CAGRS now established at BNK
 

For those not aware, a certified air/ground radio service (Ballina Radio) is now operating at Ballina airport

Is it true that rather than it being a zero cost Unicom operated by the existing fire service as it is in the USA and Canada it costs over $100,000 per year giving ATCs retirement jobs?

Where do you get retired ATC for only $100k a year? Sounds like a bargain!

YEP..!! You possibly get a ex 'FSO' for less...

Luvly Ballina....

Surfing in the morning....eaten by sharks by lunchtime...

p.s. thanx for ......

:ok:

Haven't you spent Dick's redundo yet, Griffo? It's been a while!

Ballinas ""Fact Sheet" says the service is to provide traffic blah blah for RPT ops and will typically operate 0800-1700 Their own published schedules show 1st op is at 0630, and last is at 2020, so either they won't provide coverage for all RPT movements (will CASA allow that), or the hours will be longer. So say 0600-2100. That would usually need 2 operators in 2 shifts daily, so probably at least 5 in total to give 7 day coverage and leave coverage. You won't get that for anywhere near just $100k. If the charge is added to the RPT pax head tax, GA in Ballina has just had a huge win for nothing. (along with the Fire Service they don't pay for) Nice one Dick :ok: But if it's on the landing and movement charges for all now, oops Dick, all that agitating in the media :eek: (for 12 RPT Movements a day - less than 1 an hour if they are open for all the RPTs)

Curiously, even taking into account HDS, the RFF hours of operation are significantly different:

ARFF would be mandated to cover RPT (although curious close time since last REX arrival is sked 2020L) while CA/GRS must be whatever you want to pay for.

Clearly sending our industry into bankruptcy. Unicoms in the USA and Canada have no cost. They use an available person at the airport. We were to copy that but the decision was hi jacked .

Clearly DICK. Clearly.

But it's not NO cost. That available person is not there to do Unicom. They are there doing something for and being paid for by someone else. It's like free wifi and free healthcare and free education. Its only free to the end user, the costs are absorbed by someone else. Clearly, no one wants to absorb the costs of a Unicom, because hardly any one provides one.
I don't know how Ballina is funding its CAGRS, but lets say, like the Fire Service, its via an RPT pax head tax. Say it costs $400k to provide, BNK was forecast to have around 400k pax through its terminals these days, so that's a $1 on each ticket. Hardly bank breaking. So that means each and every other user of BNK gets a professional, certified, trained service, paid for by someone else. Just like the firies are. So that's a bit better than a half arsed guess by some random baggie who happens to be walking past the radio when you call.
So when you drop in in your C172, you get a dedicated Fire service, and (maybe) a dedicated traffic and weather service, for free! (Well, at least for you).

Horse ****.

The person who drops in is taxpayer. The amount of tax that person pays is more than it should be, as a consequence of the number of bloated leaches at executive level in Airservices who are diverting the amount of money that would otherwise be returned to government (probably to be sucked up by other bloated leaches anyway...). And the last time I looked, one or more of the RPT operators were enjoying a reduced or nil airways charges (but I confess that I haven't checked the current arrangements).

'User pays' is a scam, and the suggestion that users who are not paying a direct fee are not paying is inaccurate: They pay indirectly.

The discrepancy between RPT arrivals and RFFS hours will be explicable on the basis of some safety-irrelevant issue.

Sensible decision to delet those posts, Bloggs. :ok:

But I have copies of them...

Bully for you, LB. Wasn't me, the mods did it. Surprised the mods let you get away with outright swearing on here. Sad really.

Clearly you have forgotten about Leigh Creek then Dick?

DF.

Glad to see you agree with me. Now convince Dick. :cool:

No. Not forgotten. You did a wonderful job and very much missed.

And there was no extra charge for the service.

If the existing RFFS provided the Unicom at Ballina there would be no measurable extra cost.

What is the rumoured cost of the new cagro at Ballina?

Clive Wilson still wants to provide a no charge unicom at Lord Howe but CASA will not give approval in writing .

Dick, isn't Clive Wilson also busy providing accurate forecasts and weather advice to pilots because of the BOM reduced the staff and their hours on YLHI.

*BoM celebrating another year of inaccurate aviation forecasting, while providing 7 day weather forecasts for one horse towns in the back of beyond.

So what is stopping him? I didn't think a Unicom needed CASA approval. Or is still a case that he is providing information that he is not legally qualified to provide. If he were to stick to that which a Unicom is authorized to provide I would imagine he would have no issues. You hint at a ASA/CASA conspiracy, ie details deleted from ERSA etc, but in truth it seems it is more local politics at play out there. Info in ERSA is provided by the AD OPR (and that is who removed his details) so obviously they don't want his services associated with the airport.
And he wouldn't be provided forecasts. Unless he is an Accredited Met Observer, the weather advice he can legally offer to pilots is extremely limited.

Nah 'Bloggsie'.

I bought a 'Jeep'....Sorry...."DH-82A Tiger".... YOU Know how it are....

Cheers :ok:

No Clive Wilson no longer provides any service at Lord Howe Island. I will quote from the front page of The Australian newspaper, June 13, 2015.

Quote:

---

“Then, last year, CASA would not renew what is known as his CAR 120 licence, which allowed him to provide detailed weather observations to pilots in a more proactive fashion, unless he took at $20,000 meteorological training course.”

---

A little later it says:

Quote:

---

“Of aviation authorities’ efforts to smother Mr Wilson, Air Vice Marshal Evans said: “It is a great safety enhancement that isn’t part of the official safety environment so the bureaucracy tries to kill it.” An Airservices spokesman said Sir Angus was not available to comment.”

---

Traffic. I introduced the Unicom as an important part of AMATS in1991.

It was to be non prescriptive. Just like the USA and Canada .

Very quickly CAA people said such a non prescriptive system could not be safe.

It's gone downhill since then. In the US unicoms give weather and traffic information with no limitations. They are fantastic.

And it's now 26 years later, and the only one who seems to care about Unicoms is you Dick.

Yes. Even after 15 were killed at Lockhart River where the groundsman had a radio but was not allowed to advise the aircrew that it was CAVOK to the east of the airport.

One day we will get North American type Unicoms. They are totally non prescriptive and work really well. The operator can give local WX and traffic . Fantastic

OK..now you are drawing a pretty long bow, Dick.

Dick you are the Donald Trump of Australian aviation. You just say outrageous things as though its the truth. Lockhart River was always an accident that was going to happen because of poor regulator oversight, no TAWs fitted and a PIC who had previously admitted to "shooting the hole" to get below cloud. Nowhere in that report does it state that the accident would not have occurred if a Unicom operator was at Lockhart River airport.:ugh:

Why is it that some of the Australian very wealthy, expect those not to work for free?

Certainly not me. The groundsman was already being paid. Same as the Firies at Ballina .

By not allowing US style Unicoms it's not as if we have lots of paid people performing the service . Most of our non twr airline airports have no Cagro or Unicom.

Because they're not needed! You just don't get it, Dick. You need to move on from the 1950's USA mindset of friendly FBOs and follow-me girls.

Make that practically all.
But I'll bet that all those airlines have a company frequency that they use to communicate company info and maybe local conditions on. They just won't sit there all day doing it for everyone else, because it's NOT THEIR BUSINESS!

Yair. Whatever we do make sure we don't copy the best from other countries. Those Unicoms that all US and Canadian airports have giving traffic and weather are not needed here. Our pilots are just that much better,!

UNICOMs can be approved without any training or qualification of the operators except for a radio operator certificate.

Ive run one, also flown into some very good ones but also seen some real shockers. Such as a certain SW airport where the ground operator thought he had some ATC authority and directed a GA aircraft to hold to the south to let a larger RPT or charter in.

Or another one who used to like to use the term "clear to land".

then another operator who didn't understand how to interpret a windsock and gave a pilot completely wrong information about which rwy the wind was favouring.

Yp. Good points. It's our Unicom operators that are incompetent compared to Unicom
Operators in the USA and Canada.

We will have to stick with the requirement that any operator who dares give WX or traffic info must have held an ATC or FS licence and gets paid I mint to provide the service .

Aussies are clearly inferior.

Did you mean superior Dick? Because what I've always known is what an Australian doesn't know about aviation, isn't worth knowing. Clearly world leaders in everything aviation :ok:

Interesting Dick how you tell blatant mistruths to the uninformed to try and push your point. The FAA regs clearly forbid your fantastic USA Unicoms from giving traffic information. They are allowed to do basically what a Unicom in Australia can do and no more.


I still remember very clearly when you spoke in the Hilton ballroom and talked about "Affordable Safety" and "Full cost recovery" and how the industry would have to pay.


Now you make out like it is someone else's doing and responsibility. Dick, you directly started the ball rolling on the demise of GA and services to the aviation industry. Step up be a man and take it on the chin instead of the crap you pedal on these forums.

It is worth noting the US is toying with the idea of privatising their ATC services. Interesting times ahead! I am not familiar with the level of charging for RPT service (or, even if there is any...or, how it is levied now) but will be very interested in this outcome.

By the way...Renegade:ok::ok:

And Dick, at the BBQ who held for Sydney ATC one of the wife's of a controller asked you some pointed questions about affordable safety which you struggled to answer. Afterwards you came up to her to ask "why did you give me such a hard time".

Dick! Is this true?

Renegade154, I can see why you post anonymously. You simply don’t have the guts to put your real name behind what you are actually saying.

I can assure everyone that the myth propagated for over 20 years that you can’t give traffic information in the USA is just that – a myth.

Have a look at the US Aeronautical Information Manual (AIM) under ‘UNICOM Communications Procedures’:

While the FAA procedures are non-prescriptive, traffic information can be given – and is given all the time.

I find it amazing that people can keep anonymously posting disinformation to stop us from copying the best in the world.