Channel 7 Sunday Night Program About VH-MDX
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If you have any evidence that the RAAF caused these deaths I'm sure we all want to hear it, but we all know you don't!
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Last time you actually got a meeting with the head honchos.
At this race, hell will need to freeze over before you get another meeting
and they change anything now.
At this race, hell will need to freeze over before you get another meeting
and they change anything now.
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" What if the fighter fragged himself and had to eject and a wayward jet wobbled through that lane and into the side of your aircraft?"
Hi There ATC One,
The statistical probability of this happening would be what do you think?
How any times has a "fighter fragged himself and had to eject" in Australia in the last 50 years say? And then what chance of hitting another aircraft? Anyone fearful of such odds would live a fearful life indeed. Personally I would accept such a chance rather than a SE flight over tiger country anytime, let alone NVMC in crappy weather.
Dick has used extreme language to gain traction in an issue that has festered for too long. He has been promised change, and nothing happens. This course is his choice. He must therefore wear the approbium (I think that's a word...flak and disapproval anyway) that comes with that choice.
Nevertheless Willy should have a corridor down the coast at higher altitudes in my opinion.
More flying should be done at Tindal perhaps. While not wishing to go off thread (although perhaps it isn't) with no BHP to protect why is a vital fighter main base so close to the sea? How vulnerable is that?
My view is that either they equitably share the airspace voluntarily or they lose some of it.
Hi 500n. In a previous life I was want to publicly criticise CASA. The Chairman of CASA threatened not to meet with my organisation if that continued. My response was "Unless change is effected, these meetings have no value"
Hi There ATC One,
The statistical probability of this happening would be what do you think?
How any times has a "fighter fragged himself and had to eject" in Australia in the last 50 years say? And then what chance of hitting another aircraft? Anyone fearful of such odds would live a fearful life indeed. Personally I would accept such a chance rather than a SE flight over tiger country anytime, let alone NVMC in crappy weather.
Dick has used extreme language to gain traction in an issue that has festered for too long. He has been promised change, and nothing happens. This course is his choice. He must therefore wear the approbium (I think that's a word...flak and disapproval anyway) that comes with that choice.
Nevertheless Willy should have a corridor down the coast at higher altitudes in my opinion.
More flying should be done at Tindal perhaps. While not wishing to go off thread (although perhaps it isn't) with no BHP to protect why is a vital fighter main base so close to the sea? How vulnerable is that?
My view is that either they equitably share the airspace voluntarily or they lose some of it.
Hi 500n. In a previous life I was want to publicly criticise CASA. The Chairman of CASA threatened not to meet with my organisation if that continued. My response was "Unless change is effected, these meetings have no value"
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Bill
Exactly, but you still didn't get what you wanted so you lost as they didn't change.
The military is not like civvy organisations, you can't bully them into doing things and being 20 year career people, the junior Fl Lt at Willy ATC will take the memory of this stoush all the way though his career until he leaves, as will everyone else. And everyone else who matters would have read Brown's press release in a signal.
No one has yet answered my question as to WHY they have refused to open up a corridor or a wider area or the other things you are asking. IMHO, if you can't specify why they won't, how can you formulate a strategy to provide a viable alternative ???
"More flying should be done at Tindal perhaps."
I doubt it is just flying. A lot of other factors come into play for Williamtown, including the other two services and training areas.
Exactly, but you still didn't get what you wanted so you lost as they didn't change.
The military is not like civvy organisations, you can't bully them into doing things and being 20 year career people, the junior Fl Lt at Willy ATC will take the memory of this stoush all the way though his career until he leaves, as will everyone else. And everyone else who matters would have read Brown's press release in a signal.
No one has yet answered my question as to WHY they have refused to open up a corridor or a wider area or the other things you are asking. IMHO, if you can't specify why they won't, how can you formulate a strategy to provide a viable alternative ???
"More flying should be done at Tindal perhaps."
I doubt it is just flying. A lot of other factors come into play for Williamtown, including the other two services and training areas.
Last edited by 500N; 7th Jun 2014 at 02:58.
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You and Dick will make great nursing home partners in 10 years time, over a glass of prune juice, bemoaning how if the stupid people had only listened you couldabeen champions..
Like I said, this has all bitten Dick on the bum. His chance of any reform now is patently LESS than it has ever been. In fact, going by Browny's statement I'd say the odds are exactly zero
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No progress was achieved the nice way Hempy.
I would not write Dick off just yet. It would be perhaps wiser to not underestimate his appeal out in the real world .
I doubt that Geoff Browne will front up to debate the matter on Channel 7 as invited to do......
I would not write Dick off just yet. It would be perhaps wiser to not underestimate his appeal out in the real world .
I doubt that Geoff Browne will front up to debate the matter on Channel 7 as invited to do......
No one has yet answered my question as to WHY they have refused to open up a corridor or a wider area or the other things you are asking
Yes I have, look back at previous posts, the "Dog in a Manger" attitude of the RAAF to airspace, stemming from an attitude described as "We won WW11, it all belongs to us".
That phrase is not mine, but is attributable to an AVM, long since retired, at a conference on airspace. The words are a direct quote, I was right across the table.
Bill Pike and I have been around long enough to remember when high level airspace over Sydney was RAAF Restricted, H-24. Inbound to Sydney, we would have to start descending well before a normal TOD, to remain clear of military restricted area. Too long ago now, to remember the top of civilian controlled airspace, but it was well below our normal cruising levels. In those days, on departure, Richmond zone was closed to us, we always had to fly around.
The political muscle of the airlines had that nonsense reduced over the years, because the airlines would not accept the financial cost of "avoiding" collisions with, on average, zero military aircraft.
Non-airline civil aviation in Australia does not have that political muscle, so the RAAF, and the Australian military in general, retains unnecessary restrictions on unnecessarily large volumes of airspace "because they can".
At least Dick tries, and keeps trying, to make improvements, those of you who are in GA should thank him for it.
A lot of you should open your eyes, have a look at what other countries, comparable to Australia ,manage to do,(don't come up with the stupid China example, or maybe we should, as ALL PR China airspace is run by the PLA Air Force, that is what we would get if the RAAF ran all Australian airspace) with safety records as good as, and in the case of US, better than Australia.
Tootle pip
Last edited by LeadSled; 7th Jun 2014 at 03:44.
I don't understand why it has taken 33 years for Dick to get his knickers in a knot. As for the umbrage about preventing future tragedies, how many have happened since? As far as the general public is concerned, this was old news 32 years and 11 months ago. If the guy had just killed himself, with all due respect to the searcher's of today, no one would probably be bothering. The Great Unwashed certainly don't care. All Dick is doing is pissing off the military, and unfortunately anything he does now is, unfairly or not, tainted by a smell of self interest.
The flight was conducted under the flight and airspace regimes of the day. Second guessing or applying today's standards won't work. The pilot knew he couldn't plan and fly direct WLM or coastal (irrespective of whether he should have been able to) so based his flight on those requirements. Once his planned route was no longer viable, he should have looked for alternatives or landed elsewhere and waited it out. He painted himself into a corner, and paid the price.
In my time in FS, I heard the final words of at least two flights where the enviroment outdid experience. One guy was trying to get through the Kilmore Gap. Didn't hear too many calls afterwards for the MEL Control Zone or overlying CTA to be reduced/abolished because it made pilots fly into bad terrain. That guy f*cked up.
This guy f*cked up. If they'd found the wreckage we wouldn't even be talking about it.
The flight was conducted under the flight and airspace regimes of the day. Second guessing or applying today's standards won't work. The pilot knew he couldn't plan and fly direct WLM or coastal (irrespective of whether he should have been able to) so based his flight on those requirements. Once his planned route was no longer viable, he should have looked for alternatives or landed elsewhere and waited it out. He painted himself into a corner, and paid the price.
In my time in FS, I heard the final words of at least two flights where the enviroment outdid experience. One guy was trying to get through the Kilmore Gap. Didn't hear too many calls afterwards for the MEL Control Zone or overlying CTA to be reduced/abolished because it made pilots fly into bad terrain. That guy f*cked up.
This guy f*cked up. If they'd found the wreckage we wouldn't even be talking about it.
Bill,
Would there be any point in a debate? Exactly what would be the debate topic?
If the topic were "Did the actions of ATC that night significantly contribute to the crash of VH-MDX" then I think he could easily show that the answer is 'no'.
All of us, however, know that Dick would shift the topic and start asking why his ideas (right or wrong as they may be) were not being enacted by the various authorities.
Would there be any point in a debate? Exactly what would be the debate topic?
If the topic were "Did the actions of ATC that night significantly contribute to the crash of VH-MDX" then I think he could easily show that the answer is 'no'.
All of us, however, know that Dick would shift the topic and start asking why his ideas (right or wrong as they may be) were not being enacted by the various authorities.
I don't understand why it has taken 33 years for Dick to get his knickers in a knot
Where did you get that idea, you must have been hiding under a rock for the past 33 years. Dick's attempts to get some rational into Australia's airspace management and to reduce the volume of military airspace has been ongoing, and for longer than 33 years.
Get a copy of Dick's book, "Two Years in the Aviation Hall of Doom" and read about all the RAAF attempts to prevent his transit of Richmond zone, to fly to Mt. Wilson, when the only aeronautical activity was gliding. It got to the ridiculous stage that the Richmond tower would not accept requests for clearance on VHF, it had to be by phone. So Dick installed a phone in his helicopter, the RAAF decreed that the request for clearance had to be made from a land line. Apparently a phone in an aeroplane was not a real phone. Anything to prevent entirely legitimate access to this airspace, despite a protocol allowing civilian access.
It is a testament to bloody minded attitude of the military, and the RAAF in particular, that so little has changed. In an "us versus them", military versus civilian, the military is winning.
I recall and Army proposal, probably in the '70s, to establish a new base west of Dubbo, they declared a proposed H-24, zero to unlimited Prohibited (not just restricted ) area, with a diameter of 100NM (or was that radius), with a proposed commencement date. It completely screwed up an extraordinary % of all operation west of Sydney, and between Brisbane and Melbourne, and, of course, isolated Dubbo and Narromine. There was not even a proposal for corridors, just 100nm, 0-unlimited, P.
That is an example, in the extreme, of how far removed from the civilian world the military can get. Of course it never got anywhere, in part because too many politicians, State and Commonwealth, would not be able to fly home, and an even greater number would have been disrupted. The uproar from the AATA and BARA was really something!!
Tootle pip!!
Last edited by LeadSled; 7th Jun 2014 at 04:12.
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I can't recall all that has been said here and there but I can't recall that Dick actually blamed the controllers of that night. He refers I believe to a more generic "RAAF" in that if procedures were otherwise, and such changes that had been, I am advised, agreed previously but never enacted, were in force, this nonsense of flight planning out over tiger country when healthier country is available would not have happened, and the people would most likely have survived.
While I am no longer actively flying, one might say that all i worked for was "self interest ", that is for the benefit of the industry in which i worked and thus myself. I recall some one descibing the now deceased Geoff Westwood, then President of AIPA "Maybe he is doing this to benefit himself but whilsoever it benefits the rest of us as well he gets my vote "
While I am no longer actively flying, one might say that all i worked for was "self interest ", that is for the benefit of the industry in which i worked and thus myself. I recall some one descibing the now deceased Geoff Westwood, then President of AIPA "Maybe he is doing this to benefit himself but whilsoever it benefits the rest of us as well he gets my vote "
Can I again remind people:
- Clearance through military airspace: granted. Clearance through civil airspace (S1): denied.
- Clearance through military airspace for coastal transit: granted. Clearance through civil airspace for coastal transit (Sydney APP): pending when MDX took FPR.
At NO time was any delay attributable to the military controllers NOR military airspace restrictions.
- Clearance through military airspace: granted. Clearance through civil airspace (S1): denied.
- Clearance through military airspace for coastal transit: granted. Clearance through civil airspace for coastal transit (Sydney APP): pending when MDX took FPR.
At NO time was any delay attributable to the military controllers NOR military airspace restrictions.
Last edited by evilroy; 7th Jun 2014 at 04:28. Reason: Corrected spelling
Channel 7 Sunday Night Program About VH-MDX
Don't say that evilroy, it doesn't help their agenda.
No I haven't been under a rock for 33 years. I've been in the industry that long. My first career fell victim to one of Dick's crusades. As I said, Dick only seems to get involved when he can't fly somewhere he wants. It seems that that's how the authorities view him too.
(rest of rant deleted as feel better now)
As i said, the accident happened due to the conditions prevailing at the time. No-one else has since. It's a non issue as far as most people are concerned. The general public don't understand it and don't care. Dick throwing spurious allegations around on TV is just something to titillate them until "The Voice" comes on.
(rest of rant deleted as feel better now)
As i said, the accident happened due to the conditions prevailing at the time. No-one else has since. It's a non issue as far as most people are concerned. The general public don't understand it and don't care. Dick throwing spurious allegations around on TV is just something to titillate them until "The Voice" comes on.
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Dora
Let me say for a start I'm not anti raaf or military.
But I can say that my views on this post may be the only ones but in the real life of civilian aviation I'm not alone.
A few examples.
NRC for spelling mistakes in log book. Awi ex mil and when he was a c/e he didn't fill log books out. Or filing cannot not locked or door to the store open
Or what about they guy that wonted me charge with insubordination as he marched of to the office. Strange he was a srg in the raaf unlicensed I was in charge of the job the lic eng on the job etc.
Or the top gun that pushed the wind farms in the southern highlands. Top gun.
Top gun was his on words he described himself not mine not others.
The list can continue. These ex mil are cause tremendous damage to the industry. I've seen as many others have. The difference is I say it most don't. They extremly vindictive to the enths degree. Same as this issue. They won't give an inch because they don't won't to loose face or power. There is no need for the resicted airspace that this post is about. Not one person has come forward and given one reason for it. Not once did dick blame any one person but the establishment. Yet you continue to say that. It's more knock the tall poppy down situation. I don't always agree what dick dose or says but on this I agree with him.
Cheers
Let me say for a start I'm not anti raaf or military.
But I can say that my views on this post may be the only ones but in the real life of civilian aviation I'm not alone.
A few examples.
NRC for spelling mistakes in log book. Awi ex mil and when he was a c/e he didn't fill log books out. Or filing cannot not locked or door to the store open
Or what about they guy that wonted me charge with insubordination as he marched of to the office. Strange he was a srg in the raaf unlicensed I was in charge of the job the lic eng on the job etc.
Or the top gun that pushed the wind farms in the southern highlands. Top gun.
Top gun was his on words he described himself not mine not others.
The list can continue. These ex mil are cause tremendous damage to the industry. I've seen as many others have. The difference is I say it most don't. They extremly vindictive to the enths degree. Same as this issue. They won't give an inch because they don't won't to loose face or power. There is no need for the resicted airspace that this post is about. Not one person has come forward and given one reason for it. Not once did dick blame any one person but the establishment. Yet you continue to say that. It's more knock the tall poppy down situation. I don't always agree what dick dose or says but on this I agree with him.
Cheers
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What you say is partially factually correct Evilroy but avoids the issue. (I have yet to read that a clearance via coastal was "pending". That's not the way I read Sector one's remarks that "controlled areas are non VMC" )
No one has blamed the RAAF controllers on that night (I don't think so anyway)
The refusal of the RAAF to allow flight planning along the coast at the planning stage caused MDX to flight plan the way he did. It is ridiculous that the "normal" route is via MQD unless otherwise approved. As Flt Lt D.D. Sullivan (later Capt with Cathay) once said "this game cannot be made 100% safe but one must always keep the odds on one's side when one can"
Flight Planning over MQD instead of coastal does not meet that criteria. That procedure should be altered.
No one has blamed the RAAF controllers on that night (I don't think so anyway)
The refusal of the RAAF to allow flight planning along the coast at the planning stage caused MDX to flight plan the way he did. It is ridiculous that the "normal" route is via MQD unless otherwise approved. As Flt Lt D.D. Sullivan (later Capt with Cathay) once said "this game cannot be made 100% safe but one must always keep the odds on one's side when one can"
Flight Planning over MQD instead of coastal does not meet that criteria. That procedure should be altered.
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"They won't give an inch because they don't won't to loose face or power."
So, you need to think strategically.
Those of you who want change are salesmen and need to think strategically.
Find a way for the RAAF to maintain control, not lose face or power but allow what you want - and that giving an inch won't be taken a mile which is often how the mil (and many others) see things - like Green issues - so they just stone wall everything.
So, you need to think strategically.
Those of you who want change are salesmen and need to think strategically.
Find a way for the RAAF to maintain control, not lose face or power but allow what you want - and that giving an inch won't be taken a mile which is often how the mil (and many others) see things - like Green issues - so they just stone wall everything.
(I have yet to read that a clearance via coastal was "pending". That's not the way I read Sector one's remarks that "controlled areas are non VMC" )
