GA Airspace – going going gone

Where’s it going? Why’s it going? What could we be doing to prevent it going?

These were the questions people were continually asking Kevin Bethwaite (President of Canterbury Gliding Club and an Air Traffic Controller in real life) during the Southern Regionals. He does his best to reply.

It seems to me that most members have a very limited knowledge of how the airspace thing works but as it is important that we do know about it I thought I’d get something going with this article and hope that others will contribute in due course.

The discussion at Omarama was centred on what is happening at Queenstown. Pilots have had a reality check on what the changes to controlled airspace in general in this area, and the loss of the previous Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Gliding NZ and Airways has done to competition tasking.

For those a little out of the loop, changes have been occurring at Queenstown where larger volumes of airspace have been designated controlled airspace. This is in order for the controllers at Queenstown to have a greater number of approach and departure routes available for use by commercial passenger flights. While this has been encroaching (restricting) airspace traditionally used by glider pilots there was some relief at times of competitions as GNZ had a MOU with Airways allowing added access for these short periods.

Most of this changed significantly this year when Airways cancelled the previous MOU. This was because of difficulties they now have in managing separation between arriving and departing IFR flights at Queenstown, with the introduction of additional Instrument Procedures commissioned by Air New Zealand and Qantas. A new MOU was proposed (and agreed to) but the reality is this new MOU only gives access to a tiny bit of space and it is almost more trouble than benefit.

If one is to seriously consider safety then my view is that competition gliding

tasks in the vicinity of Queenstown are just about impossible to set. Especially for pilots who are not right up to the top echelon. Gliders are forced too low or too wide of known lift in areas they need height to achieve a decent task.

On day one of these Regionals we did in fact set one task to Cromwell. The task setters spent a lot of time debating the merits of it as the airspace here is now exceptionally confusing to GA. (This is the area where the new MOU gives us an area called NZG995 which can be opened on approval of Queenstown ATC).

I won’t go into details but suffice to say it caused problems for many trying to fly this task on this day and I would not recommend this again.

The three points are questions I get asked regularly. Where is the airspace going?

The answer to the first question is relatively easy, the changes have almost entirely been uncontrolled airspace changing to become controlled and the manager of the controlled airspace is Airways. So I say it has gone to Airways. Why is it going?

The second question is not so easy to put a finger on and I’d have to say I am not really sure why.

I do know that CAANZ are the body tasked with determining what the dimensions/volumes are and what category they all have. I do know that any party can petition CAANZ to change the existing determination at any time. I also know that in 1988 a report entitled the SwedaviaMcGregor report was commissioned by the government to lay down how airspace should be governed with a commercial entity (Airways) managing it. I’ll have to dig this report out and confirm some details but my memory tells me that the report stated: –That the airspace above New Zealand was a national resource. (I assume this to mean like the sea bed and fore shore, waterways etc) –That busy airports with jets as the majority operation should have greater “protection” in the way of controlled airspace. –That at smaller airports with propeller aircraft as the majority operator this volume of controlled airspace would be less. –That in both cases the “instrument” approach sector would have the greatest degree of “protection”.

Someone else may know the answer but I have not seen any documented policy from CAANZ saying exactly how they go about deciding to agree to a petition or decline it.

In the absence of this it is just a guess as to what decision will be made. What could we be doing to prevent it going? .

This is the most critical one. Again I do not have any magical answer to this and for the purpose of this piece will just make the following points:

There is an airspace committee as part of GNZ, and I am now a part of this, but I would have to say it is asking far too much of a very limited number of volunteers to manage this.

I think that we need significant legal and financial assistance to confront this problem.

Without airspace we do not have a sport!