’s decision to speak out follows a sustained campaign by The Australian raising issues of air safety and the administration of government aviation organisations.
While the new CASA chairman, Jeff Boyd, recently unveiled to this newspaper a reform agenda to embrace the US model, Mr Smith suspects he will encounter push-back from Airservices because of what he claims is a misguided assumption on its part that it would mean hiring more air traffic controllers.
Mr McCormick said he did succeed in some reform, such as improving airspace arrangements at the main secondary airports used for general aviation in each mainland capital.
At Avalon, not far from Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport, the situation was absurd, Mr McCormick said, because the radar coverage of the area was so good “you could see aircraft on the ground” but it was not being used for air traffic control down to the runway.
“I said that this was unacceptable. For various reasons, there was a bit of objection,” Mr McCormick said, referring to Airservices.
He said Airservices did not move fast to implement the CASA directive to bring Avalon under controlled airspace. “It took them a year. They hybrided their way towards it,” Mr McCormick said.
It was after controlled airspace was introduced at Avalon that air traffic controllers helped avoid what potentially could have been a major air accident, Mr McCormick said, after a Tiger Airways airline pilot decided on a go-around of the runway at night.
“In the subsequent missed approach procedure the radar controller noticed they were descending when they shouldn’t be,” Mr McCormick said. “The controller told them, then they arrested their descent. If that airspace wouldn’t have been changed, he or she would not have had the requirement to monitor that aircraft.”
It was a further example, Mr McCormick said, of how controlled airspace should be extended at least wherever reliable radar coverage was available.
In 2004, air traffic controllers did not intervene when a radar alarm warned them an aircraft was off-course in uncontrolled airspace, and it crashed into terrain near Benalla in Victoria with the loss of six lives.

Mr McCormick met repeated resistance because it was, and remains, a horrible f*!king idea that would compromise instead of enhance safety...

Hi Leady; seeing you posted the article, I have some questions that you may care to address.

Firstly, was this article written by someone that I'd never heard of before the debate restarted?

Secondly, and if so, can you elaborate on his qualifications to write on matters aviation?

Thirdly, and I am somewhat puzzled. My (personal) premise is that the writer does not have the background to editorialize. So I would be most grateful if you could explain to me how he can make the following authoritative assertion - there is no attribution and it is not a quote. As follows, and it is a bald statement of 'fact':

I repeat: 'Australia still has a mishmash....'

Now Leady, that last one has got me thinking. I may be out there where the buses don't run and I could be 180 off the beam; but I don't think so. What gives the writer the authority to make that assertion? In short, to editorialize?

Fourthly, and this question is based on my underlying assumptions as regards competency in respect of the above. If the journalist does not have the competency to editorialize, and he clearly has editorialized, has he been fed?

Fifthly, if he has been fed, I wonder whether his copy is vetted before publication. Just wondering, Leady. Do you think he has been fed and has had his articles vetted?

I dunno, Leady. It's only my personal take on what I regard as deficient journalism. That said, I'd be most appreciative to receive your thoughts on this one.

I suspect someone is writing the articles for Mr. Higgins :)

And seeing as the material is being cross posted, in the interests of education, re AVV:

http://www.pprune.org/pacific-genera...ml#post9055408

Earth calling Leady regarding my post #31.

You see, Leady, I don't necessarily disagree with the contention that we have a 'mishmash.' We used to have a system of 'controlled' and 'uncontrolled' airspace that wasn't. Notwithstanding, and before you jump in, that is not the point of my previous post. So no 'red-herrings' please.

Let's just address what I put to you, OK?

My concern goes to a little thing called 'journalistic integrity.' Now, I know that you know what 'journalistic integrity' implies.

I am sure you will agree that, in a general sense, if a journalist has been influenced to take one side or another, and this is mere supposition on my part, then one's 'journalistic integrity' has been compromised.

And this is the issue, Leady, so please don't obfuscate on the side issues in respect of what I have put.

Mr Higgins has editorialized on an issue. And, from my perspective, he does not have the experience, history, or qualification to make the assertion that he did.

The most valuable asset a journalist can have is a thing called 'disinterestedness.' Sad the way our language has gone, but 'disinterestedness' implies an even-handed approach.

Once a journalist loses focus on that basic tenet, credibility and integrity are lost.

I feel some sympathy for the writer. From my perspective, he has let himself be manipulated. A 'good story' and column inches, but at what cost to his own credibility?

Integrity, once sacrificed, is impossible to regain.

I am sure that someone that I regard as a 'poor dupe' tunes into this forum.

Howabout,
Ean Higgins has certainly been doing a lot of talking to a lot of people, but I have only spoken to him once, but at some length.

Mostly, he asked questions, and I got the very strong impression that he was very well briefed, and caught on very quickly. I have no idea whether he has any previous aviation background, but it is quite clear, the very broad range of people, to whom he has spoken. Far more than have been featured in the articles (another one today, Thursday 23/07).

I would be very very surprised if anybody else was writing some or all of his copy, again to the best of my knowledge he is not even running technical matters by anybody I know prior to publication, a common enough practice by specialist journalists.
Tootle pip!!

Perhaps he should join here or read the threads.

It might open his eyes towards more balanced reporting.

Midnight,
The thing is, aviation is not a democracy, that a large number of posters on various pprune threads are anti just about anything the yanks do, does not make them right and the yanks wrong. That is just one example.

The totally illogical and in some cases, hairbrained, objections to Class E airspace, and actually suggesting it is "less safe" than G, and anti E in general, the latter which I would guess is a majority of Australian pprune posters, makes no sense.

As I have often said, about the one thing I agreed with Mick Toller about, was his statement, words to the effect: " Australia is an aviation Galapagos, in splendid isolation, it has developed all sorts of strange and unique and wonderful mutations".

Even the fact that we have rather a poor safety record in Australia is not enough to get the message through that somebody else might be doing it a whole lot better, and we might learn something useful.

I notice Mr. Skidmore has been very quiet on matters airspace, UNICOM etc.

Tootle pip!!

PS: I would be surprised is Ean Higgins were not aware of pprune.

Typical... EXpert... Didn't he start off the regulatory reform process, or was that Big Bill?

Higgin's opinings are the most one-sided, biased dribble I have read for a long time. Somebody must have mished his mash.

One does miss Mike C who brought sense (and the CAGRO service) to the airspace debate.

Could it be that Australian PPRuNe posters are a reasonably accurate representation of Australian aviators, ATCs, engineers etc?

After some 15 years here, that strikes me as the case.

Midnight,
I think that is quite probable, which, in my opinion, tends to validate Mick's comment.

The very anti US tinge in the "regulator" and the sector goes back a long way (remember when US built aircraft were prohibited on "Imperial" routes, and when non-British built aircraft were subject a heavy tariff coming into Australia) at least to Kingsford-Smith, and was greatly reinforced with post WWII migration from UK to Australia.

Remember having to buy Rolls Royce built Continental 0-200 and 0-300, and they were garbage compared to US built engines, with about 70% of the TBO.

Re. more recent (late 1990s on) airspace management reform, to quote the then AFAP Technical Director to me, (late 1990s?)face to face and with witnesses, after he had just been sponsored to the US to see for himself:

" I don't care how well it works, we are not going to have septic (septic=septic tank=yank for those of you not into cockney rhyming slang) airspace in Australia".

--- what a balanced, open minded assessment. That is why I was so pleased to read the statement of the current AFAP President on the subject last week.

Bloggs,
Just so you can date the major starting point for the move to "real" regulatory reform, it was near enough to same time as AMATS, (1991??) when, amongst other things, we dropped the "nose" rule and adopted harmonization with ICAO cruising levels ---- over much domestic objection.

It is a thoroughgoing indictment of the resistance to change in Australia, that what "reform" has been "achieved" so far, with the exception of CASR Parts 21-35, is an operational and financial disaster.

NZ had a false start to reform at the same time, realised their mistakes (long before the recent EASA discovery)and started again, and were largely complete by about 1997 --- and they have been reaping the rewards of an ever expanding aviation sector ever since.

Tootle pip!!