FLYER Forums

johnm wrote:I don't even know where the low flying areas are

Mid Wales the Scottish Borders and Northern Scotland plus some of the danger areas was my understanding but now I'm not so sure?

Is there a definitive chart like the French have??

Here ya go (Preciously linked above somewhere but be quick: worth a quick print-off)

https://www.aurora.nats.co.uk/htmlAIP/P ... 146736.pdf

johnm wrote:I don't even know where the low flying areas are

Mid Wales the Scottish Borders and Northern Scotland plus some of the danger areas was my understanding but now I'm not so sure?

Is there a definitive chart like the French have??

See viewtopic.php?p=1850973#p1850973 and viewtopic.php?p=1850552#p1850552 in this thread

The whole of Britain is Low flying area except CTR and low Class D and the TVAA i.e. most of the Sout East

Charles Hunt wrote:' if I'm not taking a LARS service, I would either tune in to a nearby airfield, or if further away just stick to safetycom.

At the risk of going off at a tangent here, but that's a misunderstanding of what Safetycom is for. You are going to get no benefit from it en-route. It's for traffic at airfields without a dedicated frequency to make blind calls of their position and intentions.

The big benefit of the new VHF frequency is that the military are going to use it, so we are more likely to know they're about.

Thanks chaps, as I rarely fly below 3000 ft I'd not really encountered it as an issue, but strewth, between drones and Biggles and carp airspace design we're in danger of getting severely marginalised.

1) For local pootling near a number of strips without a dedicated frequency then I have found it useful for situational awareness.

2) In very light GA we're unlikely to have two comms units available, so now do we abandon safety com and listen out on the new one?

johnm wrote:Thanks chaps, as I rarely fly below 3000 ft I'd not really encountered it as an issue, but strewth, between drones and Biggles and carp airspace design we're in danger of getting severely marginalised.

The LFAs are nothing new - they have been there for decades.

Dave W wrote:The LFAs are nothing new - they have been there for decades.

I gathered that as well as the fact that the whole country is a low flying area basically. Looking to the future it seems likely that drones and military low level flying are going to have a major impact on how airspace below 2000ft gets managed.

johnm,

Military low flying training only takes place in Class G airspace (and also in established danger areas), so is not going to have an impact on how uncontrolled airspace is managed.

LFA's were apparently established in 1979...and there are 20 of them. Info and map in link below.
https://www.vcm-photography.co.uk/galle ... ystem.html

Complete absolute nonsense. We already have safety com. All this will do is halve the number of aircraft that can be heard at any one time.
There are already numerous frequencies that are “legal” to use. Scottish/London info, glider, microlights, para droppings, local airfields, Safetycom, this just adds to the confusion.
What we need is a set of area/regional safety frequencies. A bit like RPS, (@Miscellaneous don’t even think about it!!!)
If these “regions” were LFA1/2/3 etc so be it, as said above “which sodding Newport?”

Why all this complication? Class G airspace is quite big and there is really very little aluminium in it. I suspect the collision rate would be very similar if we all flew about with our eyes closed .... or at least not trying to avoid other aircraft!

Ah, "What Goes Up Might Come Down"

David Gunson wrote:...the chances of two aeroplanes being at the same place, at the same height and the same time is so mathematically remote as to be not worth considering.

All you do with air traffic control is to force them down very narrow corridors - thereby increasing the risk of collision and thereby justifying the job of a controller to keep them apart.

I have one VHF radio but it has a Dual Watch function.

So I generally (round Sussex) set it to Farnboro’ with SafetyCom. Not sure if I could patch in my handheld too?

Can’t see the benefit in this locale.

CloudHound wrote:I.. (round Sussex)..

Can’t see the benefit in this locale.

Not much military low level in Sussex, perhaps; whereas in East Anglia, Vale of York, Severn Valley, North Wales ..