Shoestring Flyer wrote:In actual fact when you are there it all works out so simple. You just take off on 23 and speak to Doncaster straight away. If someone is already talking you just turn right into the circuit. RH on 23, LH on 05.
It is not hard or complicated , it really it isn't!
So this implies that you're flying, possibly for two or three minutes, within the ATZ on a frequency other than that aerodrome's. Not sure I'm all that keen on that.
And you say 'straightaway', but the CTR boundary is literally at the end of runway 23.
It is not practical to get a clearance when departing on 23, before entering the CTR, whether someone is talking on the Doncaster frequency or not. Not without contacting them on the ground, anyway. I wonder if they can hear you?
I suspect that the reality in all this is that Doncaster has never been busy enough to be all that bothered about traffic in the ATZ, provided it's playing ball - squawking, and staying low, especially in the south western half. And their lack of traffic means that nearly always they can get a clearance to the Sandtoft departures without significant delay.
So there's never been any real incentive to clear up the undoubted obvious contradiction in the AIP, nor the lack of an unambiguous LFA.
I wouldn't bet against changes in traffic levels, management styles, and/or arbitrary policy changes, resulting in the sort of MORal panic that we've seen over Barton.