It's important you explain how much terminal E (some of which would be unsurveilled) will cost! Your abject refusal to answer means that you're the ideologue, not others. We have half the controller-to-aircraft ratio that the USA has. How many extra would be required to run terminal E? You haven't even bothered to find out, have you?

Until you introduced, in the early 90's, the mishmash of continually changing terminal radio arrangements that resulted in near misses that you and LedSled have trumpeted, all IFR aircraft were operating in a simple, safe radio environment with third party FSOs looking after them. Even now, CAGROs provide the same safety backup, but you hate those as well, preferring "anybody on the airport" to do the job.

Lookleft,
And I know many ex-RAAF who have also been successful in business ---- and what you miss is that Sunny is talking about (and has experienced) a particular military mindset (not confined to the RAAF, in my experience) that bears no relation whatsoever to the person who leaves a civilian career to join up "for the duration", and in great majority of cases, return to their civilian occupations after "it is all over". The majority of WWII in QF after WWII and Korea were in this category.

The great majority of ex-RAAF WWII pilots I have flown with have been in the latter category, well after WWII quite a few came into QF from the CAF, as Sgt/Pilots.

We did have a couple of what Sunny is talking about, career military before/during WWII (and not necessarily Air Force) but wound up in QF after WWII, and they were shockers, including one chap whose nickname was "The Elephant's Trunk", the biggest drawback in QF.

Nor is this mindset necessarily applicable to all career military (and not limited to commissioned officers) that is not what Sunny or I have said, but it applies to enough that gravitate on leaving the military, straight to the public service, or a job in a big company that is almost as bureaucratic as any public service department.

The text books and learned papers on the subject are not figments of some fervid academic imagination.

Reg Ansett had a very particular view on the subject, for many years, fundamentally, he would not hire ex-military pilots, and made no secret of his views on the subject.

Tootle pip!!

Bloggs. I don't hate cagros. Just concerned that they cost so much more to our industry than the North American type Unicom.

Re cost of class E down to 1200 agl in the non tower terminal area.

There are places where it could be introduced at no measurable cost increase.

Also if the existing en route controllers can provide a class E terminal service in the USA and Canada we should try it here.

Remember we have had a number of serious incidents including two professional pilots on different frequencies attempting the same approach at the same time at Bundaberg in IMC

Obviously not that professional then?

Gawd Dick! When will you get it into your @#$% head they do half as much work? Did it ever occur to you that there are twice as many ATCs in the USA so they can provide E down to 1200ft (what happened to 700ft??).

Bundaberg would not have been solved by any of your airport wallys running a Unicom!

Cut the ideological nonsense and have a dose of reality, will you?

Yep Blogsy, so correct, but did it occur to you that there are over 10 times as many aircraft?

Bob, it's per controller not in total.

Actually, there's 15 times as many atc (1000 vs 15000) in the US, so even if
means they still have/need more staff to provide what they do.

Irrespective of this, where does it specifically say in the US regs that a UNICOM operator can provide a traffic service. I can find examples where they are forbidden to provide some info in certain circumstances, so is it just one of those "good ol' boy" things that happen and everyone turns a blind eye to the legality of it. The few references I can find seem clouded by discussion of traffic exchanged on the UNICOM frequency (self-announced aircraft to aircraft) vs traffic provided by a UNICOM operator. Traffic info is not one of the things listed that a ground operator will or can provide. A couple of very general articles mentioned that traffic may be advised, if the operator wishes to, but this seemed anecdotal, and frankly to me, damned dangerous.

The following is a good example of what happens when using rhetoric,hyperbole and generalisations to create an argument, you end up chasing your own tail and discrediting your own argument. Just follow the dots.

The argument put forward was that ex-military people (as a generalisation)are incapable of leaving their rigid thinking behind and are bad for any civilian organisation, which is why CASA is hopeless.

Because of this an aviation icon decided that they were not going to employ ex-RAAF pilots in their organisation:

But we know that another iconic aviation organisation was quite open to employing the ex-military pilots that apparently Sir Reg despised, and so logically that organisation was inefficient and tainted by having so many of the hopeless incompetents in its employ.

So now another iconic aviation personality in his efforts to introduce an efficient and world class airspace classification system goes to where he thinks worlds best practise is to be found in limitless quantities:

So there you have it. If only Dick had sought expert advise from Ansett then his airspace changes would have had more success.

TTFN

Dicks assertion that Unicom in the US provides traffic information seems to be completely at odds with the FAA regs, attached.


87.213 Scope of service.
(a) An aeronautical advisory station (unicom) must provide service to any aircraft station upon request and without discrimination. A unicom must provide impartial information concerning available ground services.
(b)(1) Unicom transmissions must be limited to the necessities of safe and expeditious operation of aircraft such as condition of runways, types of fuel available, wind conditions, weather information, dispatching, or other necessary information. At any airport at which a control tower, control tower remote communications outlet station (RCO) or FAA flight service station is located, unicoms must not transmit information pertaining to the conditions of runways, wind conditions, or weather information during the hours of operation of the control tower, RCO or FAA service station.
(2) On a secondary basis, unicoms may transmit communications which pertain to the efficient portal-to-portal transit of an aircraft, such as requests for ground transportation, food or lodging.
(3) Communications between unicoms and air carrier must be limited to the necessities of safety of life and property.
(4) Unicoms may communicate with aeronautical utility stations and ground vehicles concerning runway conditions and safety hazards on the airport when neither a control tower nor FAA flight service station is in operation.
(c) Unicoms must not be used for air traffic control (ATC) purposes other than to relay ATC information between the pilot and air traffic controller. Relaying of ATC information is limited to the following:
(1) Revisions of proposed departure time;
(2) Takeoff, arrival or flight plan cancellation time;
(3) ATC clearances, provided a letter of agreement is obtained from the FAA by the licensee of the unicom.

I think that clause is in there to prevent over-zealous refuellers or baggies getting a little ahead of themselves and over stepping the mark.
It's this bit:
(which is repeated in the FAA AIM UNICOM section and FAA Radio UNICOM licensing section as well) which opens the door to supplying traffic info at the discretion of the operator (after all, someone has to decide what is "necessary information"), and then only for the provision of any information at the request of the pilot. They are quite specific about what info can be provided ie runways, fuel, weather, taxis, hotels etc, but they do not specifically include traffic info, which is strange if it was that important (but neither do they specifically exclude it). The sections from the FAA regs that apply to FSS stations definitely say that traffic advisories will be provided by them (but they are an FAA facility), but as I said, for Joe Bloggs UNICOM it is very vague. Maybe it's because they intended that local traffic would be assessed and dealt with by the person's most affected, and qualified to deal with it - the pilots, and that it is a little too important to be left in the hands of the hit and miss (excuse the pun) service that is UNICOM.

So Dick, on what regulatory basis do US UNICOMs provide traffic?

Re " I don't hate cagros."

Phew! That's nice.......

Cheers :p

For 25 years there are those who have successfully prevented the introduction of cost efficient and safety improving North American Unicoms.

The Unicoms are successful because the legislation is intentionally non prescriptive.

Re traffic info- have a look at the FAA suggested phraseology on page 641 of the 2015 FAA
Aeronautical Information Manual. 4-1-9

" Frederick Unicom ..........- request wind and traffic information Frederick"

Now nothing could possibly be clearer. The FAA document would not specifically mention " traffic" if traffic could not be provided.

And clearance requests and the actual IFR clearance can be passed via Unicom once a simple letter of agreement with the centre is issued . In most cases the Unicom operator has no air traffic type qualifications at all.

This non prescriptive system has worked for over 50 years giving every bit of information that is useful to the pilot with great success and very high levels of safety in a country that is both highly litigious and has over 30 times the traffic .movements .

Most importantly Unicom operators in the US do not require any liability insurance. In the entire history of Unicom operators in the US not one operator has ever been sued for liability.

Good luck with reforming our legal system as well then Dick.

That's another fabricated myth.

There is no need to change our legal system.

I was told that in 1990 when we had prescriptive requirements for landing areas -ARG 7 and ARG 8

We changed to the FAA non prescriptive guidance type material and there has not been one problem since.

traffic,
Obviously so, as true aviation professionals never make mistakes, and are totally immune from human factors issues in all aspect of aircraft operations.

Do something useful, and dig out the ATSB report, and learn something, about how all involved had the correct information, including a notam frequency change between chart issues, but, in the heat of the moment ----.

Tootle pip!!

I had already seen that and it is the ONLY instance in the FAA docs where UNICOM traffic is mentioned - in the "suggested" phraseology for use by a taxiing aircraft. No mention for an inbound aircraft, no mention in any other phraseology section, no mention of the return phraseology, no mention of what criteria the traffic should be assessed upon, no mention that traffic advise can be provided, no mention in the descriptive duties of a UNICOM, no mention in the licensing standards for a UNICOM radio station. It barely seems adequate for a regulatory basis.
I guess it's lucky for US aviation that they "suggested" it.

Do they not require it because they are legally exempt, or are they chancing their arm because no one has been sued yet? They must be one of those true aviation professionals who never make a mistake, eh Leadie?

Sorry Dick, but here's another 'fabricated myth'....

"Your Safety Will Be Enhanced, And It Will Cost You Less"

No Cheers, Nope, None At All...:sad:

Traffic. What of course you are leaving out is how the system has worked in practice for over 50 years.

In the USA the Unicom operator gives any information that may be useful re improving safety.

At most of our airports there is no one on the ground listening on the CTAF to report even if the voice modulation on the transmitter has failed.

It has worked so well in the USA and Canada that there are no plans to make the regulations more prescriptive.

For 25 years I have been working on copying this system- one day I will get success as new blood comes into the industry and the concrete minded ones die out. You watch!