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UK CAS transit "application" by email (or web, or ICAO flight plan) - how crazy is this?

PNR/PPR is everywhere in Europe, but not for CAS clearances, which is just bizzare.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Finding myself in the odd position to defend NATS:
It is not PPR: as pointed out they can’t give clearance in advance.
It is not PNR: it is completely optional

It is a way to reduce the number of people telling their life story on a busy approach frequency.

Of course you could say that if UK ATC were not dropping VFR and OCAS IFR flightplans they wouldn’t be in this position.

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

So I don’t understand what the email could possibly achieve – unless they are creating some means of getting CAS permits for drone flights etc where obviously the drone won’t be “on the radio”. This sort of “CAS PPR by email” thing is likely to scare the average UK PPL even more of going into CAS, but you still need to make the radio call.

Xtophe wrote:

They claim it saves them the time to fill the (electronic) flight strip and hence speed up things.

So why don’t they use the established flight plan system to do this like everyone else?

You can fill in a strip from an AFTN message just as well as you can from an e-mail. Probably better.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 13 Jun 10:30
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

So why don’t they use the established flight plan system to do this like everyone else?

Far too logical.

And then we go back to the way ATC is not integrated and funding decisions made by Tatcher government.

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

So I don’t understand what the email could possibly achieve

It generates the flight strip so that the controller doesn’t have to do it on the first radio call.

Andreas IOM

I’ve tried it once (to transit through Gatwick going Fairoaks – Le Touquet) and wasn’t impressed: they didn’t have my details, it created more confusion than anything else, and I didn’t get my transit (par for the course with Gatwick as far as my experience goes).

EGTF, LFTF

So why don’t they use the established flight plan system to do this like everyone else?

Nobody uses flight plans for anything to do with CAS clearances – unless you are on a Eurocontrol IFR flight which has to be mostly in CAS.

And then we go back to the way ATC is not integrated and funding decisions made by Tatcher government.

UK ATC (NATS specifically) has been non-integrated and operated on a self funding basis since for ever. This is actually a complicated subject and is not really related to govt politics. It dovetails with the IMC Rating privileges, too, which could not exist (politically impossible) if the Class A was accessible. There was much wastage in the system for many years and this was (perhaps predictably) followed by what one might call a kneejerk reaction to remove costs; I am not defending the way it was done (bad for GA) but I believe that countries which continue similar wasteful (and taxpayer funded) systems will decide to deal with this at some point too, when they realise they are supporting GA at a cost of many millions. The UK just reached that point before the others.

It generates the flight strip so that the controller doesn’t have to do it on the first radio call.

Interesting that they find this takes a significant time, versus the time which must be spent implementing and operating the email notification system. I reckon a fully costed line of NATS-procured code is of the order of 10 to 100 quid This is why the AFPEX tool was never developed; I had discussions with them about the trivial feature of routing the AFTN inbox to email and they could not find the funding (under 2T GA does not pay route charges) even for that – a day’s work for a half competent unix hacker? The NATS business case for AFPEX was to enable the closure of the hugely expensive FBUs which did little but process a few k GA flight plans per month, mostly VFR ones. But that move saved millions annually.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

Nobody uses flight plans for anything to do with CAS clearances

And nobody used e-mail for CAS clearances before NATS got that bright idea.

Look outside the UK, Peter! Certainly all VFR flight plans in Sweden are distributed to enroute ATC/FIS units.

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 13 Jun 11:55
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

Interesting that they find this takes a significant time, versus the time which must be spent implementing and operating the email notification system.

The time spent by an ATCO while at a controlling position (and keeping the frequency busy) is not the same as the time or money spent to develop or operate the email system.

Pure conjecture now:
Maybe the various CAS transit denial reports to the CAA have had their effect and the CAA have nudge NATS TC that “controller workload” is not an excuse.
Maybe some enlighten GA-friendly specification writer has managed to include this and sell it to management in the vast electronic flight strip project.

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

AA, name a country which uses flight plans for clearances, in VFR.

This has been done to death in various places, because a lot of pilots think that filing a flight plan takes care of PNR, PPR, CAS transit, etc. Some European countries (e.g. France and probably Sweden) distribute all flight plans to all units but you can achieve that in the UK too by individual addressing. It just doesn’t do anything…

IMHO a much more sensible way to do this would be to use the existing flight plan system, which has been in place since for ever, is international and well understood, and which is supported by popular tablet apps (in the UK, SD and EVFR). Then if you wanted a transit of say the Solent CAS (via SAM VOR, at EGHI) you would just file the FP and add EGHIZTZX or EGHIZPZX or whatever, and you are done. NATS would still have to write some code, to parse the FP, compute the ETA for SAM, and present it to the ATC desk. Doing this by email is just nuts, and I confidently predict a takeup somewhere south of -273.16C

One old thread on flight plan based PPR/PNR is here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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