As of April 21 2010, GAAP airports will be a mixture of the ICAO and FAA systems, what was being described in late 2009 as, “FAA with a twist”.
The twist is that Inbound Reporting Points (IRPs) will still be in place at the commencement of the new procedures.
One of the primary features of the FAA Class D is the absence of IRPs, and therefore the bottlenecks that can form at those points.
For the supporters of the FAA system, the ability to report inbound at any point on the boundary was key to improving safety.
When queried as to why the inbound points would remain, CASA’s spokesperson said:
“It is our intention not to change the airspace configuration for the transition to Class D.
"This is in order not to introduce too many new hazards to the system and to keep the workload on all parties — especially Airservices — as low as possible during the transition.
"However, it is our intention to review the airspace configuration after Class D has been introduced to align with NAS [National Airspace System].”
CASA’s controversial decision to scrap GAAP was greeted with a swag of acrimony.
Equally contentious was the temporary restriction of the number of aircraft in the circuits to only six and one departure, leading to CASA scheduling a series of HAZID workshops at GAAP airfields in October.
Although attendees at the sessions were open to suggest anything, not everyone was convinced CASA would act.
One of those was RACWA CEO Alan Hoffman, who commented on the Jandakot session.
“The GAAP HAZID was disappointing,” he said afterward.
“Cutting through the rhetoric, we made our position absolutely clear on the GAAP issues for Jandakot, that being that the [circuit] cap is removed and discretion returns to the hands of ATC.
“Our concern that there is now significantly increased risk at the entry points remains unresolved.
"Our position has not changed …we remain hopeful that CASA will concede some ground on this.”
At the time of writing, CASA has stated that, “You can assume there will be some outcomes”, but a removal of the circuit cap is unlikely to be one of them.
Most probable is a published procedure for actions should an airways clearance be denied at an inbound point.