SAFA Skysailor Magazine

44 SKY SAILOR November | December 2021 Our marketing gurus have informed me that the number of pages devoted to AIRS reports has grown to an undesirable size. In response, our esteemed editor has set a limit on the size of this column. So as of this issue, you can expect to see a reduction in the number of AIRS reports discussed here, but an additional article from yours truly on other Safety Matters… Before we get to this month’s AIRS reports, I want to mention an issue that SMO Central has been working on in the past week. We have seen several airprox incidents on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. These have involved military and civilian helicopters. SAFA have raised the matter with the ADF’s equivalent of the ATSB and are in discussions with them. All SAFA members involved in or witnessing an airprox incident, should do two things: 1. Lodge an AIRS report – if we don’t hear of it, we can’t do anything about it. 2. Lodge a report with the ATSB. You can do this by going directly to this page on their website: www.atsb.gov.au . We will follow up each report and, where they can be identified, liaise with the party concerned as well as the ATSB. A handy tool for identifying aircraft is Flight Radar 24 . There are tools within the site that let you go back and search for aircraft flying through a location during a given period. The site uses collected ADS-B data, so if an aircraft has that equipment fitted, there’s a pretty good chance the flight has been logged. AIRS Safety Wrap-up – October 2021 by Iain Clarke – SAFA Safety Management Officer