wrote:
Kirk,

Ironic that you talk about 22k cloudbases over Grand Canyon! That
is about the altitude of the midair on June 30, 1956, that got
Positive Control Airspace(now Class A) lowered from 24,000 to 18,000
feet!

This thread and (plus recent others, topically related) is a great
example of people at risk being more informed than regulators (e.g. FAA,
prodded over the years and at various times by the NTSB) and news types
(AP, MSNBC, ad nauseum, etc.). Being informed is a good thing, IMHO.

Its also well illustrates the very real absence of a technical 'panacea
fix' for traffic separation, despite everyone's fondest wishes. (Back
to this in a moment...)

Less good is inaccurate information and defeatism, both seen in this and
other recent threads.

The above-referenced mid-air brought Americans (so called) 'positive
control' for all commercial flights, NOT a reduction from 24.5K to 18K
for flights into the upper-air positive control airspace. That came
about in the late 1960's or early 1970's, as I recall. There was no
single act the FAA used to justify the lowering; it was a pure-n-simple
airspace grab 'in the interest of safety.'

As for 'defeatism' if you're in the "It's inevitable, so might as well
roll over and 'surrender' now before something REALLY bad happens camp,"
IMHO you're arguably contributing to the problem of under-informed,
politically-inspired, regulation. Personally, I'd rather go down in
(figurative!) flames fighting that depressing colossus, simply because I
believe doing right trumps doing the politically-expeditious thing.

Don't misunderstand. I'd love a (genuine) panacea fix as much as any
faceless, white-collar-welfare, bureaucrat. Where our approaches differ
is me being prepared to NOT do certain things IF those things arguably
make 'the regulateds' situations worse, without corresponding societal
(as distinct from political) benefit. 'Rolling over and surrendering to
the inevitable' certainly panders to a political approach more than it
reflects interactively working with the regulators to regulate sensibly.
I define 'sensibly' as blending risk amelioration (for the traveling
public), practicality, cost, technical reality, etc.

Who regulates air safety in the U.S.? Congress, via the FAA.

Who does NOT regulate air safety in the U.S.? The NTSB and the news
media...and anyone else not in Congress of the FAA.

Tangentially, diligent, chronological reading NTSB crash investigations
in "Aviation Week & Space Technology" will make it abundantly clear that
whenever the NTSB pressures the FAA to 'do something' in the wake of a
crash (i.e. after nearly every crash of a U.S. carrier), this is
'merely' a turf war between a wannabe regulating agency and a regulating
one. Not that I'm defending either one...merely pointing out facts.

My recommendation?
Since our particular interest group has not YET been threatened with an
imminent bureaucratic bludgeon, is to begin educating and interacting
NOW, rather then after the crisis has occurred. Thanks to computers,
the creation - and circulation - of accurate, necessarily-detailed,
educational letter(s) is trivially easy. Rationalizing your
congress-critters won't take the time to read such letters is
practically begging for them to join the panacea bandwagon when it rolls
into town. Ditto, the 'whomevers' in the FAA.

Just because your target isn't the 'panacea target' doesn't mean your
information doesn't have potential to bear fruit.

Unless you control a media typewriter, ignore the media...at best
they're a noisy agitator, with little likelihood to prove an ally in any
way. Their job is 'news,' the more 'scare-ific' the better. (If it
bleeds, it leads.) Nuance isn't their strong suit.

Time to start educating the regulatory world, folks...the choir already
knows!

Respectfully,
Bob W.