flybymike wrote:Irv Lee wrote:True but when there were GA schools and residents at Southampton, I used to be in my garden just west of Romsey vrp, and on a hazy day, viz about 6-7 km, and invariably I would spot the odd one circling overhead, having mistakenly thought that they had to ask for svfr in such vis, whilst others before and after were direct to right base vfr - and sometimes I had been the vfr inbound, having to watch out for the guy ahead who had been asked to "orbit outside" as he had asked for svfr without realising the predictable result
But in those dim and distant days wasn’t a minimum 10k vis required for a SVFR clearance?
(My memory harks back to the old Channel Islands Class A/rule 21 requiring 10k for SVFR entry)
It was, but either they had an IMC rating (as they were based at Soton) or as usual they simply didn't know that... in those days I used to make that point in my PPL Masterclasses, when it came to knowing the rules - showing a diagram of Romsey, and the EGHI CTR, and pointing out it was dangerous to have to pass these outside-orbitters in haze, and also, that many of them were probably illegally asking for SVFR anyway!
When I was coming in a couple of miles behind an instructor from another school one day, 7km announced by ATC on 'rejoin' call, he asked for SVFR and was told to orbit, I asked for VFR and got straight in, much to his annoyance with ATC as he had no idea why this had happened. This one event started my articles in Flyer that lasted 10 years - I wrote an article on SVFR for any instructors at the Southampton clubs, the SATCO read it, said he wanted it for his trainee controllers but I MUST get it into some aviation magazine as it was the first time he had seen a proper readable explanation.
@AlanM of course Southampton found a fantastic solution to all this ignorance and confusion and orbitting in haze a few years later (they told GA residents to **** ***) - please don't do the same!
Irv Lee - (R/T & Flight Examiner)
Deconfusion & Preflight Aide-Memoire:
http://tinyurl.com/pilotpalUK GA Twittering not Tw@ering: @irvleeuk