Inside Melbourne ATC
 

Saw this video on youtube. Some ppruners may find it of interest;

I think you might mean this Youtube video. (Hopefully can post the link)

I am not familiar with current day practice (retired 13 years ago) but I think the controller probably meant file a plan before you depart. I doubt that any controller enjoys taking Flight Plan details over the radio. I think that Dick Smith was a proponent of inflight filing which was common in the USA.

No, I think what Dick is getting at is that in the US, VFR flights are encouraged NOT to submit a flightplan. If they require clearances they are processed pretty efficiently.

Compared to Aus, where a clearance cannot be given to an aircraft that is not 'known' to the system. And flightplan details need to be submitted either by the pilot or the ATC on behalf of. Its pretty inefficient to be honest......I prefer the US system.

Yes, I am sure that's what Dick was referring too. However, I would be surprised if today's practice is any different to my day. Surely these fancy flight planning programs on iPad/tablet make it very simple to submit a plan?
Obviously, there are occasions when an in-flight diversion would not have a chance to plan and that can usually be accommodated. But to blast off on a flight crossing controlled airspace without submitting a flight plan is going to cause increased workload for the controller.

@4:50 teaching the moonwalk too.

It would be a matter of priorities for the ATC, as it should be.

You're not to know what is happening in the ATC's environment and going on behind the scenes. To take details over the air and enter into Eurocat is a distraction from everything else that is happening. Usually that's manageable, sometimes not. A FPL in the system is the smart way of working in the system.

Granted that I'm just a baby in the world of aviation, but the three minutes it takes to lodge a flight plan through NAIPS before departure doesn't seem like the greatest of inconveniences. I've been encouraged to lodge a flight plan with sartime before any cross country flight, regardless of whether or not I intend to enter controlled airspace, and assumed this was standard practice? Never had an issue with amending flight plan or sartime over the radio either.

Was there a point in time you a VFR couldn't put in a full flight plan? We were certainly doing it when I was instructing back in the early 2000's. It then sits dormant in the FDP unless a controller looks it up for some reason.

Also what is the AFIS in hedland costing you? As far as I am aware, there are no charges generated by the AFIS.

Certainly aware that the ATC's and AFIS operators are not volunteers. But unless the airways charges went up in 2013 when it opened, the cost would just be a reduced payment to the government. No information is sent to avcharges by the AFIS.

Quite a good video but I had to have a little chuckle to myself at the start when the Air Services guy proudly stated that they look after 11% of the earths airspace. That might be so but there is hardly anyone in it for the most part. Compare our airspace with Europe,China / nth Asia and the USA etc and our controllers have to have about the easiest job for a controller in the world.

Traffic volume ≠ task complexity ≠ workload

Oh please your making me laugh again. So we have SOME of the busiest airports in the southern hemisphere huh. Wow. In an aviation sense it has hardly any activity compared to the NORTHERN hemisphere. As for the silly formulae above what does that really mean? That could be used to justify anything.I know lets put a customs office on Antartica. We can justify it with that formula. You blokes arn't Air Services middle management by chance?

Trying to argue that Australia has busy traffic or air routes is ridiculous.