Kurt, thanks for providing such a detailed analysis of both sides of the story, so to speak.
I do understand that the Airport must consider its operations before anything and it's fantastic that we have some good people on the inside that are working with you and this community, to try and improve things for everyone, and I sincerely hope that continues to move in a strong, forward direction.
My comments were really made from my own point of view, pertaining to my own situation, and not aimed at offending anyone. I work 3 rotating shifts over a 24/7 roster, I have a wife and two young children and I am about an hour from YSSY, so I guess I don't get the opportunity to come into the Airport as much as I would like.
On the occasions that i do get there, I just want to have somewhere to go and spot, photograph and enjoy the day's operations, and to be honest, the deck was one of my favourites, so it would be fair to say, I was speaking with a reasonable amount of emotion.
When the closure was announced, my first thoughts were "great! What next?" The reason I say that is the frustration of some of the problems that we all know about and have experienced with the other "advertised" spotting areas, such as the 16L mound, and it all became too much.
Anything that can be done to improve things has got to be a good thing and, to you Kurt, I say thanks for all your work with SACL to try and achieve that for us all and I'm sure some good things will come out of it all in the future. For now, I am looking forward to getting in as soon as I can to try the new Rydges roof top spotting location, which is one of those good things! Some unbelievable photography has already been shot from there, by some of our very best. If I manage to capture something even half as good as what I've seen so far, I think I'll be happy.
Thats the end of my rant, thanks for reading
Cheers
Jim M