Australian Class E article – the full text
 

In The Australian newspaper this morning my article headed ‘Controlled Airspace Remains under a Cloud’ was edited due to space limitations.

Here is the full version:

http://rosiereunion.com/file/25years...hallofdoom.pdf

Once they edited all the bs out of that, it obviously only needed a little bit of space.

Haha. Good one Dick! Happy April Fools.

What's the "proven safety standard" between VFR and IFR in Class E? Less than 1nm and less than 200ft? :rolleyes:

If you are in IMC there is a full ICAO safe separation standard. When IMC exists it's equivalent to class A airspace.

If you are in VMC it's the existing system we have proven over 50 years plus the important safety feature of a zero extra cost NAS type Unicom that at a minimum confirms your radio is on the correct frequency and working correctly to increase the chance of alerted see and avoid working.

Bloggs you appear to be one of those pilots who is convinced you are superior and won't make errors similar to those that happened at Benalla that killed everyone on board.

And no doubt you would never dial up the wrong frequency!

We are not all as " top gun" as you believe you are.

Say what??

The "existing proven" (1950s) system had BOTH aircraft on freq talking to one another so that the didn't hit each other. That is NOT what your famed Class E is all about. To plagiarise, "The Launy pilot wasn't as "top gun" as he believed he was...." The lowest common denominator now has total control over the outcome of a conflict with an 100+ pax jet. In your words, "rediculous".

I said a few days ago: there was a third-party at Launy: it was the tower! But the VFR decided not to use it.

On to the unicoms: you demolished a quite satisfactory third-party radio system at our busy airports on the premise that we'd all jump at the chance of follow-me girls giving us amateur ATC. Fail.

You if want Class E, where's your cost-benefit analysis (don't forget to include the cost of transponders for VFR). Do we have traffic lights at every intersection? Do we all drive around at 50kph on the freeway because someone exceeded their capabilities and pranged, killing others? Aviation is not a risk-free activity. On the one hand you're quite happy to allow a bugsmasher to wiz past a 737 unannounced but on the other, demand full ATC to the ground all over the country just because a GPS system went haywire and caused a single-aircraft accident. It's irrational.

Come on, Dick, let's have it! This issue has been festering, and you have been asked, for years. Surely you have your numbers in a row by now??

Precisely, Bloggs,

As both of us have said, repeatedly, positive change comes down to credible cost/benefit and risk analyses.

Otherwise, change is at the mercy of inordinate influence on dumb pollies, 'my opinion,' and 'I want.'

I am sure you will agree!!!

Dick, if you could just put the effort you pointlessly expend into crunching the numbers, as opposed to countless words based solely on opinion, you might get somewhere!

Regardless of my previous, I intuitively feel that you may have a case. But intuition just doesn't wash.

Haven't you learned anything from the division in the industry caused by several of your 'airspace initiatives?'

Give people a credible, facts-based argument, underpinned by credible cost/benefit and risk analyses, and you've got a good chance of gaining broad support and bringing people along.

IMHO, your accusations as regards 'intransigence' just don't fly when it comes to 'airspace reform.' It was all 'I want, foot stamping stuff.' And you seem to have not changed.

People will listen to cogent analyses in this industry, Dick. Not opinion nor 'I want.'

Howabout et all,
It was all done, long ago, for NAS, particularly the NAS 2b part of the plan, and all in accordance with ICAO SARPs and standards for risk analysis, both ICAO and AS/NZS.

It was/is the biggest risk analysis exercise conducted in Australian aviation history. Indeed, no changes before or since have been as extensively canvasses and consulted as the then Government's NAS policy and implementation program.

As we see here, more or less the same people opposed change in general, and in airspace management arrangements in particular then, as oppose change now.

Contrary to continual claims on pprune, the "roll back" after 12 months of successful operation had nothing to do with any general problems in the trial period, which were minimal by any measure. or the Launceston incident, (and another broadly similar north of Brisbane) no matter how sincerely some of you believe this to be the case. It was "industrial", not operational.

Mick Toller was spot on when he described Australia as: "An aviation Galapagos, where all sorts of strange mutations have developed in splendid isolation from the rest of the aviation world".

Tootle pip!!

Industrial was it? I'd call the whole thing political and foot stamping from the start. It's still going on.

Leady,

As much as I respect your views and experience, the NAS 2b Safety Case was 'implementation-based,' not 'system-based.'

This has been argued to death in respect of 2b.

The transposition of the American model to Australia did not fit a 'like for like' argument in respect of radar coverage, frequency access, sector size, controllers 'per-capita,' etc, etc. It was just not 'like for like' as regards fundamental ICAO requirements when it comes to importing another system and relying solely on an 'Implementation Safety Case.'

Given the glaring anomalies, a 'System Safety Case' should have been mandatory to comply with your beloved ICAO SARPS.

The 'Implementation Safety Case' was an attempted short-cut that did not take account of inherent system differences. It was nothing more than an attempt to 'pull the wool' and ram through a flawed agenda when a few zealots thought they had the political momentum.

Had a 'System Safety Case' been done, you'd have got a lot further old fruit!

A number of Aussie ATCs have told me that at some airports they could provide a class E separation service at no extra cost.

Six deaths at Benalla and you say the existing system is ok?

What's the problem with doing a trial at just one airport ?

A single pilot high performance charter aircraft on approach being given traffic on three other IFR aircraft in IMC is certainly a very high workload situation. Then the separation has to be organised by the individual pilots with no prescribed separation standard.

What's wrong with highly skilled Controllers actually " controlling " airline aircraft "

Some sectors I fly in are so quite I have to sometimes give a call to ATC to check my radio is still working - would it not be possible to provide a class E terminal service in those areas?

It works superbly in the USA and Canada.. Canada has huge areas of low density airspace and they can provide an E terminal service at many non tower airports. Why can't we?

Dick, what's the point of doing a trial at just one aerodrome? It tells you nothing about the requirements for a busier aerodrome in a busier sector. Give me the resources, the training and a properly sized sector and I'll do it. Doing it half arsed doesn't cut it.

How many aerodromes have reliable comms down to the ground?

This is fact, Dick.

If you want to 'import' the US system, you have to import the US system in whole.

Too right it was industrial (not involving ATC) ---- the circumstances of CASA pulling the plug, one the eve of the system going "permanent".

I'm not going into any more detail, because when I do, I get in strife.

Maybe Dick might like to fill in the gaps, he has deeper pockets than me, and he knows the whole deal, warts and all.

NAS 2b was NOT pulled on safety grounds. That is a simple fact.

Whether any of you want to believe that is now immaterial, as all those directly involved have left the industry, it really is "history", just one more example of how hard it is, achieving any change and modernization in current day Australia, not confined to the aviation sector.

Tootle pip!!

PS: I see that a 50% blowout is already forecast for OneSky --- is anybody surprised??

Many class E airports in the USA and Canada do not have reliable comes to the ground. Pilots get the clearance by phone or from the Unicom. Horror Shock. How can an un qualified Unicom operator pass on a clearance? We are all going to die!

A trial at just one airport. Say Ballina would be a good test . Many were against CTAFs when they were introduced. But they seem to work.

Many were against the removal of full position reporting for VFR. Now only Bloggs wants to go back.

Search the world and copy the best is what I tell school groups who are looking for success.

And you don't have to import the full US system. That's a myth used to stop change. All their IFR approaches are in a minimum of class E. We don't need to do that at Birdsville. But maybe worth trying at Bainsdale!

I vaguely recall a conversation I had with a friend who had just returned from Canada after 2 years of Medical flying over there. I will be upfront and say that I can't recall all the specifics of it, so I am presuming that a few of the more worldly operators here can perhaps correct or clarify any of the following.

I seem to recall him saying that there was a bit of an unwritten rule that in VMC on approach there was an expectation of cancelling IFR and proceeding VFR so the next departure could get away into the class E. So it was a one in one out type scenario with the controller being remotely located in a tower elsewhere (I think).

Firstly, does that sound about right to anyone?

Secondly, if so, do our airlines have the scope/desire to cancel IFR on descent to make this work? Otherwise I can't see how E will be better than 1 in 1 out in IMC or VMC even with the US standards (which from memory aren't signficantly different to ours).

Why should 'deeper pockets' matter, Leady, if your argument is credible? You are entitled to your view as I am to mine. This would be a damned boring forum if we all agreed!

But, please, get the facts straight in respect of 2b:

CASA did not pull 2b; that was AsA after the Launy incident. AsA instituted 'Rollback,' not CASA. 'Rollback' was predicated on safety concerns, not the threat of 'industrial action.'

As regards CASA/CAA 'pulling' anything, that was the G Airspace Trial when Mick Toller (good bloke, IMHO) cancelled the 'trial' when Dick was in NZ.

As you rightly pointed out previously, Mick was the guy that accused us of having that 'Galapagos system.' He was a rational, experienced operator. I don't presume to read what was in his mind at the time, but maybe his unilateral (gutsy) decision came from a conviction that the proposed G Airspace regime was worse than 'Galapagos!'

I forgot to add that in my opinion a decent, professional bloke was sacrificed on the altar of spite, envy and payback for having the courage of his convictions.

I still regard Mick Toller's removal at the time as a bloody disgrace!

I was there!

So when he pulled the G airspace radar trial he gave the low level airspace between Canberra and Brisbane back to Flight Service who didn't have radar and therefore couldn't beat up incidents.

It was AsA who refused to allow the controllers from the airspace above the G to give traffic down to the limit of radar coverage . They then quietly did this a few years later .

I won!