Reporting point 2RN
 

The other thread was closed, however it was important for me to answer some of the points.

Unhinged, you state:

For over 20 years I have been attempting to move our airspace so we copy the best in the world. This is to improve safety and reduce inefficiencies.

According to the advice of the FAA experts who were brought out to advise on NAS, to have two reporting points for a busy airport such as Bankstown is quite risky. At the time I was concerned about this advice. That is why as part of NAS we stated that we would change the unique GAAP procedures, with their reporting points, to FAA Class D procedures. The FAA has over 300 Class D towers – some with similar traffic densities to Bankstown – however I cannot find at one location a reporting point similar to 2RN or Prospect.

My position is hardly “controversial” – it is simply a position that follows the best advice from around the world.

I don’t believe it is “inappropriate and insensitive” to bring these important points out at a time when we may be able to make some changes that may save lives.

Avicon, you state:

I have made no such suggestion. I have only said we should follow proven procedures from overseas, where they have between 15 and 20 times the amount of traffic. Therefore, as the risk of a collision goes up by the square of the traffic density, they have more experience on preventing this type of accident.

The US NAS does not in fact have “more reporting points.” It specifically does not list reporting points to enter a Class D airport. Under the US NAS, a normal report would be, “Bankstown Tower, Kilo Tango Kilo, five miles north west inbound with Bravo.”

I have found in life there are always advantages in looking around the world to see if things can be done in a better way. Sometimes we do them in a better way in Australia and we should keep that. But if we can learn from the mistakes of others, we should also do this.

Are you the same Dick Smith who instigated the "free in G" airspace? the horrendously dangerous "class G trial airspace" in the busiest airspace in Australia? the same Dick Smith who used to fly around monitoring radio calls in he BK lane, and having a go at anyone who dared use their radio in the interests of safety?

It sickens me to see you on the news after every tragic event in Oz Aviation pushing YOUR agenda. The way that you reject any proposal from people who fly in this airspce every day as "ill informed", but as soon as you find ONE person who agrees with you,with any type of aviation credential, they are touted as "experts", and their views is expounded at the cost of any other advice you may receive.

Part of being a pilot, Dick, is to assess, and reassess the situation, then make decisions based on ALL the information at hand.... not just the information that suits you!

Mr Smith, Mr Smith, Mr Smith. So you are proposing that a busy training airport does away with entry points and just has aircraft going every which way? Dumbest idea I have heard in months.

We have the same problem over here at Parafield approaching OCTA. Only 2 inbound approach points Outer Harbour to the west and the Substation to the NE. OHB in particular can get quiet busy at times with the college and the other 3 or so flying schools all out at the training area west of Edinburgh as well as the LOE down the coast all feeding into it.
We have in the past year had 2 midairs approaching GAAP's I don't want a 3rd here at PF thanks.
So based on the current evidence I find myself agreeing with Dick.

I'm with Dick. The system of VFR inbound points for GAAP fields is a very stupid design. It should be changed.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying I dont agree that the two inbound points is dangerous. I am saying that The way Dick uses the media after every fatal accident is so sickeningly wrong it is not funny. and the way he already knows the cause of the crassh before anyone else is just plain wrong.

Spot on, Chief Wiggum.

Dick has lost ALL my respect with his continuous complaining. In case you missed it, he is always right on matters of aviation safety, everyone else is always wrong, and he abuses his public profile and terrible accidents to push his agenda.

:mad: disgraceful, Dick.

It's the same group of problems as Moorabbin with everyone funneling in via Carrum and GMH approach points when coming in from anywhere including the training area.

It's not uncommon to see half a dozen aircraft over Carrum all reporting their position as Carrum with anything up to 2 miles or more between them. If the radio is busy you may not get a call in until the 3 mile mark if you aren't quick on the PTT.

The problems then continue as the tower often tries to work out who is actually number one.

Tower: XXX, you are number one.
VH-ZZZ: But tower, we are ahead of XXX
XXX: We just paseed ZZZ
Tower: Ok XXX you are now number one
and it goes on from there... half the time you might never even see the aircraft.

If it's proven experience in the US that this problem can be solved by eliminating approach points, then it is worth considering and CASA is obliged to do this.

Delta, amazing post, could it be that I am trying to save needless loss of life and you are resisting change?

I was supporting Ray Clamback- a very experienced pilot wha has given me a lot of advice and knowledge.

Delta_7, your 17 anonomous posts hardly entitle you to such an opinion!

Problem at Jandakot, particularly ADWD, is people saying they are at reporting points when they are actually a couple of miles away, overtaking on the left and even orbiting overhead inbound points! :eek:

This often occurs inbound in G outside the CTR so although I agree with Dick that Class D could be preferable to GAAP, these problems are not IMHO ATC or airspace related.

Chief Wiggum, the “free in G” airspace never happened – we still have to pay. The Class G trial airspace was instigated to use radar for the first time between Canberra and Ballina. Remember, a flight service officer standing behind the radar controller reported an incident, and that was used to reverse the trial and give back the airspace to the flight service officers with their paper strips and quill pens. I kid you not, this is what happened.

Amazingly, about 2 years later, Airservices arranged for the airspace to go to the radar controllers – as I had proposed – and that is how the system exists today.

Of course, Airservices has never written proper procedures for air traffic controllers to use radar in “flight service airspace” so we ended up with the horrendous 6 fatalities at Benalla.

Yes, I was against random radio calls in the light aircraft lane, as this had pilots concentrating their attention on those giving the calls and not being vigilant for everyone. I made it very clear that I would support radio calls as long as an education program took place so that everyone had an equal chance of operating in an alerted see and avoid environment. Personally I couldn’t see how this system could work, but it would surely be better than random calls from 2% or 3% of the aircraft, which didn’t comply with any rules or even recommended practices.

Whats dumb about keeping aircraft apart in non controlled airspace. I still remember the Moorabbin collision between a Beech 50 and a Bell-47 due to the same sort of airspace design. Peter Stone and Brian Cruckshank would be alive today with a better designed system. Instead we are still killing people. Today we have better Nav equipment and can handle multiple entry points. I have had two close misses in light aircraft 'lanes', we need to change the system. Dick Smith is right.

Mr Smuth, please go back to Terry Hills and close the hanger doors.

Dick this, Dick that blah ,blah. Look for safety's sake we should all stick with the issues and not play the man. What amazes me soon as he says anything people jump in with nothing about the topic to say just to tell him he's a ********. I reckon he has the message by now ( I would) but I will give him this he takes it day in day out. Who else would not me?
Could I just say this, some of what he says is crap, some is spot on, but most is swiped from overseas and is seen as worlds best practice by countries with far greater population and traffic than little OL OZ.
So long as it is best practice I have no problem with it.
Now before I'm called a Dick apolagist I remember and was a member of AOPA when he became President along with his mate Boyd Munroe. The pair of them wrecked that in my opinion and I have never been a member since but that is not to say if the points (like this one about GAAP's) he may raise is right in my opinion I won't agree with it.

Luckily we can actually see you at ADWD so we know if you are there or not :) But yes, ADWD is actually a massive place apparently. My advice for anyone unable to report at ADWD is to make a left turn and depart out to Fremantle and try again. I like to make the point, do you really want to enter the CTR when its so busy you can't fit a radio call in? I am not hugely familar with BK but I think 2RN is the equivilant of SIXS or SHIP/POWR.

Fine in theory - except that EVERYONE in that huge amount of airspace was on the SAME frequency, hence the overtransmitting and danger in the situation;which WAS conveyed to YOU before you implemented it.
The problem with the radar was that MOST of the traffic using the class G airspace couldn't effectively cruise at or above 8500' to be in the radar area.

I am all for using/copying the best airspace model we can get however we also need the same tools as they have their. ie radar over more than 25% of the country, radar coverage to the ground, access to affordable avionic upgrades, and sensible regulation and taxation.

Clinton, surely you don't believe it is sensible to force aircraft coming down the light aircraft lane to track an extra 5 miles west and mix with all the traffic coming from the west at Prospect? For that's what they have to do.

Or do you?

chief wiggum,

Not the radar furphy again. The radar coverage between Canberra and Ballina is as good as any radar coverage in the world – surely you know that. There is no such thing as “radar coverage to the ground”, it doesn’t exist in all en route airspace in any country in the world.

The reason everyone was on the same frequency – it was called the National Advisory Frequency is that Airservices refused to allow pilots to be on the ATC frequency as happens in the USA the UK and just about every other country I know.

It was completely undermined by people who were so stubborn and fundamentalist in their views that nothing should change i.e. “we had used flight service with paper strips and no radar and full position reporting for 50 years and that is the way it must remain forever.”

We can make up every excuse you can for not using the radar properly, one day presumably after an airline goes in killing 100 people, we will move to the proven NAS procedures, I guarantee it.

I am a student pilot (at Basair, though I didn't know the deceased), and this whole discussion makes me ask what must be the obvious to you - where IS the reporting point exactly? IIRC, there is a flashing beacon on the ground, adjacent to the tower - since this beacon is shown on the VTC, I'd assumed this was supposed to be the reporting point (my instructor wasn't quite clear on this either). This is within a half mile, if not much closer, to the radio mast. It's definitely not 2 miles south.

How is an itinerant pilot expected to figure this out given the ERSA just says "STH of TWRN" or whatever?

Forgive me if I am wrong but were there not 3 reporting points some years ago before the Richmond airspace got more space west of the inbound lane and the olympics had a fobidden area?

GAAP inbound points outside CTA zones are lunacy
 

Long time lurker, occasional poster but I have to speak out on this one in support of Dick's views, which I share.

GAAP inbound reporting points are simply an insane idea. It doesn't take a huge leap of cognition to realise that when you funnel a high density of aircraft movements through narrow points in space that you are creating a recipe for disaster. It's a "failure mode", plain and simple, and it needs to be addressed.

It's not to stay that a mid-air collision would never occur in the absence of fixed inbound points, but clearly the probability of airspace conflicts leading to collision would be far reduced relative to the current model. It's a basic probability density function argument (note: you could build a random model simulation using monte carlo methods and easily demonstrate this to be the case). The "safety case" for fixed inbound points is simply flawed. There is no safety case, in the modern traffic environment.

We really do seem to have a NIH (not invented here) attitude to airspace management in Australia and in my view it's high time it changed. The US may not have the perfect model, but they do manage many more movements in their airspace than we do here, and I think we should be looking to draw best practice ideas from other airspace systems. Ditching fixed inbound points for GAAP airports would be a good start.

I'm flying out of BK over the Christmas break. Safe travels all.

(Direct.no.speed): You've got to be kidding me. You can "guarantee it", can you? Get real mate.

The US works their system this way every day of the year. *I* can guarantee that you're not reading about midairs every couple of weeks, because they are not happening.

What part of concentrating movements through narrow points in space not leading to increased probability of collision do you object to, exactly? Let's have an engineering discussion. (Yes, I am an engineer as it happens).

And I should just point out that the primary "segregation" in the BK GAAP between arriving and departing traffic is the 500 ft of altitude separating them - not the tracks they take over the ground!

My Christmas Message for YSBK Pilots.
 

If your a low wing fly and report at 1400'QNH, if your a high wing fly and report at 1600'QNH. In addition could there be a 'local rule' that high wings report west of the mast and low wings to the east or something to that effect.

Hope it helps to avoid yesterdays tragedy.

I'd have to agree with what Dick is proposing.

I've been to Bankstown once and found it quite cramp and the frequencies always in use to the point where I struggled to make my inbound call at the radio mast.

I gotta say from memory the way you had to go from the radio mast to Warwick racecourse and then hitch that right turn over any incoming/departing traffic on the west side was pretty weird.

I've got mates who when they were doing their training (I'm from Melb) they flew to Bankstown in not the best weather... one set of mates struggled to find the radio mast as it was their first time there... It does seem quite bottle necked in comparison to Moorabbin (only other GAAP I've flown into).

Moorabbin personally I havent had any issues with it (I dont fly regularly) except for the cramp circuits especially on a few occasions at night with a twin up my behind which I'm sure was over the RW threshold a few times before I even took off again on the same RW.

Just looking at the approach point design of the GAAPs does seem a bit obvious it could be designed more efficiently.

So all you clever people got an answer for what will happen when the 4 or 5 or 7 aircraft all inbound to YSBK, as an example, from random tracks arrive at the beginning of downwind 29 or finals 11?

Given the (constantly) demonstrated lack of general skill, airmanship, recency and radio discipline displayed by the average PPL do you really want them to be all converging from random directions at that point...at the same time as an IFR Baron, Metro or Citation?

Think people:ugh:

Stop giving the man a hard time, im quite sure he has achieved alot more in 10 years than you will in a lifetime. Your no better than the little men in brown suits at CASA

Mr Smith done nothing but good work. Whats so wrong with trying to implement reforms in order to save mine, his and YOUR life.

If you have a hard time comprehending how precious life is then your obviously to stupid to be flying.

Beached

Chimbu,
They way I see it - in a CTAF you effectively have people coming from random directions and then joining a circuit.
One could also argue that the circuit entry points are like "reporting points", but as they are not precisely defined locations on the ground, you don't tend to get two aircraft trying to occupy the same airspace - not as often anyway.

wouldn't it be best for any IFR movements to be totally procedural and via a STAR/GNSS/NDB or whatever to the field everytime CAVOK or IMC but always procedural and away from VFR traffic.

What CTAF has 10 aircraft in the circuit on one runway and up to another 10 inbound for the other runway? Having everyone come from certain directions makes it much easier to see people and then sequence them.

Ambiguity - how far SOUTH of TWRN is SOUTH?
 

Of the many comments about TWRN as an approach point, one thing is patently clear. The reference to report "S of TWRN radio mast" is ambiguous - how long is a piece of string?

My post in the (now) locked thread brought out the blowtorch by those unable to make positive inputs to the current debate about safety of GAAP approach points. They seemed to gain some perverse kind of satisfaction by criticizing reporting exactly at TWRN. If my aircraft was 5 metres SOUTH of the mast I would have complied. If I was 1 metre SOUTH I would have been compliant. As it turned out, using GARMIN MapSource and the GPS track log for that flight, I approached 0.1 NM SOUTH of TWRN.

It's logical too - entry from the WEST via TWRN driving from the pilot's seat and maintaining visual contact with TWRN until turning towards YSBK, would put the aircraft S of TWRN i.e. COMPLIANT with ENTRY PROCEDURES.

Now someone who calls TWRN inbound needs to be somewhat closer than 2 miles otherwise (and this is my entire point) you have to scan a lot more sky to acquire the traffic, and the bum pucker factor increases significantly if you don't see them, which is more than likely. Alternatively if they say they are 2 miles SOUTH then you know where to look.

Another point is frequency congestion (common at BK), where with the best of intentions, you don't get to call until you've passed TWRN. The reason for the inbound call is twofold - (1) to announce to BK TWR you are coming and (2) to alert other pilots who might be conflicting traffic.

This makes interesting reading on the subject of "see and avoid":

http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/..._see_avoid.pdf

Meanwhile....
 

...just down the road Camden, without the restrictive airspace around it, manages to do quite well with 5 approach points, which provides some certainty for traffic and ATC, without pushing everybody to 2 points.

No doubt the recent closure of YHOX will test the effectiveness of this approach.

Perhaps Bankstown could be helped by reducing the Richmond CTA to more common dimensions?

Isn't the whole problem about two or more aircrafts at the same reporting point and not seeing each other... or maybe even not hearing each other because of radio congestion? How do you stop that from happening - visual separation/see & avoid? Well we know see & avoid is not 100%, because if it was they'd be all alive now. It's not easy trying to spot a plane that is so close to you, above, below, screaming past you because they are faster - such a highly stressful thing to be doing.

Its almost 2009, yet our aircraft equipment, airspace, towers etc, don't have technology that could perhaps be very well available that would make our flying less stressful around such reporting points and safer for everyone.

Why can't we somehow, have the information/knowledge of where other aircrafts are in the sky with respect to where I maybe flying - this does not mean one does not do look outs. Use technology to our advantage. Why do you think there is controlled airspace in the first place? Piece of mind, protection, real separation!

The sad thing is Sydney saw all this on RADAR (it was recorded on the tracking website - but later removed for obvious reaons), but it's not their space to monitor. Why can't YSBK be equipment with RADAR equipment, that would alert controllers to potential fatal hazard such as this event on Thursday.

With regards to Dick smith, there is no point battering the guy, he is trying to come up with ideas, whether or not some people think that he has an huge ego and is trying to gain credit for himself is not really important - we all have our different personalities. Dick, I'm very keen to know what are the ideas you alluded to? What is the US doing that we could benefit from - I feel that the posts have been very vague with no real detail?

Irrespective of how many 'approach' points you have, there is still one spot everyone is aiming for and eventually ends up at. Yep, the landing threshold.

This is usually right slap bang in front of those supposably providing a separation service to those flying, instead of some neferous point many km's/nm's away and most probably unsighted from the tower.

GAAP has served us for the last 30 years, maybe it's time to revisit the process and see if it is still applicable, suitable and safe given the changes that have taken place at all the current GAAP airfields over the intervening years.

I'm 100% with Dick Smith on this.
The only part of flying that ever worries me is the 4 minutes when I am in the vicinity of 2RN or prospect in and out of bankstown - it is lunacy to be funneled into a piece of sky at exactly the same height as an unknown number of other aircraft of differing speeds and configurations. Note the emphasis on "unknown". Why can we not give a call on either twr or syd frequency when "approaching 2rn/prospect" to give a fair chance of sequencing into the funnel?

This may sound really stupid, but imagine if there was an alarm that automtically played over the Radar frequency where if two aircraft passed close together (like really close) that you heard it on the radio and straight away looked out the window around you. I realise if someone is using the radio it's not going to work very well. The system could be automatic or instigated by a radar operator. I know if I heard it I'd be looking all around me straight away as best as I could. Same goes for GAAP, the tower guys could press it. It could work for a wheels up, near miss or emergency etc.

INCREASE IN VCAs?
 

Again.... I am not denouncing the man for his views.... I am disgusted at the man for both his timing and his tactics!

Wiggum - when do you expect mainstream media to give airtime to general aviation matters?

And why is it DICK's agenda - if it wasn't for Dick putting himself out there, there would be little debate about the appropriateness of our air service arrangements.

I don't agree with everything he puts forward, but I would expect the counter-arguments to be more sophisticated than the drivel you contribute

Someone mentioned this on another thread. Ask yourselves how the controllers do Oskosh every year.