Chief of Air Force response to ATSB report
 

AIR FORCE COMMITMENT TO AIR TRAFFIC SAFETY
Safety is one of the most important priorities in our workplace every day – it underpins all of our work practices. Not only is it important for our work colleagues and their families, but for members of our community as well.
Recent media reporting on the safety of our air traffic control, has used ‘loss of separation (LOS)’ statistics from an ATSB report, and incorrectly assumed these events have a direct correlation to safety.
The ATSB report found that Moorabin and Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport had the highest LOS figures in Australia, yet the ATSB made no recommendations regarding either airspace. Similarly, the ATSB report made no recommendations regarding civil airspace, despite more than 80 percent of LOS occurring in that airspace.
More than 97 percent of LOS incidents in military airspace involved ‘Nil’ or ‘Minimal’ collision risk or were attributable to pilot error. Only three of the LOS incidents attributable to military air traffic control had ‘Elevated’ collision risk. By contrast, the report fails to address the 40 LOS incidents with ‘Some’ or ‘Elevated’ collision risk that occurred in civil tower/terminal Area airspace.
Military-controlled airspace is inherently different to civilian-controlled airspace - with high traffic peaks but low overall aircraft movement statistics, diverse aircraft types and constrained airspace – which makes a statistical comparison a flawed way to assess safety.
I am absolutely committed to ensuring our airspace is as safe as possible – for our own aircrew and the more than 200,000 civilian aircraft movements that transit through our military airspace each year. Our ATC workforce is highly skilled, and unlike our civil colleagues, our ATC workforce rapidly deploy around the world at short notice assisting our neighbours in times of need – from the Philippines, to Haiti, Sumatra or closer to home at Innisfail.
I am proud of Air Force’s safety culture. We will continue to scrutinise air safety incident trends and take decisive action to reduce the likelihood of incidents, as part of the robust and comprehensive regulatory regime comprised of Directorate General Technical Airworthiness (DGTA), Defence Airworthiness Coordination and Policy Agency (DACPA) and the Directorate of Defence Aviation and Air Force Safety (DDAFS) to keep the skies safe for everyone.
GC Brown, AO
Air Marshal
Chief of Air Force
21 Jul 2014

So there it is then......nothing wrong with DRW ATC at all.

We were ALL wrong!

Please correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that that general experience and qualification in the Civil ATC world is gained initially by working in area control, with more experience leading to moving up through approach/dept, and the most experienced /qualified might be working in the Tower environ.

However in the RAAF, the system used to work in the opposite sense, with junior guys being posted straight to Gnd/Tower work, and approach qualifications being achieved later on a longer course of training once some field experience was gained. In the past it was typical for the ATC boggie to be sent to Darwin and Tindal and work in Tower/Ground as lesser desirable postings. That was one reason for a lot of junior RAAF ATC manning the tower in Darwin.

Is this still the case? If so, and with greatest respect to current CAF and his views, experience and qualification levels in the Tower/Ground environ at these locations would not be comparable to equivalent civil aerodrome operations.

When you compare say Brisbane and Cairns terminal control to Darwin and Townsville it is easy to see why the RAAF have such a bad reputation in ATC. It is because they perform well below what would be acceptable in the civil environment, but continue to tell anyone who will listen how good they are.

Merlin
 

Current civil ATC training is streamed. When accepted as a trainee, you are placed on a Tower, TCU or En route course and you graduate into that stream so each stream has controllers ranging from recently graduated to well experienced.

I don't think anyone is doubting the inexperience levels at RAAF locations. I have read the ATSB report and it is a wee bit biased with criticism aimed squarely at RAAF ATC, there is little mentioned on AsA issues or their LOS incidents (strange given some recent big ones).

At the end of the day inexperience is always going to occur when the average cycle of a military controller sees them move to AsA, or other ANSPs, when they can leave the RAAF at around the 8 year mark. This then sees a need for RAAF to further recruit and this then leads to that inevitable cycle of inexperience. AsA controllers generally stay in location and over time skills developed become rote. I have worked both Military and AsA with enjoyment in both. I just find it hard to fathom a poor one-sided report being released.

There is an ex Qantas CP stirring things up for his shot as head of CASA. He sold us out to further Dixon's expansion of Jetstar. Never to be trusted again. All for himself.

Darwin approach:

A320 - cleared visual approach via a 5nm final, maintain max speed to the field. At 5 miles contact tower xxx.

At 5 nm Darwin tower:

A320 - g'day. Continue approach. Follow the Cessna 206 on a 2nm final. Report when you have the traffic in sight.

Pilots Holy ****!!!! :ugh::ugh:

Darwin ATC at its best.

Civil controllers are not streamed directly to App/Dep. They are streamed to Tower or En-route.

The issue here is not so much the quality of RAAF controllers / processes as the quality of ATSB reports.

Taking the RAAF release at face value, the ATSB report is little more than a politically based witch hunt that does nothing but erode the credibility of the ATSB.

Old Akro
By taking your reply at face value where it appears you haven't' even looked at the ATSB report...and by your other posts
It may well be you with the bias imbalance

Or been cleared to the field at best speed, then cleared to land on 11 "if you can vacate on charlie that would be great"

Get off on charlie and turn around just in time to see a F100 touching down....

Seems a woryingly defensive response. How is defence ATC helping in trouble spots relevant? I might give to charity but I'd still make a rubbish lifeguard.