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Old 28th April 2009, 11:18 AM
Mick F Mick F is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: NSW
Posts: 852
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Philip,
Outside of the RADAR coverage area's, the air traffic is generally of a low density. So there's no real need for RADAR in these area's.

I fly in "procedural airspace" (non-radar) for probably 90% of my flights, and have no concerns at all. It's a slightly different procedure for pilots (ie. constant position reporting, ETA updates, etc.), and also for ATC (extra buffer's, for example higher seperation standards) but still quite safe.

One thing that map doesn't show though, are the coverage provided by ADS-B sites located in some centres through out Australia now. Places such as Longreach and Alice Springs. Although these sites are generally of more use to high flying jet aircraft, for suitably equipped turbo-props and piston engine aircraft, the sites can also provide ATC with an accurate location of these aircraft when they are within range (line of sight), as though they were on RADAR.

The overall aircraft population with ADS-B Out installed though, is very low. That however is another completely seperate debate that everyone can't seem to agree on.

The map provided also shows the military installations that Airservices Australia has access to. The main one's being Darwin, Katherine (Tindal), Townsville (I think) and Oakey.

The procedural world has been around since day dot, and when it's all integrated with TAAATS (The Advanced Australian Air Traffic System), it's nearly as good as RADAR anyway, .

Cheers

Mick
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