Dimme wrote:
Am I the only one who notices the pilot eating and drinking like he doesn’t give a f*ck?
I disagree.
They do have a “laid back” attitude towards things but I don’t see anything dangerous in their actions.
Their flight has nothing wrong per ICAO standards. It is a “relaxed” style of flying but not necessarily dangerous.
What’s wrong with eating, drinking a (non alcoholic) soft drink, or even pissing in a jar, while en route in a GA private flight, when you have a pilot siting on the right and the aircraft flies on autopilot ?
Yes the pilot did not say to Matt “you have control” but the video is edited (not continuous start to end) and we can’t know what the pre flight “briefing” was or what was said in between the scenes we see.
The pilot sitting on the left is Juan-Peter Schulze and the guy in the back is Louis Cole who is not a pilot.
These two guys in 2017 did a round the world trip in that Cessna with a purpose.
Here’s their website https://www.flybeyondborders.com/ where all about Beyond Borders flight concept is explained and in Louis’s channel above you can see clips from that world flight and also his numerous reports from local population (totally unrelated to aviation).
I don’t necessarily like JP’s flying (pilot) style and Louis’s attitude on some things but these two guys certainly completed a monumental flight.
The guy sitting on the right is Matt Guthmiller
If you see other videos from him in his channel you will spot some really good pilot attitude.
He joined the above two in some of their flights because I guess they met through the web since he too has done a round the world flight when he was younger.
Also keep in mind that these videos are not addressed towards GA pilots. The film/documentary which is/will be a commercial product is addressed towards other crowd. For sure there is a film Director or a guy with Concept to make it popular to TV viewers who don’t give a damn about GA procedures.
I guess, its the same case with those aviation related TV series on NatGeo, Discovery etc. where things are exaggerated or staged in the name TV show popularity.
I think that this attitude is what we see here.
Is it easy to get up in CAS if you fly VFR?
Very interesting video indeed.
I really empathize with these guys. Even though they are a little US-centric, the PIC is from New Zealand and has a fairly wide experience in flying abroad in places like Africa.
In my experience, UK ATC is the service who has been the one with the most deviations from ICAO. I mainly fly in the UK as commercial jet traffic and there are still many seemingly pointless differences. These days even the US has made great efforts to be closer to ICAO. I’m thinking about going as GA this summer but I’m a little apprehensive because of all these deviations and their attitude towards GA.
I think the best example of this is “cleared to intercept the localizer, descend with the glide” which is the most convoluted way to simply say “cleared ILS”. Recently when there were QNH below 1000hPa, they decided that it was essential to specify “QNH 999 hectopascals” every single time. This seems very redundant and takes up precious airtime. I’m guessing that this was to avoid confusion with “Altimeter setting 2999” but QNH, as confirmed by wikipedia, implies hPa.
The division of services is another mystery for me. I have read up on it a few times but I have trouble understanding the logic behind why it even exists. The simple solution would be to do like every other country and specify that services are provided “as workload permits”. This simple solution coupled with airspace classification seems to solve the problem much more elegantly.
petakas wrote:
What’s wrong with eating, drinking a (non alcoholic) soft drink
Nothing at all, even without a second pilot or autopilot. If I do an early start (i.e. no breakfast, I’m not a morning person), I pick up “in flight catering” from the Andreas village store and eat it half way across the sea. My plane is well rigged and flies happily hands off, and small course corrections with a gentle pressure on the rudder is all that’s needed, and a Cornish pastie isn’t going to block my view outside.
There was nothing wrong with the flying side of things. A lot of the stuff was obviously played up for their viewers.
Peter wrote:
Then you have to complete your flight under VFR, OCAS (in IMC and other hazardous wx, as necessary)
That is not correct. In IMC you fly IFR, and you can choose to fly IFR in VMC is you wish.
Fly310 wrote:
Is it easy to get up in CAS if you fly VFR?
There are (essentially) only four classes of airspace in the UK. By volume, most at ground level to F185 is Class G and above that is Class C. Nearly all enroute airspace, at all levels, is Class A, and control Zones, some TMAs and a very few enroute segments are Class D.
So most of what you probably mean by CAS is not accessible under any circumstances to VFR.
You can get access to Class C under VFR, usually under military control, but IFR is more expected.
You can get access to Class D (most of which is actually operated by the controllers as if it were C or B) VFR, and generally it’s no problem doing so, but it doesn’t get you very far, as most are only about 10nm wide.
I have every sympathy with these foreign pilots. UK airspace is a bloody mess and I have regular meetings with senior (top) people in NATS, CAA and DfT where I do not hesitate to tell them so. I have flown in a large number of countries and most of them are much the same as each other. The UK is totally different, and it’s a scandal. (Ireland is also different, but in a good way, in that they are totally relaxed about everything.)
It’s not surprising that foreign pilots sometimes infringe UK airspace structures. Those of us charged with reducing infringements (I am one) would do well to look at that video and pause for thought.
That is not correct. In IMC you fly IFR, and you can choose to fly IFR in VMC is you wish
Yes; what I meant was that from the ATC POV, and from the POV of getting any clearances, you are a VFR flight, with no clearance unless you explicitly get one from each piece of airspace.
You can get access to Class C under VFR
How would that be achieved? I sometimes do post-maintenance check flights around Norfolk, up to FL195, but no way can anyone give me higher. London Control once gave Norwich a bollocking for letting me go to FL200.
Those of us charged with reducing infringements (I am one) would do well to look at that video and pause for thought.
Agreed, but looking a little more “composed” in the cockpit would have helped that case. One doesn’t need to act like a bit of a d1ck in order to show what a mess the UK ATC system is.
There was nothing wrong with the flying side of things. A lot of the stuff was obviously played up for their viewers.
Sure, but if you make a video then the video will show what the video will show 
You yourself might be Chuck Yaeger, but nobody is going to know.
Peter wrote:
Bad for “high altitude” IFR GA, yes.It’s bad for low altitude VFR, too. Due to the fragmentation of FIS it is often not clear what unit you should be talking to, so different aircraft in the same place could be talking to different controllers.
I have a feeling these pilots did not neglect doing their homework.
I have a feeling the video was intentionally made this way with intended pun to point out differences in UK and the weird part of the story.
Their comparison standard seems to be not the average European FIR but US airspace.
If I were not familiar with UK airspace and was on a transit VFR flight I too would be laughing with “Pass your message” , “Basic Service”, “Deconfliction Service” etc.
If one devotes the time and watches their video’s from their around the world flights in that very aircraft, it will be obvious that they are not the type of “no homework” pilots.
I mainly refer to JP and Matt because Louis is another story.
That is why I conclude that I have a feeling this video was intentionally presented this way.
Timothy wrote:
It’s not surprising that foreign pilots sometimes infringe UK airspace structures. Those of us charged with reducing infringements (I am one) would do well to look at that video and pause for thought.
My thoughts when they were talking to London Info under a basic service and/or being asked if they were OK to leave controlled airspace was “uh oh, I hope they know that they now have to get out their VFR charts and monitor their track closely not to enter any CAS or ATZ’s”, because they were flying IFR and talking to someone on the other end. In any other country you would not expect to suddenly have to assure your own separation with CAS that way. “Leaving controlled airspace” would just mean “open your eyes wide to spot traffic”.
