It’s not quite the same, though.

Over almost all of the United States, class G airspace has a 1200' AGL ceiling 
(700’ AGL near some untowered airports). The bit between 1200’ AGL and 18,000’ 
AMSL is class E.

When the new NAS was introduced in 2005-2007, the regional airlines cohort 
fought against that outcome in Australia, on the grounds that they didn’t want 
their IFR Saab turboprops mixing it up with VFR in places where radar coverage 
was low-to-nonexistent.

In my observation, most VFR pilots treat class E as equivalent to class G 
anyway, so I think it was a bit of a pyrrhic victory by the airlines: They 
still have VFR traffic in their class-E approach lanes to major regional 
airports.  Hooray for victory.

In the USA, it’s completely mundane for transponder-equipped aircraft to call 
up center and get a squawk code and flight following after takeoff, which gets 
them identified and enables ATC to deconflict them from IFR traffic in class E. 
 That’s never worked properly in Australia because our ATC surveillance radar 
coverage has been awful, almost entirely focussed on capital cities.

Now that virtually all of Australia has ADS-B coverage (literally all of it, 
once the satellites are airborne), maybe it’s time to start revisiting that, 
and replacing large chunks of class G with class E, and more strongly 
encouraging the use of flight following services. Seems to work okay in North 
America, yes?

  - mark


> On 3 Apr 2017, at 3:17 AM, Jim Staniforth <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>   CASA claimed they would copy the FAA airspace system.
> Below is the text from the only page in the FAA Aeronautical Information 
> Manual on Class G Airspace.
> The key words are "see and avoid".
>   The link is to the current FAA AIM, a good reference. My copy/paste is page 
> 159 of the pdf.
> Jim
> 
> https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/media/aim.pdf 
> <https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/media/aim.pdf>
> 
> AIM
> 12/10/15
> 
> Class G Airspace
> Section 3.  Class G Airspace
> 
> 1.  General
> Class  G  airspace  (uncontrolled)  is  that  portion  of
> airspace  that  has  not  been  designated  as  Class  A,
> Class B, Class C, Class D, or Class E airspace.
> 
> 2.  VFR Requirements
> Rules  governing  VFR  flight  have  been  adopted  to
> assist the pilot in meeting the responsibility to see and
> avoid  other  aircraft.  Minimum  flight  visibility  and
> distance  from  clouds  required  for  VFR  flight  are
> contained in 14 CFR Section 91.155.
> (See TBL 3-3-1)
> 
> 3.   IFR Requirements
> a. Title  14  CFR  specifies  the  pilot  and  aircraft
> equipment  requirements  for  IFR  flight.  Pilots  are
> reminded  that  in  addition  to  altitude  or  flight  level
> requirements,  14  CFR  Section  91.177  includes  a
> requirement to remain at least 1,000 feet (2,000 feet
> in designated mountainous terrain) above the highest
> obstacle  within  a  horizontal  distance  of  4  nautical
> miles from the course to be flown.
> b.  IFR Altitudes. 
> (See TBL 3-3-1)
> 
> TBL 3-3-1
> 
> IFR Altitudes
> Class G Airspace
> If your magnetic course 
> (ground track) is:                    And you are below 18,000 feet MSL, fly:
> 
> 0 to 179                           Odd thousands MSL, (3,000; 5,000; 7,000, 
> etc.)
> 180 to 359                       Even thousands MSL, (2,000; 4,000; 6,000, 
> etc.)
> 
> Class G Airspace                                        3-3-1
> 
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