Captain. You are correct. That was 15 years ago.

Can’t you see the frequency boundaries then require prescriptive dimensions around CTAFs which we have just found don’t work!

Why not copy the simpler systems from overseas that don’t have frequency boundaries?

The ATC vhf outlets will still be shown in the maps and you can monitor the closest one if you wish.

Buckshot

Why are they so useful?

The frequency boundaries are there for ATC workload and management purposes. Quite often they don’t reflect the range of the ground station at low levels.

What problem do you have with monitoring the nearest outlet? Would the sky crash in? Would people die?

Did you fly during the 3 months without frequency boundaries? Wasn’t it safer to be monitoring the CTAF when in approach and departure airspace ? I bet it was!

For over 20 years I have been monitoring the ATC frequencies on my 130nm flights from Terrey Hills to Gundaroo and back. In that time I have never answered another aircraft or received useful traffic info from the ATC frequency. Yes. I have been close to other aircraft in the training area but they have never given position reports. These days I here lots of ATC communication from aircraft in the Latrobe Valley and other remote areas. Most aircraft don’t give position reports as probably under surveillance. It’s clearly a “ cry wolf “ system.

Doesn't seem like there's any vision in this merry-go-round of using 1950s technology.

One day someone will reinvent ATC/broadcast radio to the extent that you'll be able to select an appropriate context when transmitting, and such communication will be on a store-and-forward basis. No more overlapping transmissions!

1. ATC only communication
2. Immediate area broadcast (say 20NM) (GPS-based) - for coordinating intentions (e.g. high traffic density areas that were MBZ/CTAF(R) - eg. tourist areas). This could be context sensitive to your location too, so if you are near one of those MBZ-type areas the boundaries of the broadcasts would be expanded as required)
3. Terminal area broadcast (inbound/turning/taxi/rolling calls)
4. Company comms
5. Emergency broadcast

The good thing about this is - there are no frequencies anybody needs to know. It selects appropriate transmission/receipt systems automatically and is multi-frequency/multi-technology and also mesh-based. All aircraft, ground systems and satellites in the system would act as a giant mesh for storing and forwarding messages. No more lost transmissions!

To minimise calls, ADSB-In and Out will be extensively used. With a preset destination, intentions are automatically broadcast too, so aircraft converging on an aerodrome will have nice situational awareness of that, but those overflying won't get any clutter. Similarly for enroute navigation you only see what you need to see.

This would revolutionise radio communication/allow playback and with all messages being tagged with callsigns etc. it'd be like having an inbox of radio calls, filtered to show you things only you need to know and vastly remove clutter.

This just needs someone to develop it at an affordable price point.

Captain. Do you think we should wait for RAPACs to design airspace? Won’t most members resist change without good leadership? That’s very human.

Absolut.

Why would you bother? Simple systems work everywhere else in the world.

Dick, I doubt anyone disagrees with you that we should be monitoring the aerodrome frequency when landing, taking off or transitting that airspace. Isn't that enough? How does having an area frequency boundary on a chart negatively affect that? Who cares which frequency is monitored (by VFR aircraft) away from aerodromes? If you acknowledge that we can find the nearest frequency anyway... for what purpose... and if there is a legitimate purpose, making that easier isn't a bad thing is it? Agree that CASA oversteps the mark when it attempts to regulates airmanship. En route VFR frequency selection is not something that needs to be regulated.

Triangulation. The only ONLY reason CASA has just wasted up to half a million dollars on two years of bumpf and meetings and documentation on the giant CTAF is as a result of the frequency boundaries being put back on the charts.

NAS made it clear that the frequency boundaries were being removed and did this..

Why were they put back on? So pilots could use the old FS type system and use radio arranged separation.

That was a directed traffic system where IFR and VFR flew at the same altitudes and separated by radio. No other country had this system as it is incredibly expensive.

As Chairman of CAA I pushed for and achieved the introduction of the North American system. IFR and VFR then flew at different levels. As they do now.

Pilots attempted to keep the old with the new.

Once you put the frequency boundaries on the charts you give a clear message that they are there so VFR pilots call and answer IFR aircraft while en route. Then you have to bring in hard and prescriptive dimensions on where you change frequency.

That’s where it becomes impossible.

But just as it looks as if we will never be able to user safer and better nuclear power due to fear mongering and resistance to change it may be the same in moving to a simpler international airspace system.

Nonsense nonsense nonsense.

The boundaries are FIA boundaries, an area within which an air traffic service is provided by an ATC responsible for the area:
As triangulation says, there really isn't a conflict between an FIA and a CTAF, the former being an area within which an ATS is provided by the ATC responsible for the area, and the latter by definition being a frequency to be used when at or in the vicinity of an AD.

They've worked successfully together for donkey's years (except for 3 months) until in 2014 (?) CASA meddled in AIP with the frequency to be used for unmarked strips and tried to define CTAFs as having specific lateral and vertical limits.

So personally I don't think there are reasons for change, if CASA were to roll back the AIP changes in some form.

However I can concede to MULTICOM existing below 3000 or 5000FT, recognising that it would (a) add another frequency for climbing and descending aircraft to monitor and broadcast on and (b) result other issues e.g. for aircraft experiencing an emergency, potential frequency congestion due to comms from aircraft being heard over a wide area etc.

Have any of you ever wondered why other countries don’t put the frequency boundaries on charts?

Imagine you are in charge of Aviation safety in the UK, France , Germany ,Sweden,Norway,Canada or the USA.

The cost of putting frequency boundaries on charts would be negligible- a little ink. Why wouldn’t you do it if it could improve safety?

Either these countries are really dumb compared to Australia or perhaps safety would not be improved by the extra complexity.

You decide.

So frankly Dick I couldn't give a toss about what other countries do.
However, if I need (just flogging along) to contact ATC, I think I would much more easily and quickly find the correct useable frequency by looking at a chart with an area marked and the frequency shown for that area (as now in Oz), than looking all over a chart to find a suitable nearest marked broadcast site that may or may not work.

On Eyre. That’s it. Keep your brain firmly fixed in concrete. Do you work in the airspace office at CASA?

However if you check you may find the aircraft you are flying has some improvements since the 1950s

More importantly. It’s probably identical to aircraft flying in the countries I have mentioned in the previous post.

I am proud to have introduced the “ first of type” approvals when I was CAA Chairman in 1991. No longer did imported aircraft have to be expensively modified to meet our safer airworthiness standards.

People like you objected to those changes. There minds were set in concrete!

And if it’s easier to find the frequency why do you reckon no other country has copied the idea?

Possibly there is no need for the extra complexity!

Perhaps because

• they don't have declared FIAs, and/or
• they don't provide the ATS we do in Class G (ForG as someone here likes to call it)?

I think you will find that quite a few of the current reps at the RAPACs were also reps then, and so would be party to why there was a push to reinstate the FIA boundaries.

Whether or not they are prepared to stick their heads up here is another matter :)

No Dick I have no connection with CASA at all. But I have been flying in this country for fifty years and have seen most of the changes in Oz aviation in that time. Please don’t assume my mind is set in concrete as I can assure you it is not. Also please do not try to muddy the water in your replies to legitimate comments - you do your cause no credit.

Would you be prepared to at least try a simpler well proven system then?

I reckon within 6 months most will say it’s safer because a pilot can concentrate on monitoring the CTAF when in the approach and departure airspace of an aerodrome where the collision risk is clearly higher rather than trying to work out whether to be on an ATC frequency and which one.

But you won’t ever know if you won’t ever try!

Perhaps the wrong thread, however is there any truth in the rumour that one state in Aus is going to commence a trial with class E at 6,500 ft over C there the airliners will be, where you can freely operate (abiding by class E regs) ??? That sounds very American to me...

Dick weren’t we doing exactly that prior to the 2013 ill-considered change - worked perfectly then.

SWTT,
Not really, just ICAO CNS/ATM principles being applied, as the traffic density increases or decreases, so does the level of CNS/ATM resources employed, to maintain the design separation assurance standard.

As to US, the whole ICAO airspace model is based on the FAA model, because the fundamental model, and the underlying design principles, were based on the many years of demonstrated safe outcomes of the US model, with traffic densities higher than anywhere else in the world.

So, having E above C is perfectly consistent with the risk management model, as has been proved for half a century or so in US.

If you want to have a looks at a "really interesting" model, have a look at India, and there is plenty of air traffic withing and through Indian airspace.

Tootle pip!!

So if I've got this right LeadSled, I'll be able to cruise over Tullamarine willy nilly in class E at any time? That's what I'm hearing... have we ever been able to do that?

It worked really well last time when a Tobago had an airprox with a 737. And before Dick gets in and says the Tobago pilot was all over it and there was no threat ask him to explain the TCAS RA and why the pilot thought a 2 degree difference in radial would be adequate to avoid a conflict.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/media/24413/...305235_001.pdf

It's what happens when you put someone in a system they're unfamiliar with - they don't use it correctly because they haven't grown up with it and been trained to use it. That is the elephant in the room with any change of systems and one that is utterly ignored.