Dominie wrote:akg1486 wrote:Any ATCO here to give their side?
That's what I would like to hear. I'm sure that there are some ATC rules to cover this situation (hopefully to do what that US YouTube clip showed). But when do they come on air - presumably a few minutes before the published time??
I can only make an educated guess, but I would expect there will be a local instruction for the ATC unit concerned. I’d then expect it to be along the lines of having to be in position a set period before the airspace is due to become active in order to do any required checking and equipment setup plus monitoring the airspace for just this situation.
So chances are anyone in the airspace a short time before it is due to become active, ATC will be in position albeit not operational.
When airspace becomes active, if anyone is observed by ATC to be in the airspace I’d expect ATC to attempt to make contact to confirm said airspace is now active and to provide an appropriate clearance. As mentioned earlier in thread they may even broadcast a few minutes beforehand to say it will shortly be becoming active.
I don’t see why if someone happens to still be transiting at point of airspace becoming active that this should cause ATC any angst, or generate any sort of reporting action, as long as two way contact can be satisfactorily established at, or possibly even just before, the airspace becomes active.
So, if you think you’re going to be in the airspace at the point it activates advice would be to be squawking something appropriate assuming txpdr available and certainly monitor or maybe free call on the relevant frequency but also be expecting ATC to try and contact you.
Not a big issue I’d have thought.