On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 08:20:21 Carter, Baron wrote: >...Altitude separations of 500 m would be too great. It would be a 'waste' of >space.
Perhaps so, indeed. However, this could be adequate for very sparse airspace, like above 10, 12 km altitudes. I lean towards the use of 250 m myself, but I know these two (250 or 500 m) are used out there. > Current separations in the US below 18 000 ft are 500 ft (includes >VFR and IFR)... ? Really? We have no such a thing in Brazil. It's always in wholes of 1 000. My personal take? 150 m is too close for comfort for me! I can't honestly see a need for anything below 250, or maybe 200 m. >IFR and VFR traffic are separated by the hemispherical rules: > 000-179 VFR odd thousands +500 IFR odd thousands > 180-359 VFR even thousands + 500 IFR even thousands > Yes, I evidently forgot to mention about that. Good reminder. >To maintain the current separations would require a unit of about 150 m. On the other hand with the advent of GPS technologies I can probably see a tolerance of 100 m as potentially workable. However except for areas of very high traffic and huge airplanes. I doubt my colleagues would be at ease flying an A380 (550+ passengers) around New York with separations of even 150 m... :-S >This is not a good factor for multiples. The odds and evens rule could not >easily be applied as this would only give 100 m separation without provision >for VFR and IFR separation. Which, applying the same concept, would give >only 50 m separation. This is not good as we need 150 m separation. To >keep the same standards we have now we would require 300 m separation with >150 m tacked on for the VFR guys. Now we have reached Marcus' point - there >is no easy rule (odds/even (+500). Pilots need KISS. > Hmm... I'd have to mull over this some more. In any case, 250 m looks adequate to me for safety reasons as we would still have quite a few aircraft out there flying analog types of instruments for many years to come yet. >...cheers >Baron Carter >CFI,CFII,MEI >... Thanks, Baron, for your invaluable contribution. The summary of all this discussion is this though: It IS possible, feasible, etc, to fly metric *for sure*. All we need is a little less patronage from US authorities when it comes to international flying. I just wished organizations like FAA, IATA, etc, left the flying community alone to make their own choices vis-a-vis this... ;-) Marcus ____________________________________________________________ Get 25MB of email storage with Lycos Mail Plus! Sign up today -- http://www.mail.lycos.com/brandPage.shtml?pageId=plus
