Australian Flying — November-December 2017

Western Sydney Airport, or

making Bankstown a VFR-only

airport, effectively ending much

of its freight, charter, business

aviation and training operations

and putting paid to any future

plans to establish regional RPT

operations.

“I don’t believe that Bankstown

and Camden can continue to

be as active in f light training or

operational aircraft as they are

now,” Reiss said. “I keep asking,

what are you doing in terms

of planning for the airspace

architecture? What options can

you put in place that will enable

Bankstown and Camden to still

function, albeit it at a probably

reduced capacity, but at least be

able to function?

“And I keep getting the same

answer: oh, it’s eight or 10 years

before the airport’s operational.

Well that’s fine and beaut,

but f lying schools and other

organisations that are investing

quite significant amounts of

money in aircraft, their f lying

schools, all the things that they

normally invest in, they need 20

or 30 years of planning for the

future. You don’t buy a f leet of

aircraft for seven or eight or 10

years. You buy it long term, at

least a 20-year program.

“So my concern is that there’s a

lot of talk about road, there’s talk

about jobs, there’s talk about

the rail, there’s talk about all

these other infrastructures.

But nobody has put any

real effort in to the airspace

infrastructure and I think

that that’s a critical thing and

it needs to be addressed.”

Training areas

Charles Thompson is

Chief Flying Instructor for

Bankstown based Basair

Aviation College. As

Australia’s largest f lying

school, operating more than 70

aircraft, Basair has a vested interest

in how Bankstown’s f lying training

area is affected and Thompson has

already seen some early proposals.

“Amongst the options that

were discussed were that they

could extend our training area

out to the west, up to Katoomba,

which didn’t meet with too much

enthusiasm from my instructors,”

he said. “They don’t want to be

practising forced landings over

the scrub in a Cessna 152. So that

wasn’t a practical proposition.

“They then looked at putting

in a lane of entry down towards

Wollongong, but there’s not really

a suitable training area down there

either; Wollongong has always

been a bit restricted as far as

friendly terrain goes.

“Over the years of Bankstown

they’ve probably averaged a

forced landing out there each

year. Because we’ve basically been

training over reasonably friendly

terrain the pilots have usually

managed to make forced landings

and walk away with no injury and

minimal aircraft damage. If we

went over the escarpment, down

around Wollongong, or over the

Blue Mountains most of those

would then convert to fatals.

“So then they suggested that we

could go up to Warnervale and

along that way. But that’s a very

busy air route up between Sydney

Badgerys and Bankstown

“ You’ve actually got to keep

pushing; they won’t come

round and tell you.”

38

AUSTRALIAN FLYING November – December 2017

miles, so it may not affect the

VFR entry point to Bankstown:

the aeroplanes will be at such

a height that the lane of entry

could still exist. However, it

will effectively block off all IFR

arrivals from the north and the

west in Bankstown.”

Potential results include

operational restrictions on

Bankstown IFR arrivals and

departures to avoid conf lict with

ABOVE: Bankstown is also

home to business aviation.

SYDNEY METRO AIRPORT BANKSTOWN.

BELOW: Airports and

aerodromes in the Sydney

region.

WESTERN SYDNEY AIRPORT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT