CAA Airspace consultation - Special additional seminar.

[Bruce]

Hello Everyone,
The Waikato Thames Valley Chapter of the Sport Aircraft Association, In conjunction with the CAA is pleased to invite you to a special consultation meeting covering CAA’s proposed National Airspace and Air Navigation Plan. CAA has previously held workshops in the main centres covering this topic, which will affect all aviators. SAANZ was concerned that those workshops were inconvenient for recreational aviators to attend and have an input, so we have arranged a special workshop on the evening of Wednesday 18th December in order to facilitate better consultation. We are very pleased at the positive response from CAA, and we encourage as many pilots as possible to attend – hopefully we will see more of these opportunities in the future!
The CAA delegation will include Steve Moore, the new GA General Manager at CAA. We are holding a Barbeque dinner beforehand, and this will be a great opportunity to meet Steve and help familiarise him with our activities. Please see below for details.

Date:
Wednesday 18th December 2013

Time:
Barbecue starts 5.30pm, Seminar starts 7pm finishes approx. 9pm

Venue:
Kowhai Lounge,
Te Kowhai Airfield
Limmer Rd
Hamilton
(Look for the Windsock by the Gate)

Airfield is open for fly – in arrivals - $5 Landing fee

There will be a small charge for the Barbecue meal.

[philip]

Sadly I can't make this but would love to hear a plain English summary of what it's about. I'm suspecting we'll shortly have to augment/replace our transponder with some multi thousand dollar GPS thingy if we want to enter controlled airspace including landing at a regional airport. Correct?

[Bruce]

I believe that Mode S is on the cards. Hence the idea to run the seminar at an airfield full of inexpensive microlights and light aircraft! It also covers how airspace gets allocated and the priorities of that etc.. I still havent had a chance to read the proposal yet!

[philip]

Oh thats okay - I already have a Mode S Transponder

[dodgy]

I recall that Mode S transponders are power hungry (0.5A @ 14V?). Kind of rules it out in the Tiger - not that I plan on landing in control zones if I can help it.

I remember talking with a GM at CAA. He was of the opinion that if he had his way, commercial ops would carry on as they were and GA would be restricted to transit corridors 5 miles off the coast on each side of the island. Then there would be less paperwork for GA incidents...........

[Bruce]

The current opinion of CAA is to reduce the amount of controlled airspace, but that will tend to come at the cost of requiring fancier gear to provide safe separation. We'll just have to see what they propose and make our voice heard....