In ZRH the rationale behind them are that in recent years they had several pretty harsh airproxes with VFR flights who did not respect the controlled airspaces, mainly in approach. They also had some instances where obviously unfit people (poor RT, poor skills) came to ZRH VFR and annoyed ATC. I’ve had to withness some on the radio and was as furious about that as them. The trouble is, there are people who have a vaild license and who can not deal with airports like this but still do it. So my question is, what the heck is wrong with the training we get?
Well, it’s a snake biting it’s own tail I’m afraid. People doing the PPL do not get to fly to places like ZRH because they are expensive and because even many VFR flight instructors are scared to go there. That is not only ZRH, it’s elsewhere too. And then we do get PPL’s who screw up. In an environment, where airport management and partly also ATC feel that the small planes are the reason of all evil, that is simply deadly.
On the other hand, the incidents which prompted the briefing now, were mostly not comitted by people coming to ZRH, but who mostly wanted to go to Birrfeld from Germany and penetrated the CTR right across the ILS. But as a result, now those who do fly to ZRH, including everyone who has been based there for all their flying life have to do it too. Are these the more likely to comit mistakes in ZRH? Not very much, but either everyone or no-one.
Samedan is the same thing. They had some reckless flying up there, biz jets which violated all the rules to get their clientele delivered. there was a series of accidents, which prompted that briefing and intro-flight rule now. Again, some folks screwed up, the ones who hardly ever did ended up getting punished.
Sion and Lugano are both, at least IFR, special procedure airports, where I can understand to a degree that a briefing is in order. Both have very non-standard approaches. Lugano even was (maybe still is) one airport where you need a trainig programme in order to operate there, so is Sion I believe.
The situation in Switzerland has been one where a CAA filled with lawyers rather than aviation pros has been making life difficult in all aspects. The primary problem here is that any and all RECOMMENDATIONS are immediately taken as LAW. TBO, Safety recommendations from the SUST, anything at all, not gold- but platinumplating. Some of this will be challenged by EASA (the TBO story is one of those, even though they are far from giving up), the recommendations by the SUST that almost all airports where there is an accident or incident should get compulsory briefings, is another. At the moment, we have ZRH, Sion, Lugano and Samedan, but the wind whispers talk of Saanen, La Chaux de Fons and several others too. I do hope indeed that the new director of the FOCA will put an end to this. He is, after all, not a lawyer but a highly experienced aviation person.
In ZRH, the story is however a little different, even though similar to Samedan in some extent. ZRH has for YEARS tried in vain to get an exemption from the FOCA to kick out all GA summarily, especcially all which are speed cathegories A and B. There is a lot of ideology but also practical concerns. Ideologically, the airport management wants airliners, period. They are not interested in anything below 50 tons or so. And they have fallen for the rumour that private aviation is guilty and one major reason that there is delays (which is definitly wrong) to airliners.
ATC, the old hands and most of the Tower folks are ambiguous, they don’t mind the routined folks who know what they are doing, but do not like people who don’t. Unfortunately, one baddie will achieve what years of faultless operation by the resident groups have tried to achieve. To them, slow IFR is the nightmare on both departures and arrivals and they want anyone who can’t do 150kts on the ILS and 200 in climb out GONE. VFR is not so much the problem, but it is also a pet peeve for some of the decision makers, who simply feel that small GA has no place here.
In that climate, it has been clear for the airport operator, the Airport Operators Council and most of ATC that small GA must be eliminated for good. They have been fighting for that for years. And they will get there. In that context, the briefing is one more item to scare people away, so is the new slot regime and proposed increases of landing fees. Therefore, the goal must be to find an alternative because as it stands, ZRH will sooner or later be gone for small GA.
Yes, this is Switzerland, but i think it is a mistake to believe that other would-be airline-only airports are not watching what is happening here.
I took the training just for amusement. I thought it was very helpful and well thought out. It provided a very clear explanation of routes, VRPs and procedures – some of which are certainly not obvious and in some cases not described elsewhere (that I have found). If I was making a flight to ZRH tomorrow, I would be much more confident with what is required of me, especially as the VAC charts are quite complex. The test was quite easy. One can never be too well informed.
I agree, but I would ask whether there is anything in that tutorial which is not in the LSZH AIP, or which is not evident from looking at say the VAC (visual approach chart) which in its Jeppesen version is this
and the other stuff which runs to an amazing total of 11 pages
I have no opinion either way (I have flown there but only IFR which was entirely straightforward) but it might be that they have a lot of VFR pilots who don’t read this stuff. And to be fair 11 pages is a helluva lot to absorb. Most airports are 1 page. I mean… somebody with a PPL should find their way to the runway – it’s big enough! I don’t know about Switzerland but I know for a fact that almost nobody in the UK reads the AIP.
Reading the AIP is a very modern concept. Before the internet (i.e. more than about 10 years ago, in terms of general population acceptance) almost nobody knew it existed. VFR flight, for those single-figure numbers who did it past the local burger run, was done with the jepp Bottlang printed VFR guides. Same with notams. And, as regular EuroGA readers will know, a lot of the stuff in some of the AIPs is bollocks. With the GA community mostly stagnant and most new PPL graduates packing it in almost right away, 10 years is not long enough to change things.
But the bottom line is that if the requirements are not in the AIP then they damn well should be, and if they are then whoever is not preflight briefing is sure as hell not going to be doing the website training.
Prague is 1 page
London Gatwick is 2 pages
Charles de Gaulle (which seems to have bought the world’s supply of sids and stars, with about 100 pages) is also 1 page
although they must have realised that Zurich might be beating them in their duty of care so they put in some more at the beginning
Not that anybody will fly there VFR but…
I would not have been aware of the possibility ATC requesting me land before the displaced threshold for Runway 34, had it not been for the tutorial. It mentions that this is unpublished – and it certainly isn’t in the VAC. It also gives very clear descriptions of the approach and departure routes which would provide an additional level of comfort – obviously I would also have the VRPs programmed into the GPS. I think they were very helpful in providing this training.
Maybe my flying school or instructor was weird, but I was shown the AIP before I took my first flying lesson and it was suggested that I take a look at it whenever I had a few minutes to spare. At the time, the AIP was only available in printed form. I still use it as a reference.
Finners wrote:
Maybe my flying school or instructor was weird, but I was shown the AIP before I took my first flying lesson and it was suggested that I take a look at it whenever I had a few minutes to spare. At the time, the AIP was only available in printed form. I still use it as a reference.
I think not covering the AIP in training at all is just another UK particularity, probably due to the popularity of inofficial “flight guides” such as Pooley’s and AFE. Airport related information is all in there. So the problem only arises when the UK pilot goes abroad and to some bigger airport.
ATC requesting me land before the displaced threshold
This gets me scratching my head. Surely if it’s not in the AIP it’s illegal? How can ATC ever request you to act illegally? (except of course in an emergency)
About the importance of the AIP not being mentioned in training, that must indeed be “another UK peculiarity” . Even when training for the ultralight license I was imbibed with its being the ultimate authority.
And regarding the thread subject: looking on from a distance, in several senses, it seems to me that LSZH has been less unfriendly to small G/A than most other airports of its size/importance, and is now catching up with them.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In ZRH the rationale behind them are that in recent years they had several pretty harsh airproxes with VFR flights
One of the worst near accidents recently was when tower cleared two aircraft for take-off at the same time on intersecting runways. It was only because one of the crews wasn’t asleep that saved the day. The reason for this was reportedly that tower was distracted by a VFR flight. That VFR flight was, drumroll, the navchecker. That example is often used to justify why VFR should be banned in LSZH…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
TBO, Safety recommendations from the SUST, anything at all, not gold- but platinumplating
There was an accident where an aircraft with a totally shagged engine (hangar queen Lycoming with terminal camshaft corrosion) crashed after takeoff in Gstaad because it wasn’t able to outclimb terrain. In its infinite wisdom, SUST recommended to make TBOs mandatory even for private ops, and FOCA complied, you can only operate beyond TBO if you pull a cylinder every year and inspect the camshaft. The owner of a Glasair complied (had to), but quite predictably the engine broke during one of the following flights and caught fire. He managed to get the aircraft down onto a meadow, but later died from his burns. From what one hears from “circles familiar with the investigation”, it’s indeed one of the jugs that was pulled that caused the engine fire. It will be very interesting to read what the SUST accident report has to say about the FOCA policy of requiring jugs to be pulled yearly that was the result of another SUST recommendation.
Peter wrote:
which is not evident from looking at say the VAC (visual approach chart) which in its Jeppesen version
The Jepp version is complete crap, it misses all the routings ATC expects aircraft to fly. For example, when departing on RWY 28 to the east (E2), ATC expects you to start a left (!) turn at the runway intersection, and around 260 degrees roughly passing overhead the tower. Also, when departing RWY 28 towards W2, you’re not going to make yourself many friends if you just depart straight ahead to the departure end of the runway…
The VFR manual chart should make it clearer…
Mooney_Driver wrote:
They also had some instances where obviously unfit people (poor RT, poor skills) came to ZRH VFR and annoyed ATC
When I was training for my NVFR rating at LSZH (when it was still possible), I witnessed quite a few crews with very poor RT skills, but these were all commercial crews (many from the former soviet union). Tower tried to explain them (in plain english) that I was making H1 approaches to RWY 32, which wouldn’t interfere with their landing on RWY 28 – many of them were unable to understand a word what tower tried to tell them… (Bonus points for Peter: try to find out how a H1 approach would work from the Jepp chart…)
tomjnx wrote:
The Jepp version is complete crap, it misses all the routings ATC expects aircraft to fly.
(Bonus points for Peter: try to find out how a H1 approach would work from the Jepp chart…)
Ahem… From Peter’s list it’s pretty clear that there are three arr/dep charts of which he showed one – as well as several other charts and text pages. Perhaps we should refrain from passing judgement on Jeppesen until we’ve seen them all?
@Peter, can you post 19-1A and 19-1B as well?
tomjnx wrote:
The Jepp version is complete crap, it misses all the routings ATC expects aircraft to fly.
That is not completely true if you look at the charts below, they contain most data, including H1 approach. It’s another question that the Jepp VFR charts are generally much worse (in my opinion) than the Swiss AIP ones.
