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Farnborough Controlled Airspace Proposal

means having to squeeze through where circled red by me, at below 1500ft (which in practice means at 1400ft)

Excellent spot! This is recipe for mis-reading and infringements and the like. You should let Farnborough know.

The initial call should take the form of the name of the ATC unit being called, aircraft call sign, type of aircraft, position, level and the intentions of the flight…. If a pilot is unable to establish two-way radio communication …

And what should the response from ATC be? Ignoring it means remain outside? Station-calling Standby means remain outside? Call sign standby means two-way established?

Last Edited by at 17 Apr 17:37

Exactly. At which point precisely is radio contact established?

Last Edited by boscomantico at 17 Apr 17:43
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

I would suggest that two way contact is established when the ATC unit respond to your initial call, as per Ultranomad’s post above. The requirements for an RMZ do not stipulate that permission needs to be obtained to enter it, only that two-way communications with the responsible ATS unit is established and that one maintains a continuous communications watch on frequency.

EGTT, The London FIR

Sorry for insisting, but..

two way contact is established when the ATC unit respond to your initial call

… is nowhere to be found in Ultranomad’s post (and neither in the linked text). And with which words would they have to respond?

Is it possible that this has never been officially defined in Europe?

Last Edited by boscomantico at 17 Apr 18:47
Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Personally, I think an RMZ is merely an official enforcement of what otherwise constitutes good airmanship, but if you can’t get a word in edgeways on the corresponding frequency, it defies its own purpose. However, one thing worth lobbying for would be allowing mode S + listening squawk as a substitute for an actual two-way radio contact.

And with which words would they have to respond?

In this particular case, probably “SQUAWK XXXX” and/or “RADAR CONTACT”
On the other hand, I don’t remember it off the top of my head, but I suspect a definition of two-way contact being established should be covered in the radio operator license test.

Last Edited by Ultranomad at 17 Apr 19:05
LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

In this particular case, probably “SQUAWK XXXX” and/or “RADAR CONTACT”

"Probably"doesn’t help much though .
Also, an RMZ is not a TMZ so “squawk” and “radar contact” sure can’t be required words for the establishment of radio contact in an RMZ.

should be covered in the radio operator license test

So do you know the answer?

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Sorry Boscomantico – I wasn’t very clear. I meant to write that Ultranomad had specified the prescribed contents of the initial call…

Here’s the answer to your question:

4.4 Before entering a RMZ an initial call containing the designation of the station being called, callsign, type of aircraft, position, level, the intentions of the flight shall be made by pilots on the appropriate communication channel.

Two-way communication is considered to have been achieved once the pilot has provided the following information on the appropriate communications channel: callsign, type of aircraft, position, level, intentions of the flight.

The above text is from the CAA Policy for Radio Mandatory Zones.

I note that the policy does not require the controller to respond to the initial call for two-way contact to have been deemed established.

EGTT, The London FIR

Thank you very much, that’s interesting. Just blow these six items onto the airwaves and you’re good to enter, no matter if you were blocked by someone else (although that will make it hard to prove you did the call) or whether the controller didn’t hear it for other reasons…

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Surely the one way call option is completely bogus. No way could that have been intended, because you could just make the radio call, and nobody hears it.

In the USA, “two way radio contact” means the ATC unit has read back your callsign.

This RMZ stuff is not going to work in the UK, where many weekend pilots can’t work the radio and make long radio calls, and Farnborough Radar is too busy to offer anything but a Basic Service (meaning: no service). Even a Traffic Service means next to nothing on a busy day, or even a not busy day, as anybody with an active TCAS system rapidly discovers.

Well, it won’t work for flying east-west through that zone. People flying north-south will just have to give it a wide berth.

Farnborough has very little traffic. The landing fee starts at about 300 quid so it is just a very small number of business jets each day. In one recent survey, they disclosed an embarrassingly small number of average passengers, which (from memory) was about 2.8. Or, that was the average number of people on the aircraft. This doesn’t justify CAS.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned that the decision is out.

It’s effectively a “yes” with some small changes to create Class E TMZ’s.

It’s going to make life very tough for Fairoaks and Blackbushe VFR traffic.

I wonder if it will force Biggin to apply, to stay competitive?

EGKB Biggin Hill
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