Letter from Keith. CEO Flight Training Adelaide
sue December 16th, 2008
The writer (a resident) asked Keith if he was happy for his email to be circulated and he replied that he was happy for this to happen.
—– Original Message —–
From: Morgan, Keith
To: **** Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 10:05 AM Subject: RE: FTS
Dear **** , Firstly the discussion may not be really useful as we no lomger plan to build at Maryborough and have withdrawn our Development Application. In my last email I wanted to highlight not the commercial success but rather the fact that we have provided 50 additional jobs in our area in the last three years. This to me is the most valuable measure. The history is that members of both the old and the new councils have visited our site at Parafield to assess activity levels and noise. All were impressed by the low impact. It could be argued the vehicle traffic on the highway near by has a greater impact. In July 2007 we advertised an information day to be held at Maryborough Airport in both the Fraser Coast and Maryborough news papers and then flew two aircraft to Maryborough. We also had a letter box drop in Maryborough. I think it was Sat 14 July we were there to answer all and any questions and we took anyone who wanted to go flying for a fly in our new Diamond DA42 twin engine training aircraft. We received overwhelming support. Even from some people who came with serious objections were happy to hear the noise first hand and see it measured. As I said, all left content. I think we flew about 150 residents on the day. I saw this as a responsible and transparent approach to inform and involve the community. In response to your questions, had we continued with our plans: * Will the take off and landings be carried out from Hervey Bay airport? Yes. The primary visual circuit training would be at Maryborough. We would have had an Instrument Landing System Approach (ILS) installed on the runway at Hervey Bay. This would allow practice ILS approaces where the aircraft lines up with the main runway at 13 miles out 3000 ft then flying and landing to the east on a steady straight line decent to the threshold. There would be occassional visual circuit traffic at Hervey Bay with the aircraft always landing into the prevailing headwind which is typically Sout East. Some touch and go circuits would be required but the aim was to use all runways in the region to spread the activity. If so, estimated amount per day? We planned around 100 movements per day to be shared with all alternate airports other than Maryborough. A movement is a touch and go, a take off or a full stop landing. Remember these are only small, light training aircraft. * What curfew will be placed on night time flights? Ab 11 pm curfew would be imposed. Training would not take place every night. In a typical 200 hour syllabus there may only be about 15 vto 20 hours of night flying – some of it cross country navigation. The student do however have to learn to land safely at night. * What flight paths, if any, are to be used? Aircraft always try to take off and land into wind. Circuits are usually flown at 1000 to 1500 feet above the airfield around a race track pattern on one side of the runway. The aircraft take off and climb straight ahead to 500 feet. they then turn crosswind and continue their climb to 1000 feet. They establish downwind parallell to the runway about a half a mile displaced. They fly downwind to allow enough distance to turn, decend and line up on finals to land or touch and go. The track over the ground will often vary depending on strength and direction of the wind. The ILS traffic will fly the straight in approach from 13 miles.
* What control over the trainee pilots will be used in the airspace above Hervey Bay? The low level airspace above Hervey Bay is uncontrolled. Aircraft used published procedures to maintain visual separation from each other. Our aircraft are also equipped with a collision warning devise as an extra safety feature. This warns the pilot if another aircrat is in close proximity. The current level of activity at Hervey Bay is such that with only a modest increase in passengers and movements, Air Services Australia may review the need for controlled Airspace and the introduction of a Control Tower. Thank you for your interest. I believe the project would have delivered considerably more benefits than disadvantages to the community and in the interest of the majority of the rate payers. This however means little now as the project has be stopped. Very best regards, Keith
- Council related issues
- Comments(6)
It is about time someone gave FTG the right of reply – thankyou Sue and your contributor for submitting this letter.
The school is gone now but there are still many questions that need to be asked – we keep hearing the phrase open and transparent being requested of council and I still don’t feel this is happening regardless of how hard Sue and some of her counterparts try.
I expect public answers early next year (owing to the Christmas break) in relation to FTG as Council still has a Resolution on the issue outstanding. The problem however lies more in the requirement to adhere to the rules of ‘commercial in confidence’ in this instance. It is pleasing that Keith took the time to respond publicly and truthfully to the questions asked of him. Sue
Sue,
While I respect the need for ‘commercial in confidence”, I believe our council hides
behind it. I stand to be corrected, but in my view ‘commercial in confidence” only
relates to terms and conditions, the clients name and money. Useing the FTG as
an example. Number of flights day/night, area covered, impact on residents and
financial viability of Maryborough airport all fall outside of ‘commercial in confidence’.
Sadman
“Truthful”? The best propaganda usually is but it sure isn’t meant to honestly inform, it’s meant to engender a false belief.
Morgan paints a pretty picture that I’m sure the residents of Parafield SA would find most amusing but the fact is the community would love to get rid of him and his school and the whole airport along with it. Their actual experience is that it is destructive to their town. Of course I’m sure Mr. Morgan could draft a letter making it sound as though the community showed “overwhelming support”.
“Truthful”? “no lomger plan to build at Maryborough” Then why is the propaganda mill still in operation? Why are we still discussing this? BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW IT ISN’T TRUE.
And do be careful of the interpretation of the words “occasional” and “planned” in that letter. Imprecise descriptives can be very useful to a skilled propagandist.
Mr. Morgan’s job is to put forward the interests of his Chinese employers, not the interests of Hervey Bay or it’s residents. I would say he is underpaid.
Dear Residents,
I hope you realise just how lucky you are to lose this pilot training school. Endless circuit flying would have destroyed your environment and there would be no compensation. As your previous airport manager has moved to my local airfield I am begining to feel extremely nervous.
Fudging public opinion, well here is some comment about Keith’s responses from ‘ignored’ South Australians:
The 50 or so jobs sound realistic for FTQ’s operations, but they may not necessarily all be additional to what’s being employed for Maryborough airfield services now. Where did the claimed 300 jobs come from?
The claims about your Council were ‘All were impressed by the low impact’ needs clarification. Does that relate to noise or accident? They probably didn’t fly over them much that day they visited Parafield anyway, or if they did, they skillfully coasted using minimum throttle – a magnitude of difference in noise compared to the inexperienced powering up and turning with wind.
Keith also quotes that, “It could be argued the vehicle traffic on the highway near by has a greater impact”. Some perspective and scale should accompany that statement, offering it true meaning. The Salisbury Highway has a horrendous impact to the ~1000+ dwellings along it. A Parafield flight training circuit goes directly over the top of ~20,000 homes. The Salisbury Highway ranks easily in the top dozen busiest roads in the country. This rot became a reality when they connected that highway to the Port, which like mass flight training, was not the original intention when the area was settled for housing. Both disgusting social/public health situations were avoidable. Like aviation pollution, our State does not measure, or want to know how bad that road environment is to public health. Road deaths now occur on it annually. Flight training incidents & deaths will astound you, and they only the reported ones, occurring when towers are operational. ( http://sites.google.com/site/parafieldairport/Home/parafield-airport-reported-flight-training-incidents ). The Federal Government recently encouraged accelerating the completion of a major $300M bypass, but does little to measure true flight training pollution. I hope this bit of ‘local experience’ helps comprehend what could be ‘argued about’. Either way, there is no ‘low impact’ to be impressed about.
About their pro aviation ‘information day’ junket, that would have been claimed as community ‘consultation’ – over something the community would have no idea what large parts of its residents’ would be subjected to, either before of after their ‘Information Day’. If the 150 ‘free joyflights’ went over homes without invitation, that is in itself undemocratic example of arrogance.
Originally it 75 extra overflights were mentioned, now Keith quotes ~100 only for surrounding airfields. So how many overflights for Maryborough? Possibly too big to mention, FTA’s operations have put 1000-2000 a day over us, that extra zero is no typo. 100 overflights an hour is typical of their circuit operations till 11PM. That’s readily achieved with 4-5 cadets (99% foreign) flying a circuit at a given time, disturbing 20,000 Australian family homes, most were established there first. How democratic is that?
Keith quotes an 11PM curfew, like at Parafield – but that’s probably a voluntary curfew. Regardless, the 1990 House of reps Select Committee on Aircraft Noise (HORSCAN, http://996826566076709111-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/parafieldairportpollution/governance-material/HORSCANrecommendations.pdf?attredirects=0&auth=ANoY7cquVslrbsSd-ArBvJ–hpdeAB3pFRj4SZ_9GDifhJyPlK–c6HrJGMZBvSBMjmyohfISj-N7Y-0C_FF3Cj0mHG2NyR_gAeUpNI58dmRVvaCZyhf8Kd9j80J4uyg-lhGCg9QntRGA80FiohFGswFRQHuJF1JQGqMVOgUU78WIxaa7CCzCJHmOUF2tCxJRBS3VxyMfW2W3CGfvWJHQTu7SyU9bzKV-HPerjq4UlBmaBoK9XwvWt_aDTN7nUGe5Luq6uTsLS-C ) recommends night flight training to cease one hour after dark, which I guess would be about 8PM in your part of the world. This HORSCAN recommendation is virtually ignored at Parafield since their academy started.
Hope this is of some value, its pleasing for us that your community had a chance voicing itself. The loss of good journalism to ‘Public Relations’ organisations are a big cause of ignorance being promulgated, with ‘public opinion’ being ‘created’ by manipulating information. Trouble is, the ignorance adversely affects our representation in many ways. Govt & Corporations exploit this, that’s why that National Aviation policy Green paper ( http:// http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/aviation/nap/ ) is open for study/submissions during the Christmas break. Also, management identifies psychopathic qualities, and personal inadequacies to exploit while grooming fear and arrogance, fostering cronies having little conscience of their actions. Compassionate caring or questioning individuals get isolated or disempowered, etc, sound familiar? History & contemporary Australian aviation management is full of it. Another example is media, where Murdoch is cleansing the effects from his operations using our ABC’s resources, (another ABC board decision put in by prior Govt), yet no organisation has ‘dumbed down’ and monopolised our media in South Aust as much as NewsCorp… but that’s another story. The reason we mention this is as Adelaide’s main Airport was massively enhanced to carry millions of International passengers, their way of public ‘consultation’ was to run a series of pathetic ‘Mr Celebrity’ airport management advertorials… As Adelaide’s population is aggressively grown to ~2M in 2025, the air traffic will wreck a lagre part od the NW & N of the City… do they ever learn what happened to the poor folks in W Sydney? In Parafield’s case, we remain amazed how so few benefit by adversely affecting so many, because our authorities deny the adverse effects of their pollution.
About Commercial in Confidence, your airfield belongs to you. All citizens of your Council should be entitled to full transparency. Hiding behind ‘C&C’ has little merit in this case except guise who is going to make a packet at your expense.