For you airspace gurus out there, I noticed what seems to be conflicting information about the Milano TMA and I’d appreciate some clarification.
First though, whoever designed N Italian airspace should be banned from Earth and sent to the Space Station forever…
Second, I bought the new Air Million chart at AERO and it shows “wedding cake” type layers for the lower limit of Class A airspace north and northeast of Milano. In particular, the area shown below (ie FL90, FL120, FL150):
However, when I look at the newest (2015 edition) DFS chart for the same area, it shows the idiotic (and what has been discussed many times before here and elsewhere) 2500 MSL / 1500 AGL lower limit for the Class A. Skydemon also shows similar. See here:
So then I checked the Italian AIP and indeed the “VFR Chart” for Milano shows the wedding cake sectors. So…has there been a change recently? Does this mean you can now fly VFR more easily in N Italy under the overlying Class A? It would make my upcoming VFR trip much easier through that airspace…
AFAIK this “wedding cake” thingy has been there for quite some time, however it’s pretty useless. If you look at the terrain elevation, it’s likey not much different from 1500 AGL, and it still requires you to drop like a stone some 10000ft at the end of the alps…
HighFly,
To answer your question: no, nothing has changed with the Milan TMA recently.
It’s a totally illogic design. First, they say that the TMA has a lower limit of 2500MSL/1500AGL and that stands. Then however, they create those famous “VFR sectors”, which are pieces of airspace “carved out” of that block of airspace, which – whilst still part of the TMA – are “considered” to be airspace Golf.
So effectively, where there is say a VFR sector with a lower limit of FL90, you can fly up to that level, even though the TMA still has that general lower limit of 2500MSL/1500 MSL.
Skydemon never really got around this; hence they always show both lower limits.
DFS totally screwed this up (as Skydemon used to do until about a year ago) and omitted the VFR sectors altogether. In defence of DFS, they have no Italy charts on offer. Your snippet is probably from the Switzerland chart and sure enough, there will be disclaimer somewhere that the airspace depicted outside Switzerland is not to be used for navigation.
However: all this is about to change, i.e. Italy is starting to do away with these ridiculous “VFR sectors” now.. Rome TMA has already been redesigned and the revised TMA will go into effect on May 1st (see http://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/3689-italy-re-designs-its-tmas#60638).
Milan TMA will follow, probably towards end of the year.
Thanks Boscomantico.
If all goes well, I will fly by the airport/town after which you are named. Or maybe it’s the other way around :)
