Mazda

The best defence is still a really good look out. I fly a bright yellow aircraft. I make calls in the circuit. I turn on my landing light on approach, even during the day.

Yet I've still had someone call "entering and lining up" on my runway while I was on short final. Yep. Radio calls, bright yellow aircraft and a landing light, but some wally couldn't hear or see me when I was only seconds from landing.

It makes you wonder about the standard of training and look out doesn't it? It was a high wing - maybe he couldn't see me through the wing and didn't re-position to have a look?

Thanks Matt! One thing I forgot to mention is that there is also a cafe at the airport, at the visitor centre near the main road. I only looked at it when we left and it hadn't yet opened (normal hours 9 am to 5 pm every day). It could be a Wollongong alternative!

Mr & Ms Mazda had tickets to see Elton John at Tempus Two in the Hunter Valley, so why not go by air? After all, Cessnock aerodrome is just down the road.

Unfortunately the weather forecast put a stop to that. A tempo of broken cloud at 1,000 feet, plus a forecast of thunderstorms and poor visibility, was not encouraging. So we decided to drive because we had to get there!

I still thought you might like to see this as a trip report because it would have been extremely aviation friendly.

There is a motel right on the airfield at Cessnock and that is where we stayed. Had we managed to fly there, we could have just carried our bags from the tarmac straight to the hotel. Fantastic.

The "Hunter Valley Accommodation Centre" was a very basic motel but perfect for pilots flying in. There is a small pool and a laundry. The room was clean, the bed comfy, the very reasonable room rate included breakfast (cereal, toast, fruit, juice, tea, coffee) and best of all the window looked right over the runway at Cessnock! Had we flown there we could have seen our aircraft right from our room window. That photo of the airport below was taken through the window of the motel room.

A bus seemed to do regular stops in the airport/motel car park and the driver advised that he was running a shuttle to the event. So again, had we flown there we could have been picked up at the airport/motel.

Dinner was available at Tempus Two but thinking it would be too busy we drove into town and ate at the local Indian Restaurant. We were a bit short of time to make the last bus so we left exactly 12 minutes after entering, having ordered and eaten a curry in some sort of speed eating attempt.

We jumped on the bus and headed off to the concert. We could have eaten there, it wasn't nearly as frantic as I thought it would have been. So it would have been fine if we didn't have the car to go into town.

Oh, Elton John wasn't bad either.

Back to the motel by bus, and back to Sydney in the morning.

If anyone is planning to go to any of the concerts at Tempus Two, maybe you could keep this in mind. You won't need a car at all. The Crowne Plaza is across the road from the airport if you prefer something up-market to the motel at the airport.

Perhaps we could arrange a fly-away to Cessnock some time? There is a horse and carriage that does an all day vineyard tour, with wine and cheese tasting, lunch etc. $75 pp for a picnic lunch, $85 for a restaurant lunch. Maybe we could fly up there, do something like one of these tours, stay overnight at the airport motel and fly back home the next day?

This is my first attempt at uploading pictures so this may or may not work!

On the subject of see and avoid, the introduction of any third party makes this "alerted see and avoid" which is a completely different ball game. That is why a third party is a good idea.

The risk of collision is obviously greatly increased at or near airports at lower levels. The problem with ADS-B for GA aircraft is that it will be next to useless for collision avoidance in the circuit area. Firstly, as Nev said, most of us will only have ADS-B out anyway, not ADS-B in. Secondly, ADS-B in can only be picured on a screen, it can't have a voice alerting system like TCAS (due to patenting issues). This means pilots need to have their head in the cockpit! Not good in busy circuit areas. Two crew airline aircraft with TCAS can use that and keep their heads out of the cockpit while listening for TCAS alerts, and watching out for non-transponder equipped aircraft (or those who have forgotten to turn it on.) By the way, I've seen airline pilots forget to turn on the transponder so don't think a GA pilot won't. Plenty of airline pilots get the frequency wrong too, so I guess we all can.

As for collisions at Moorabbin (or even Bankstown) remember that is GAAP airspace. Guess who is responsible for separation in the air at GAAP aerodromes? It's the pilot, not the controller. The controller just issues a sequencing instruction. So it is an alerted see and avoid environment. Perhaps these accidents were a diffusion of responsibility issue, where the pilots stopped looking because they thought the controller was responsible for separation?

If people are not sure about UNICOMs, why not trial one at your local field and see how it goes?

It's not an AFIZ, it could be one of us, who happens to not be flying at that point in time. Nothing is compulsory, it is just an advisory service. Think of it as helping out your flying mates! Imagine flying in to your home airfield and a friend giving you some advice. It's that simple!

Andy do you want an air traffic controller or a UNICOM operator? ATC is great. The problem is we have to pay for it! If people want to pay for that service they can fly from places like Canberra.

If you want to fly from somewhere like The Oaks there is no way people there could afford to build and staff a tower, but they could operate a Unicom.

Remember it is basic information, and I'm sure any pilot could do it. Is there anyone on here who wouldn't be able to say, "There's an aircraft taking off on runway 10 and an airline aircraft inbound from the north."? There is no separation, no direction, just pure information.

The more complex the requirement becomes, the less the chance that we will actually get Unicoms at lots of small fields. If it has to be someone with ATC training, what are the chances there will be someone local to do it? If it requires extensive ongoing training, would any of us spare the time to do it?

Any pair of eyes who can see traffic and give really basic weather could be enough to save lives.

Roger the services at Broome and Ayers Rock are not Unicoms, they are Certified Air/Ground Operators. It's a much more complex "controlled" type of format than a normal Unicom.

Typical air traffic controllers' view. ATC or nothing. What a load of rubbish.

CRM is about using all available assistance - whether that is another pilot in the cockpit, a controller or a UNICOM operator.

UNICOMs are purely advisory in nature. They can't tell you what to do, they do not provide separation. They provide advice, which you can take or leave as you are the pilot in command.

If you are talking to a UNICOM operator you are obviously on frequency. Without any third party confirmation in the circuit area you would never know if you were on frequency. So you now know you are on the correct frequency.

The UNICOM operator can say there is better weather in a certain direction and give basic traffic. It is ALWAYS up to the PIC to look out - even in ATC. However a UNICOM operator is another pair of eyes. If your radio fails and you don't know it, a UNICOM operator can advise others on the field.

What happens if the UNICOM operator has to go to the bathroom or leave station for a while? It's pretty obvious that the airport reverts to a plain ordinary CTAF, just like it would be now, so you'd look out for traffic as normal. But why not use the advice and extra pair of eyes when available?

I don't understand why people think that if someone can't be there 24 hours per day that there should be no service at all. What happens at Class C airports when their towers close? That's right, they go to Class G and become CTAFs, just like any local GA field. (So does that mean we should just make places like Canberra a CTAF all the time because there is not a 24 hour service?)

Please use CRM! Use all the available information available to you, but remain PIC of the aircraft.

Osprey if you really think that mistakes happen once in a blue moon I'd suggest reading the ATSB weekly summaries (on their website). Every single page is littered with those "once in a blue moon" mistakes. I'm not just talking about recreational pilots or private pilots either. There are plenty of mistakes by two pilot airline crews too.

Everyone makes mistakes. Even if you only get a frequency wrong once, that might be the one and only time you really need to talk to someone.

What can we do to get Unicoms operating?

I also hope the young student is OK too. It would have been quite a feat to land safely after something like that. This is tragic for everyone.

That is terribly tragic. According to PPRuNe it was a C172 with a solo student pilot. It makes sense I guess because the 172 has quite a big nose and the seating is quite low (especially if the young pilot wasn't tall).

Enough is enough. We really need to push hard for Unicoms. Any pilot on the ground on a radio could have pointed out the traffic. It wouldn't have to be an air traffic controller.

RIP.

It also prints out Airservices type flight plans, flight logs, and a very clever flight schedule which says what time you should be there for pre-flight, notes how much fuel you should have on board at each turning point (when it says things like "turn right 30 degrees onto 060", and lists all the notes you've put in (such as "change to Woop Woop CTAF 126.7" or "CLEAROF checks" or whatever you like.

It puts all of these on the schedule with a time they should take place (local or UTC).

Peter I didn't know they weren't doing demos any more. Yes, as far as I know it does lock you out if you don't keep up to date because it prints on actual Airservices charts (and I think there is some sort of liability issue if you kept using the old charts).

The new version is much clearer (higher res) and the charts look good. It's just like normal planning with paper charts. You click the mouse on the departure point then click on waypoints or destination. Enter the weight of pilot & pax, say if you want to be at MTOW, a different weight, or an amount of fuel to put in.

You put the route in once and it comes up on all your charts. You can print out all charts in their entirety, or sections of charts around your route (portrait or landscape).

AirNav VFR!

CASA & ASA are under DOTARS, under the Minister. The ATSB is also under the Minister. So much for independence.

As has been pointed out here though, the new Minister has a lot of other responsibilities too.

I think the flying academy could be good.

What I'd suggest is to immediately write to the new Minister for Transport (Anthony Albanese). Whilst I thought in general the Coalition aviation policy looked better, the Labor policy did say that it wants to improve GA and flying training. I know when Martin Ferguson was Shadow Minister he had an interest in keeping GA airports open.

Right now could be a good time to contact Albanese.

Nev that's a bit misleading about NAS 2c. The actual plan was to have UNICOM operators and AFRU units all over the place. Some people say that they don't want UNICOM operators (why??), they say it should be a full tower or nothing. Crazy if you ask me. Remember that parts of NAS 2b were wound back and NAS 2c was modified by our airline friends.

On UNICOMS, I bet all of you would be able to help out other pilots. All you'd have to say would be "There are two aircraft in the circuit on runway 01 and there are showers to the south". It would be even better if you said, "There's an aircraft doing circuits but I haven't heard any radio calls from him - he's on base now" or similar. You don't need to be an air traffic controller!

That was the article in The Australian on Friday. So much for lifeblood - they released the policy the day before the election!

Anyway, they are in now. Let's see how they go.

Scotty I don't think the problem is that they don't have a radio - most of these incidents are due to people being on the wrong frequency, or having the wrong com selected on the panel, or maybe even faulty radio at places with no confirmation that you are on frequency.

Anyone can be on the wrong frequency. It happens all the time in ATSB reports - even with airline jets with 2 crew. Radio alerting is great but relying purely on radio alerting could be dangerous.

Labor sure want to ditch aviation reform and take us back 10 years. With the current swing I wonder if I should just give up now and take up knitting.

The Coalition says ADS-B "will be subjected to risk management and cost benefit justification." The Labor policy doesn't mention anything about ADS-B so I have no idea about their policies on this.

I've found the full Labor policy under Media and 2007 press releases on Martin Ferguson's website.

Yes, the points in The Australian are correct. Return to network pricing, continuing the Airservices monopoly on towers. It does say they will promote aviation training but it doesn't say how.

It also says they will remove the direction issued by the Minister to Airservices to have approach radar for Class C. This means that controllers at Class D towers are separating aircraft in the terminal area, while at the same time trying to separate IFR aircraft 20 miles away (in Class C airspace) with no radar.

The Coalition plan is for controller to have radar available. Either that or they would only have responsibility for the Class D, and the airspace above would be Class E (managed by the Centre).

What can we do to start lobbying?

Excellent work Matt and great report Kaz.

That's a great idea.

The map and stopwatch really does work! It worked for pioneering aviators right through to fast jet pilots from years ago.

Has anyone seen the aviation policies of the two major parties? The Coalition one is available online on the Liberal website. I haven't been able to find the Labor one in full online but an article in The Australian today outlines their plan.

Coalition:

Encouraging careers in aviation

Money for high school students to learn to fly in aero clubs

Establishment of an Aviation technical college

Scholarships for people to have 25% of flying training subsidised if they work for regional airlines for 2 years.

Continued airspace and regulatory reform using world's best practice

Money to help reduce aviation emissions.

Labor:

Axing airspace reform

Location specific not allowed

Not allowing competition for towers and rescue and fire fighting

Re-establishing a CASA Board

Development of aviation emission indicators

Analysis of future passenger and freight growth

Airlines/airports/Airservices required to monitor costs of delays/congestions

Now I don't want to comment on which way people should vote. I suggest you look at all the factors and read the documents yourself. Personally, the choice looks very clear to me.