New CTAF for Cowra - what is the process ?

[BurnieM]

13 hours ago, Thruster88 said:

Interesting tumut with not much traffic gets a discreet CTAF, Cowra with the flying school and Ag ops and surrounded by Cootamundra, Young, Forbes, Parkes and others could, should have a discreet CTAF.

[BurnieM]

As part of the $12mil upgrade of Tumut (mainly for fire fighting support) Tumut now has a dedicated CTAF 126.85 instead of its old shared 126.70.

 

Tumut has low traffic levels whereas Cowra is much busier but Cowra still uses the shared 126.70 CTAF.

 

What is required to get a dedicated CTAF for Cowra ?

Is it simply a matter of all the Cowra user groups (clubs, flight schools, ag ops and maint businesses) getting together and requesting a dedicated CTAF from Air Services ?

Probably one group would need to coordinate and drive this as I do not see it happening overnight.

 

Edited March 20 by BurnieM

[skippydiesel]

Interesting!

 

I have flown into Cowra a couple, or more times - very busy during the week (Saturdays?) near dead on a Sunday. Great coffee  & brownie in town.

 

Never into Tumut - hoping to do one of their third Sunday/Month brunches, in the near future.

 

The 126.7 frequency is an interesting issue - resent flight from Rylstone to The Oaks - as soon as I got above about 5000ft, I could clearly hear those in The Oaks/Mittagong circuit, still 30 + minutes away.

 

At The Oaks, I often hear airfield well to the west of the  The Range - sometimes so clear, that if the transmitter forgets their location component, my heart rate increases as I think there is an unseen aircraft very close - its certainly can be a problemo! 

😈

[Thruster88]

Just checked ERSA for tumut on ozrunways, have the current cycle 2603 19 march 2026 100% downloaded, and it is showing the old CTAF 126.7. The notams show the new CTAF 126.85. Why is it so. 

[BurnieM]

Sign on the fence at Tumut said new CTAF was live on 20 Feb 2026.

 

Edited March 22 by BurnieM

[facthunter]

Notams supercede anything  else. Nev

[Thruster88]

10 hours ago, BurnieM said:

Sign on the fence at Tumut said new CTAF was live on 20 Feb 2026.

 

Should have been plenty of time to get the correct information into the current ERSA. Might be a few NORDO aircraft at Tumut for some time. 

[facthunter]

You are required to check Notams for Every departure, alternate and destination.  Nev

[Garfly]

 

On 23/03/2026 at 7:50 AM, Thruster88 said:

Just checked ERSA for tumut on ozrunways, have the current cycle 2603 19 march 2026 100% downloaded,

and it is showing the old CTAF 126.7. The notams show the new CTAF 126.85. Why is it so. 

On 23/03/2026 at 8:35 AM, BurnieM said:

Sign on the fence at Tumut said new CTAF was live on 20 Feb 2026.

 

On 23/03/2026 at 6:47 PM, Thruster88 said:

Should have been plenty of time to get the correct information into the current ERSA. Might be a few NORDO aircraft at Tumut for some time. 

On 23/03/2026 at 6:54 PM, facthunter said:

You are required to check Notams for Every departure, alternate and destination.  Nev

 

 

There is an interesting connection with all-of-the-above and the latest edition of CASA's (nicely done) "Crash Comic" video-series.

The short "Playing the Wrong Card" recounts a pilot's tale about a mid-air-near-miss he'd had at an unnamed non-controlled airfield.

In it, he confesses to having been at fault for tuning in the wrong CTAF numbers due to his relying on outdated info in his GPS unit.

 

Anyway, CASA concludes the cautionary tale with this advice:

 

                                        STILL FRAME FROM VIDEO  (Click for full rez):

 

But getting back to our Tumut case, even till now aviators consulting their current ERSA would see an out-of-date CTAF frequency.

And, as far as I can tell, there are no NOTAMs current warning of this error.

(Although, as noted above, a NOTAM was issued around the time of the change.)

 

The current ERSA, as in OzRunways (and elsewhere) is the soon to end 19th March edition.

And I see that in the upcoming July 9th version the change has been made.  (That is, from 126.7 to 126.85)

 

However, this means that for the past 20 weeks ERSA has been wrong on this crucial piece of operational information.

 

And, as Thruster suggests (above), over that time there must have been at least "a few NORDO aircraft at Tumut ".

And blame could not be put upon some hapless pilot's out-of-date GPS.  Nor, it seems, on his failure to 'read the NOTAMs'.

 

Of course, there are going to be times when, for safety's sake, changes like this ought to be made in between 

official publication dates.  But in any such cases CASA would do well to follow its own advice;

do what's needed to get rid of any jokers in the pack.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7 by Garfly

[BurnieM]

I am seeing the CTAF change to 126.85 in NOTAM C0004/26 displaying in Garmin Pilot.

I remember checking in late March (in GP) and this NOTAM was displaying then too.

 

But yes it was a bit odd that the Tumut ERSA entry dated 19 March 2026 was not correct.

 

Edited July 7 by BurnieM

[Thruster88]

I heard a pilot in bound to tumut being corrected by another pilot a few weeks ago on the most common ctaf frequency.