“Like the Cronulla riots which we had to have to make the politicians listen, I hate to say that perhaps a large airline accident will be necessary before they will wake up. Why must people always have to die before something is done?”

Following is an email I have been sent by a retired airline pilot in relation to the Professional Pilots Rumour Network (PPRuNe).  The pilot is 100% correct. 

The reason I keep posting on PPRuNe is that I realise the small number of ‘fundamentalists’ will never change their views, however there are many other people (especially young pilots) who have an open mind and will see the logic in what I say.

I should be remembered in relation to the NAS airspace that it is supported by such top people as Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston AO AM AFC (the current Chief of Defence) and Bruce Byron AM (the CEO of CASA).  Both of these professionals have flown in the US system and know of its advantages.

Dear Dick,

I have been reading your website "Dick Smith Flyer" since its inception and I have to admit that your opinions make a lot of sense to me. Like-wise I have been reading PPrune since the early 1990's and your arguments, in the face of unreasonable and sometimes hysterical opposition from the likes of some airline pilots, have been consistent and unwavering in the need to overhaul Australia's airspace system. You will never convince most of the fundamentalist pilots who post on that site, and it makes me ashamed to once have been part of the airline system that accommodates such people who can't see what is so plainly visible to me. Nevertheless, I understand that the fundamentalists are not the only people who read the site, and therefore your posts are perhaps worthy of your efforts.

I see what is going on around me in the General Aviation scene and it fills me with foreboding. That, together with the ever increasing price of fuel, leads me to believe that what we are now witnessing is the final vestiges of a dying industry, an industry that once had the potential to be the best in the world. This is due in a large part to Government indifference, corruption in Airservices Australia, incompetence within CASA and gross bureaucratic bungling to the point where one could be forgiven for thinking that there is a deliberate campaign to destroy General Aviation in this country.

It is therefore important that you continue to hassle those responsible and never give up. You are the only person with some influence who is still able to openly push for what is so incredibly needed in this country that it never ceases to amaze me why others can't see it. I had high hopes for the likes of Airsafety Australia, but it appears that Boyd spat the dummy after the November 2004 airspace roll back..... not that I blame him! But you persist, and that provides incentive for many small people like me who support what you say but have no political clout. I have tried writing to politicians, even going so far as to point out to my local member that pilots would remember his government's deception at the next election. But I do ask myself the question - will they remember? I know you will.

Like the Cronulla riots which we had to have to make the politicians listen, I hate to say that perhaps a large airline accident will be necessary before they will wake up. Why must people always have to die before something is done?

Thanks for your continuing efforts on behalf of an industry that is so desperately in need of it.