Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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#1895377
When it seems to good to be true and the background opinion of the regulator is low, of course we are going to pick holes.

A lot of the things proposed have been in place in other countries for 10 or 20 years. What prevented it being implemented in the UK ? Mostly money.
Does the CAA document address this issue? No. QED.
Bald Sparrow, T67M liked this
#1895389
All this talk of surveillance and regular interrogation, I think I'll wear a tin foil hat next time I go flying.
;-)

"Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) is a radar system used in air traffic control, that measure the bearing and distance of targets using the detected reflections of radio signals".

Word definitions often have different meanings in specialist industries to that published in plebsville dictionaries.
#1895409
I think we have done VFR flight planning to death for the moment and I wonder what people are thinking about some of the other proposals in the consultation?.

FIS-B to supplement or replace VOLMET as a national service.

FIR services restructured and sectorised to deliver a simplified U.K. FIS with surveillance.

Electronic obstruction/marker beacons marking fixed locations with activities such as large model flying sites, winch launching, paraglider launch sites. These would be switched on only when activity is actually taking place at the site and depicted in EFB applications and consumer avionics via EC reception.

These items and others have been asked for by GA reps and organisations in the pre-consultation engagement but do they float the boat of the discerning FLYER audience?
#1895420
Cub wrote:FIS-B to supplement or replace VOLMET as a national service.

Doesn't really bother me one way or another

FIR services restructured and sectorised to deliver a simplified U.K. FIS with surveillance.

Not a great user of OCAS services myself, but I can see it as an improvement. Especially, if they have the means to facilitate transit in Class C TMA/airways.

Electronic obstruction/marker beacons marking fixed locations with activities such as large model flying sites, winch launching, paraglider launch sites. These would be switched on only when activity is actually taking place at the site and depicted in EFB applications and consumer avionics via EC reception.

That's a good idea.

What I will also comment on:
The use of TMZ rather than EC mandatory zone.
The fixation on E+TMZ which shows than in the eyes on some VFR pilots cannot be trusted
The funding question

And might propose some wording changes to make clear than "flight plan" (current form or the new system) stays purely voluntary
#1895428
The work to ensure that a TMZ can include other functionality than just a transponder has recently been completed and promulgated a couple of weeks ago. It is therefore now down to the airspace change applicant to propose the EC equipage to support the safety objective they outline.

This opens up the possibility of an ADS-B mandated zone to support a GNSS approach in Class G, for example. Slightly confusingly, this volume would still currently be referred to as a TMZ but I suspect that anomaly will be addressed if the concept progresses out of consultation.

The current issue with Class E airspace is that in most likely applications envisaged in support of low density, low complexity IFR operations, the majority of IFR aircraft will be equipped with TCAS which currently requires a transponder in a conflicting aircraft to generate a Resolution Advisory. It may be that with the deployment of ACAS X, the next generation of TCAS, that that system will work with standalone ADS-B but for the moment it is very difficult for an airspace change applicant contemplating Class E not to consider a coincident Transponder based TMZ to enable what is a proven as a very effective safety net, when mixing the operation with uncontrolled VFR traffic.

It is not really anything to do with “trusting” the VFR pilot to see and avoid the IFR traffic under the same obligations as the IFR pilot in Class E but rather it is very difficult to discount the use of a significant safety mitigation in the management of those inevitable VFR/IFR encounters.

However, there are other low density/low complexity IFR operations where few of the IFR fleet are mandated or likely to be TCAS equipped and where just Class E or Class E in conjunction with another EC functionality may be an appropriate solution. The latest piece of RMZ/TMZ policy published in combination with some of the concepts within the AMS enable this possibility for the wider use of an airspace classification that has a lesser impact of VFR operations that Class D, C or A.
#1895432
Cub wrote:The work to ensure that a TMZ can include other functionality than just a transponder has recently been completed and promulgated a couple of weeks ago. It is therefore now down to the airspace change applicant to propose the EC equipage to support the safety objective they outline.

This opens up the possibility of an ADS-B mandated zone to support a GNSS approach in Class G, for example. Slightly confusingly, this volume would still currently be referred to as a TMZ but I suspect that anomaly will be addressed if the concept progresses out of consultation.


But the AMS is there to propose a vision of the future. And in my view, when a sponsor look at options, an EC Mandatory zone (not necessarly only ADS-B) should be the default rather than a transponder mandatory zone with, if the sponsor care enough, some ADS-B.

The AMS is in some part very "futuristic" with all the magic of apps and information flowing between all the users (certainly doable but not done today). But when it comes to TMZ it needs to stay within the current frame of view? That's not looking forward.

Maybe it is clear in the authors mind that in TMZ they include the current policy. But they don't mention it once.
#1895434
Maybe we are talking at cross purposes? I am suggesting the AMS contemplates lots of different types of EC mandate for individual volumes according to circumstances and that possibility has recently been enabled by a change in TMZ policy. I think that is pretty future focussed and not constraining, or perhaps I am missing your point?

Having reread your point, maybe the AMS consultation could have been clearer that it contemplates the use of multiple EC mandates under the TMZ banner, which coincidentally has already been enabled via policy change a few days after the consultation went live.
#1895497
Cub wrote:Having reread your point, maybe the AMS consultation could have been clearer that it contemplates the use of multiple EC mandates under the TMZ banner, which coincidentally has already been enabled via policy change a few days after the consultation went live.


That was my point. Glad it is only a write-up thing.
#1895499
Straight Level wrote:..
Word definitions often have different meanings in specialist industries to that published in plebsville dictionaries.


<lexicographical drift :oops: >

although I'm a Cantabrigensian, I have on Oxonian spouse and 3 Oxonian children, and I would not be so caddish as to categorise Oxford as plebsville. :wink:

Collins is now part of HarperCollins, so now part of the US-based Murdoch empire, but was originally Glaswegian. However, as any cruciverbalist knows, the authoritative English dictionary which cites original meanings as well as derived ones (the latter often having accreted overtones) is the originally Edinburgh-based Chambers (now part of Chambers Harrap, London, whose main business is reference books of all sorts). This properly gives the basic, neutral, meaning of surveillance as 'watching over'[a], the noun from the verb survey, before adding the gloss "esp over a criminal by the police"; but also "vigilant supervision; superintendence"

[a] Latin super + vigilare, via French: 'to watch over'

</>

.. I see nothing sinister in the use of the word for a system which helps stop pilots bumping into each other :)
townleyc liked this
#1895505
Most of this ultimately appears to be an attempt to use EC to make up for the basic shortcomings of a privatised fragmented air traffic control system. It will add layers of complexity and make UK airspace, already 'odd' to the foreign pilot, even more a place where you really need to know the specific vagaries of a particular area if you're to avoid getting into trouble.

The major change that is really required is universal radar ATSOCAS, defined by a simple pictorial representation of the country showing where one units' area ends and another begins. The fact that in a given location I could be taking a radar service from Oxford, Brize, Benson or Farnborough, or a non-radar one from London Info, is a poor state of affairs. It needs to be such that, airport arrivals and departures notwithstanding, an aircraft in a given area works a given unit.

To achieve this it requires recognition that private aviators (whether bimbling or going A to B) have as much right as any commercial interest to be in the air and should not, fundamentally, have to give way to commercial interests or operate in any particular way - in anything from their routing to their fitment of equipment - in order to accommodate them. If the commercial interests require a known environment, the commercial interests must pay for it. Once that premise is accepted, universal radar-derived ATSOCAS becomes obvious - simply because private aviation wouldn't need this if it wasn't for the managed airspace demanded by commercial interests.

This is doubtless a matter of government policy and outwith the control of the CAA, but I am concerned that their way of attempting to deal with it appears to be to layer on the complexity like a particularly viscous chocolate sauce.
Mz Hedy, terryws, skydriller and 1 others liked this
#1895515
I very much welcome the goal of reducing Class A but I'd still want to see it eliminated altogether and use Class C ... Or B with modified VMC clear of cloud requirements, if the problem really can't be solved.

The continued "permanent" banning of VFR flight in certain areas is still not great when the weather is suitable.

I can understand that could be hard for certain tracks where IFR flights going into and out of a major airport is taking up close to 100% of capacity, but there should be still times through the night when those airports are shut, or when there are quieter off-peak periods like Christmas Day.
#1895519
should not, fundamentally, have to give way to commercial interests or operate in any particular way


Whilst I wouldn't want commercial interests exclusively defining the scene, I wouldn't want to push private requests to the other extreme though where, one could fly something to "block" the inbound approach paths of Heathrow for long lengths of time, just as much as we wouldn't want the inbound approach path of White Waltham to be "blocked" in the same manner. Both involve decision making around costs. The numbers are larger at the former and smaller at the latter.

The split perhaps should not have been purely about private vs. commercial. It should perhaps also be thinking about balancing fuel/efficiency/cost-savings requirements for all aircraft as well as the aerodrome in a reasonable manner.

Many heavy re-routes will result in more fuel burn and cost than the equivalent of a light aircraft re-route - that is irrespective of whether a heavy or a light is being flown for commercial vs. non-commercial reasons.

Too many re-routes in general will result in reduced throughput for an aerodrome's runway which has knock-on effects that could push up costs for many parties. That applies at Gloucester and Elstree, just as it does at Gatwick.

So to sum up, I think a fair and sensible approach is what is needed. :)
#1895527
James Chan wrote:Whilst I wouldn't want commercial interests exclusively defining the scene, I wouldn't want to push private requests to the other extreme though where, one could fly something to "block" the inbound approach paths of Heathrow for long lengths of time, just as much as we wouldn't want the inbound approach path of White Waltham to be "blocked" in the same manner. Both involve decision making around costs. The numbers are larger at the former and smaller at the latter..


Of course, please don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing against all CAS and suggesting we ought to have a situation where Bloggs can fly back and forth across the Heathrow approach paths simply because he chooses to.

CAS around major airports is inevitable. What is not inevitable is large swathes of airspace effectively off-limits to private aviation via a combination of its Class A classification and an IR made deliberately inaccessible to keep the majority of private aviators out of airspace 'belonging' to commercial interests.

If commercial interests want CAS they should be paying for the services that become necessary as a result of it, and that includes looking after those who are forced into sub-optimal routings, choke-points, undesirable altitudes, etc. by the existence of that CAS.
#1895539
Yeap - the GA fleet can't be forever expected to play catch-up out of their own pockets whether it is expensive equipment, or burning extra fuel to avoid the Class A LTMA parts delegated to LCY when the airport is closed for half the weekend. Such airports should have also had a planning mandate to allow lighter classes of aircraft during their off-peak periods without disproportionate fees as well. Then the commercial/non-commercial interests won't be such painfully felt. There is fuel/time economy to be made for sure. Imagine being able to save money to land at LCY off-peak without having to land elsewhere and spend another hour coming back in!

On the IR issue there exists a EASA sub-ICAO BIR for those who cannot do the CBM IR, but I've lost track of where that went since we left EASA.
Last edited by James Chan on Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
rdfb liked this
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