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Clued Up online magazine from the UK CAA (merged)

I have just read in this usually decent publication that “pilots that infringe airspace may have to sit an online test” There are apparently penalties for those that do not get at least an 80% pass mark.
It seems to me that this is worthy of some discussion and other’s views would be welcomed. What next one wonders!

UK, United Kingdom

Do you have to wear a hi-viz vest while taking it? Just got the mag and quickly leafed through it, that one also caught my eye, not yet time to read.

Where is this mag? I can’t see it here (yet).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Full details and online tutorial on the CAA site here

FlyerDavidUK, PPL & IR Instructor
EGBJ, United Kingdom

That infringements page says: “The unauthorised entry into controlled or temporarily restricted airspace, or active Danger Area, by an aircraft is known as an ‘infringement’.” It then goes on to say: “An infringement is a safety risk which has the potential to cause a mid-air collision.” I’d dispute that assertion. Flying in an active danger area doesn’t necessarily pose a collision risk. It just means you might get shot out of the sky.

Some danger areas extend out to sea down to surface level and there’s no way of preventing boats from entering them. I think it’s unjust to penalise pilots for entering those areas when sailors aren’t subject to the same penalties.

Having said that, I don’t know why anyone would intentionally fly in an active danger area, but that’s slightly beside the point.

Fairoaks, United Kingdom

“pilots that infringe airspace may have to sit an online test”

If you infringe a TRA and say it was a Navigational error you will have to do a test with a staff FE; if you say you forot to read the NOTAMS you will het a slapped wrist, much cheaper!

I took the infringement training and test (as a volunteer for test purposes, I hasten to add!) and thought it was pretty well-balanced. Most pilots who keep up to date with changes should be able to pass it fairly easily. The training was not at all preachy.

EGBJ / Gloucestershire

This is “interesting” (traditionally taught PPL nav skills are no good)

and their proposed solution is “interesting” too (GPS, basically)

and finally an advert for Skydemon (NATS got into bed with SD a few years ago, IIRC)

The bit about making better use of FIS (e.g. London Info 124.60) is slightly ironic because they don’t officially have radar and can’t say anything on the radio suggesting that they can see you. This is done to save money (a fully costed H24 radar desk at NATS reportedly costs approx a million quid per year) OCAS where nearly all traffic pays no route charges so a business case cannot be made to do more than the basic ICAO FIS obligation, which is a person with a microphone, and a phone to phone somebody with if something bad happens, basically.

Certainly there is a number of factors and they will never all be eliminated (I too have busted CAS, very briefly, a few times, through a lack of attention) but the biggest single one is the lack of use of GPS which is a legacy of about 15-20 years in which it was available but has not been taught.

In the UK, it is really only in the last five years that people have stopped writing forum posts in which any mention of GPS was immediately followed by “in the bag on the back seat, for emergency use only, of course”.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

OCAS where nearly all traffic pays no route charges so a business case cannot be made to do more than the basic ICAO FIS obligation, which is a person with a microphone, and a phone to phone somebody with if something bad happens, basically.

Sure you can. Lots of the traffic in uncontrolled airspace generate traffic in controlled airspace.

But it seems to be unfashionable to think that way these day. A couple of decades ago most Swedish airports with airline traffic were subsidised by profits from Stockholm/Arlanda, with the understanding that availability of airports for domestic traffic will generate more traffic (also through international connections) and thus higher profits for Arlanda. This practise stopped — ostensibly because of EU requirements — and sure enough, lots of domestic airline connections have disappeared as airports have had to close.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

So we know the action the CAA may take against GA pilots who “stray”, what action will the CAA take against the military pilots for example and also against the CAT pilots who cannot even follow ATC instructions? The full statistics on infringements can make interesting reading. A while ago whilst transiting"Essex Radar" territory I had to be ready to take avoiding action as a CAT a/c on a descending turn for Stansted, descended some 2000 feet BELOW his assigned level and then over the RT made some quite disparaging remarks about the small aircraft visual and showing on TCAS. I asked the following day what action may be coming the pilots way and no one could tell me.
The point I make is that we all make mistakes but it seems GA is usually singled out as the biggest danger in the skies. If we had a proper radar service as in many countries and a far less complex airspace set-up then I am sure a lot of problems would be resolved. Is GA just a convenient scapegoat?

UK, United Kingdom
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