–Steve Hitchen
Opinion
The day had not gone as planned. A club lunch jaunt from Lilydale to Apollo Bay had seen me put the Piper Archer on the ground at Tyabb when the weather turned decidedly dark and threatening. It stayed that way until it was no longer practical time-wise to consider continuing the flight. A few hours later, I taxied in improving weather for the flight back to Lilydale.
For those who don't know that route, it's a 35-minute straightline that slices across the busy Latrobe Valley - Moorabbin route and tracks in close to Mount Dandenong. The only consideration is the 2500-foot CTA step to the west of the mountain ... unless you want to hug the ridge. That was not looking like a comfortable option in weather that was improving, but still offered grey masses of cloud loitering with intent around the mountain peaks. No thanks; I'll be well and truly under the clouds and the CTA step.
The route flirts with the Moorabbin GMH approach point, so I was generally vigilant as I approached, with the comm tuned to Melbourne 135.7. There are times I have thought that MB TWR would be a better frequency there so I could hear the inbounds to GMH. I am pleased I stayed on 135.7.
"Aircraft tracking north at 3000 10 miles south-east of Moorabbin, Melbourne Centre, are you on frequency?"
I reckoned that was me, and so responded with a chirpy "Good afternoon radar, I think you are refering to me, ABC."
"ABC, squawk ident." I did so, and was rewarded with "ABC standby."
"Aircraft 10 miles east of Moorabbin at 2500 tracking west, Melbourne Centre, are you on frequency?" Interesting, I thought. The pilot's reply was similar, with call sign, let's say XYZ. He was also asked to squawk ident then put on standby.
"Helimed One, Melbourne Centre, we have you tracking south at 3500, confirm." Helimed One confirmed.
"Helimed One, ABC and XYZ, in about three minutes you are all going to converge on a point around eight miles east of Moorabbin at exactly the same moment. Can I get you all to check you're on QNH 1015?"
This was going to be interesting. If Centre was right, I was going to be sandwiched between a Cessna underneath me and an air ambulance going over the top. "If you all keep doing what you're doing and don't change levels you'll be right. Report when you have the traffic sighted."
I had been thinking about going down to 2500 to get under the step, but given the circumstances, decided it could wait for a minute or two.
"Helimed One, traffic sighted."
"ABC, traffic sighted."
"XYZ, traffic not sighted."
The radar prediction was deadly accurate. A few minutes later I was treated to the rare spectacle of Helimed One roaring overhead going south whilst simultaneously the Cessna slid underneath on its way to Moorabbin. We reported back in.
"Centre VH-ABC is clear of traffic. Thanks for that and g'day." Helimed One reported the same, but XYZ had to confess they hadn't seen either of us at any point. Centre told them they were clear.
Melbourne Centre didn't have to help out like that; all three of us were in G Class airspace and were VFR. The controller saw something developing and did something about it. Not so many years earlier, an IFR Chieftain crashed on approach to Benalla because it was flying off-track on the GPS line. ATC had known that, but it wasn't in their remit to tell the pilot. Now, they were actively doing something even though they had no operational obligation. Commonsense had won the day.
But it looks like those days are now over if CASA goes ahead with the NPRM that would have all VFR aircraft below 5000 feet in G airspace operating on 126.7 en route. With the advent of ADS-B, ATC has even more surveillance over aircraft in G, even if they are operating VFR. However, it becomes useless under the NPRM because ATC can neither monitor nor broadcast on 126.7. Now they could see ABC, see XYZ and see Helimed One ... and do nothing but watch and hope.
Somehow, an issue that was about which radio frequency to use for uncharted airports has become an issue about frequency congestion and keeping RNAVs inside the frequency zone of airports. It really is a Frankensolution for an issue that, with analytical hindsight, may not have existed in the first place.
The question to be answered was: if the airport is unmarked, do we use the area VHF or Multicom 126.7? En route airspace and the size of the CTAF areas were not part of the problem, but it seems they have become embroiled. The argument against the area VHF was one of congestion and over-transmitting, which may be have been the genesis of the scattergun application of Multicom proposed in the NPRM. CASA, in its wisdom(?) wrote the discussion paper to effectively say "OK, if you want 126.7 then you're getting it everywhere." There was no option simply to change the system back to the way it had been working (126.7) for two decades.
If we go to Multicom everywhere and cut ATC out of our lives, are we not negating the lessons we learned from the Benalla tragedy and ignoring the advantages of technology?
I am often reminded of William of Ockham, who wrote a piece of philosophy known today as Ockham's Razor. He said "All things being equal, the simplest answer tends to be the correct one." I think CASA has forgotten this, and gone instead with the most complex answer. All they needed to do was to change their CAAP advice back to 126.7 for uncharted airports and leave the en route with the area VHF and I doubt there would have been much hue and cry, or demonstrable loss of safety.
One thing I do remember from the day recounted above was that my hand had just reached for the Archer's throttle to start the descent down to 2500. Had Centre not chimed in, I have no doubt that Piper would have met Cessna and today the editor of Australian Flying would be someone else. Mind you, Helimed One would have been on scene quickly.