At 1:33 AM +1000 05/06/2002, Mike Cleaver wrote: > >Why would you expect to see anything like that marked on a WAC - >which is purely a 1:1,000,000 topographic chart that is overprinted >only with aerodromes, isogonals and spot heights in feet. To find >information like that you need to use the ERC or TAC (which are IFR >navigation and VFR planning charts) or the VNC and VTC which ARE >aeronautical navigation charts that include airspace information.
I agree. The crux of my point in saying that (which I didn't make very well in the first place, and tried to explain better in the reply I just sent, before this one) is that I wonder how many glider pilots know about, and consult, those other charts prior to a cross country flight. I happen to, because I'm used to it. But my exposure to X/C training in gliding began and ended at the WAC chart. The other charts entered my life when I purchased a motor glider and started working toward a touring rating in it. >Further, CASA is not the airspace administrator in Australia - that >role is performed by Airservices, which is set up to make a >"dividend" for its sole shareholder and hence to maximise profits >within the constraints of its Act of Parliament. Frequency pairing >(or more usually multiplexing) has a significant safety cost which >for some reason ASA finds tolerable when few if any others do - but >few others seem willing to pay to eliminate the safety risks. Sorry about mixing up the two halves of what used to be the one organisation. I do that all the time. I find the separation, at some levels, to be a bit monty-python in its outcomes. But we have what we have. If ASA needs more funding to do its job, then it needs to be more effective in insisting on that. The obvious way to do it, if the issue is serious enough, would be to threaten to withdraw their services completely if they are unable to safely provide them, and in my view multiplexing is an unsafe practice that should stop. But of course it isn't my view that counts, because as a glider pilot I'm only a peripheral user of that system, and its unlikely that my opinion carries any weight with anyone much at all. As always, it'd take a few more fatal accidents involving overload caused by frequency multiplexing (bloody hard to prove, too) to change that, I guess. My comment about that was to underscore that in a lot of areas in Australia, that multiplexing is an active disincentive to maintaining a listening watch on the area frequency. If you're trying to optimise your gliding flight and having your concentration destroyed by star clearances into Melbourne, one after the other after the other, you just switch the damn thing off after a while. >122.7 may be dedicate to the gliding fraternity but is not there to >allow us to bury our heads in the sand - just to use sensibly >without inconveniencing others. All is compromise and we should >respect the privilege and use it sensibly. I quite agree. Again the core question I guess I'm wondering about is what proportion of glider pilots on a X/C have any idea about the area frequency, or were trained to monitor it in addition to 122.7. We see people on this list thinking that monitoring the area frequency on a X/C is a good idea (because it is!). What I'm speculating about are all those people who -aren't- on this list, and what -they- have been trained to do. Or not to do. Cheers, Simon -- --- Simon Hackett, Technical Director, Internode Systems Pty Ltd 31 York St [PO Box 284, Rundle Mall], Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.on.net Phone: +61-8-8223-2999 Fax: +61-8-8223-1777 -- * You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list. * To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message * or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
