krug

This is my first post to your board, having lurked for a few months now.

A friend of mine has just emailed from Melbourne to say:

"the whole air traffic control changes are coming into play on Thursday and they are predicting chaos - oh well"

is this the new minimum distance regs and allowing light aircraft to co-habit airspace with heavies, or something more system related which could indeed cause "chaos"?

QF WP

My understanding after hearing comments over the radio this morning is your first comment...I believe a pilot was speaking about the of waiting/expecting an accident to happen after Thursday as the light planes don't have to announce themselves (I think what he said).

I can just see a jumbo landing atop a cessna - elephant versus an ant. Only one winner in that scenario - the grim reaper.

NM

My understanding of the changes as follows. Normal disclaimers apply of course :

Should not make any difference to Jumbos. The change only relates to Class E airspace and uncontrolled operation of VFR light aircraft between 4,500 and 10,000 feet. So it only affects commercial RPT flights that ascend or descend through this altitude range in Class E airspace, and that's not generally where 747's are operating.

Heavies normally operate exclusively in Class A, B and C airspace, except for short stints in E as they descend/climb through E to the point where Class C begins, normally about 36 to 40 NM out from the major airport. But this new NAS does change the mapping of some Class E space, so that may change slightly.

Class E airspace remains controlled for all IFR operations. The changes are only for VFR in Class E space.

There is Class E airspace around secondary airports (Class D) in Australia, so it may affect some RPT services around these ports. But any commercial jet approaching these ports will be pretty much straight-in and any VFR lightie should know to keep out of these straight-in approaches anyway. Once below 4500 feet, normal VFR conditions remain.

There is also a mandatory requirement for all aircraft in Class E airspace or over 10,000 feet to operate a transponder (also in Class A and C airspace), so ATC and other aircraft should know they are there anyway. So nobody operating VFR without a transponder should be in Class E space anyway.

There still seems to be fair bit of discussion about the safety of operations around Class D airports (without towers) with larger/faster aircraft (737, 717 DHC8 etc) mixing it with slower VFR lighties.