This week's LMH is coming to you from the Australian International Airshow, where the the F-35 JSFs have arrived in spectacular fashion. This is probably the most exciting aeroplane to be put on the RAAF's books since the F/A-18 it's designed to replace. Expect to see a lot of photos in the next few days!
I was able to get a few minutes of time from Airservices boss Jason Harfield during the week, and he had some interesting things to say about future direction. Two of them will be of great interest to general aviation. One is that ATC actually has a duty of care to inform pilots of aircraft fitted with ADS-B of impending traffic issues, even if the aircraft is operating in G Class and is VFR. That's a real boon to the low end of GA. See-and-avoid is hard enough due to some low-visibility conditions, aeroplane wings and other bits obstructing views, and in many cases, a look-out that is, shall we say, less than optimal? The added advantage is that ATC will now be able to address aircraft directly rather than use a generic call such as "Aircraft 30 nm west of Dubbo ..." or something else equally as vague.
AOPA will have to be happy with their pacific dialogue. It was well attended by the average aviator and drew CASA's Shane Carmody, Airservice's Jason Harfield and ATSB boss Greg Hood to the table. There was nothing devastatingly revealing (there was probably never going to be), but it shows the association is being treated seriously by industry decision-makers, and that's good for both AOPA and the aviation community.
The other thing to arise is that Airservices has plans to restore E Class airspace over the top of D Class towers. That also appears to be a side-effect of ADS-B. Right now, to fly VFR over most D Class towers requires a clearance because the airspace is generallly classified as C Class. Avalon is one exception. Under the National Airspace System (NAS) that was partially implemented in the mid-2000s, E over D was initially part of the architecture, but was removed after a trial was deemed (presumably) a failure. There is a sticking point: the Office of Airspace Regulation (OAR) is now with CASA, not with Airservices as it was when the NAS came in. How will that impact the potential move to E over D? It's hard to tell at the moment, but you would think that Airservices would have significant influence over the matter.
Another interesting chat this week was with Alan Wilson at Air BP. The alternative fuel steamroller is still heading inexorably toward unleaded avgas and biofuel replacements for Jet-A1. US environmental issues are driving the change to avgas, and its the aviation industry itself that wants an alternative to fossil-fuel avtur for a number of reasons. I'm going to dig further on this, so stand by for a update in the near future.
One of the most intriguing developments in the expo hall here has been that of SynFlyt. This Aussie company has come up with an innovative solution to make motion flight sims accessible to flying schools that can't justify or accomodate their own system. Based outside rather than inside, their Innovation 21 is simple yet highly-advanced. It's a new way of thinking that brings a new option to the table for general aviation. Certainly this is one to keep your eyes on.
CASA's discussion paper on the issue of Multicom 126.7 verses the area VHF came out during the week. This is all about what frequency VFR ops should be on if the airfield you're flying into doesn't have a discrete CTAF. The issue has been around for nearly four years, so the aviation community is plenty familiar with the problem. However, it appears the DP is missing something. CASA has put up two options: use the area VHF or use 126.7 for all operations at low-level, not just those into an airfield. What happened to an option to revert to what we were doing before 2013? In what seems now to be simpler times, we used 126.7 when the airfield didn't have a CTAF. End of story. Feedback coming my way is that the aviation community wants that to stay, but CASA hasn't included that in the DP. The answer is to get your submission in and tell them what you want regardless of their options. Even so, it does seem oddly skewed, doesn't it?
May your gauges always be in the green,
Hitch