alioth wrote:
The United States has been a federal system for longer than living memory. Radios have been “pre-empted” by the Federal Government for longer than living memory, as has airspace. Therefore the individual states don’t legislate over either, it’s up to the FCC or FAA. So you don’t get the issue that you do here: where individual states refuse to give up their “sovereign right” to govern frequency allocation to a – let’s call it – “EuroFCC” and so frequencies are allocated on a basis that 25MHz channels are entirely adequate.
The main issue there is having a simple, clear, short constitution that lays out what the Federal government can do, and (more importantly when it comes to acceptance of the appropriate Federal role) what it cannot and shall not do. In spite of that the division of power between federal and state governments has been the most significant issue in US government since the revolution, and still is now. So without a simple, clear, short constitution there is zero chance of resolving that issue well enough to build a reasonably stable compromise.
Unlike much US automobile regulation, aircraft regulation is held to be within Interstate Commerce, a constitutional power of the Federal government. There was some state pushback on that until the 30s but for better or worse the massive increase in Federal power starting at that time pushed state and local regulation of aircraft into the background. We do have local property taxes on aircraft in many areas.
I think you can run most of GA anywhere on about six Unicom style air-to-air frequencies, plus (automated) ASOS etc. Technology is not the best solution to every problem.
Silvaire wrote:
I think you can run most of GA anywhere on about six Unicom style air-to-air frequencies, plus (automated) ASOS etc.
!!!!
I’d start with 122.700 MHz. 122.725 MHz. 122.800 MHz. 122.950 MHz. 122.975 MHz. 123.000 MHz. 123.050 MHz. and 123.075 MHz. I think that’s eight channels for the US, so two extras. Most GA traffic gains absolutely nothing from chatting to ATC either enroute or at an airport, and sharing Unicom or CTAF channels between airports causes few or no issues.
When technology finally does advance well enough to reduce or hopefully eliminate voice based ATC, it seems to me IFR should be able to progressively wean itself off chatting on the radio as well.
I think that a rather narrow definition of GA is being used here.
I said ‘most’ for a reason, as in I think most volume of GA traffic does not benefit from ATC at all, particularly in Europe where there almost no low altitude GA traffic in most areas.
That said, at busy airports like my 600 operations per day base and IFR enroute, I think the best solution is to move away from voice based ATC, as opposed to eliminating ATC entirely elsewhere, where it is not beneficial.
Silvaire wrote:
…particularly in Europe where there almost no GA low altitude GA traffic in most areas.
??? Try “my” part of Europe on a sunny Saturday afternoon. And “low altitude” means GND up to FL100 in these parts apart from some airspaces around the lager airports.
And by the way: We have this common “unicom” type single frequency on dozens of military airfields which allow civilian usage in the weekend. A total mess on the radio because from any location there are four of five of these fields within transmitting range and nobody knows which postiion report belongs to which airfield. Not everything that works fine in a large country with 100NM distance between airfields works equally well in a small country where airfields are 15NM apart…
I find that as more and more traffic is squawking, and shows up on TCAS, the less I use the radio.
I tend not to bother with FIS/ATSOCAS in the UK because I can see all the useful traffic that radar can see (yes, they also see non-squawking primary returns, but they are not much use to man or beast anyway) and it is easier to train (or, if I am not training, chat with passengers or listen to the BBC) without babble on the radio.
But I am still (after 46 years at the game) still more comfortable receiving a FIS service away from home, as I am never quite sure that I haven’t missed some nuance in local procedures and am happy to have another set of eyes on me.
So I’d rather you all spent your money on Mode S than 8.33!
what_next wrote:
And by the way: We have this common “unicom” type single frequency on dozens of military airfields which allow civilian usage in the weekend. A total mess on the radio because from any location there are four of five of these fields within transmitting range and nobody knows which postiion report belongs to which airfield
We had the same in Houston (122.7 for instance was the CTAF for my home airport, and for half a dozen others in the local area).
It was easy to tell which position report belongs to which airfield by the very simple procedure of naming the airfield at the start and end of each position announcement. It ain’t rocket science!
@what_next, by my definition low altitude GA traffic means below 18,000 ft.
CTAF works fine in my experience if you have three airports on the same frequency. Eight available CTAF frequencies is enough to make that happen almost everywhere.
Timothy wrote:
So I’d rather you all spent your money on Mode S than 8.33!
Same with me. 8.33 or not I don’t care. It only limits their options, not mine.
Timothy wrote:
I tend not to bother with FIS/ATSOCAS in the UK because …
Depends on the day and time of day. Flying VFR with students on a weekday FIS works very well around here. There are few aircraft on the frequency and the service is very good – they also warn you about military traffic and primary targets which do not show on TCAS, FLARM, whatever on-board system one uses. But during weekends (when one needs it most because of the traffic density!) – forget it. The frequencies are so congested that it takes several minutes to get an initial call in and how is one single controller supposed to watch over so many aircraft?
