Jim wrote: >The two solutions are to (a) get government out of commercial >aviation (OH MY GAWD --- DON"T YOU CARE ABOUT SAFETY??? >-- PLANES WILL BE CRASHING ALL OVER THE PLACE!! --- THE >SKIES ARE SAFE **BECAUSE** OF THE GOVERNMENT!!!! >or (b) let the government plan and implement the change. > >Sadly, we will end up with (b) and it will take at least >another decade or two.
NATS, the UK national air traffic control system was part privatised in July 2001. This makes the UK government involvement in ATC lower than in any(?) other country including the US. There is a lot of discussion about it all around the world. The UK and Ireland have transitioned from non-metric to metric for aviation horizontal distances. It has also done the transition for *some* vertical distances. All without accident or public/industry panic. So the US and Canada is capable of exactly the same transition. I do not doubt that people would claim that it would be dangerous and ignore or dismiss UK/Irish experience but it would not need to be done tomorrow. The ICAO assembly in 2001 stated that contracting states should conform to Annex 5 as soon as possible. It is my understanding that the US and Canada do not conform to Annex 5 but I cannot check because the document is not available online. I hope that this may prompt the US FAA to look at the issue. Otherwise there is no particular motivation for the US. I expect that Canada would be interested in change but is more keen on consistency with US policy. See: http://www.icao.int/icao/en/assembl/a33/resolutions_a33.pdf
