172flyer wrote:
I’m not sure airspace has been privatised either; it’s a national asset as far as I was aware.
To all intents and purposes in the UK it has been.
This is the main reason that the much needed complete overhaul of ATS & Controlled airspace structure isnt possible in the UK as everything is fragmented with AT data being private property.
Cobalt wrote:
Whether ATC has been privatised has little to do with it, it is the service they are obliged to provide that matters.
As far as i am aware NATS are not obliged to provide any service outside CAS, although I believe they may provide a restricted LARS service in some areas (subject to published hours, and controller workload) no doubt as part of some lip service to arguing they contribute something.
It is also my understanding that they “control” and receive the income from most (perhaps all) the radar heads, and, in reality may it beyond the means of almost any other service provide to derive any benefit from their radar stream. Figures well in excess of £100K per annumn have been offered up as the cost of a feed to enable a small regional airport to provide radar services.
172flyer wrote:
We can, pretty much, fly everywhere our ratings allow if we get clearances; being competent and sounding confident is the major step to those clearances.
With respect that is absolutely not my experience, either of requesting clearance or hearing others requesting who are routinely and peremptorily denied.
My experience is that GA is a nuisance and that ATC are far too busy or cannot be bothered. This is evident from the tone used on occasions and i have often thought if the tapes were pulled how the exchange would sound.
Like many others here, I too see this as a deliberate squeeze on GA. The policy is detrimental to safety on so many grounds, forcing GA low and through pinch points. I could go on but most here see the safety picture and how it deteriorates.
Many now fear a bust more than any other part of flying, that too is negative and detrimental to safety and good airmanship.
In most organisations the message comes from the top and clearly now the message is to bust and file reports whenever and whereever. This is not a message to improve safety but to drive people from GA slowly but surely, it will happen and clearly it is already happening.
Gasco and the allied organisations seek jobs and profit rather than following their original air safety message. There is no need to repeat what has been said before here about the infringement seminars.
It makes me terribly sad that there is this pervasive anti GA stance taken from the disparate CAT / ATC sector and on high at the CAA. Such a contrast with european atc.
The perfect illustration for me is the Manchester Low Level Corridor yet we are still told to Take Two. I am sure that there will have been no CAT anywhere near the corridor for years but we are still squeezed into a rat run below empty airspace.
Snowball
You raise some interesting points; I am not a fan of the Manchester low level route but it must be a tough design concept to fit in a route between arrivals/departures at 2 fairly active airports. As for access to CAS, prior to heading south to live in the Channel Islands only a few years ago, I only ever had one transit refusal. I’m not sure if much has changed in 3 years so I can’t comment further on that. However, I’m sure the quality of some of the PPL holders is still as questionable as ever. As I said earlier, being competent and sounding confident wins the day but then PPL r/t training always seemed of low importance and little has been done to improve that.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I agree that switching off transponders is a truly terrible idea. It is dangerous and inconsiderate to other airspace users.
Are we sure of that? It does seem plausible, but is there any evidence that aircraft equipped with TCAS or TAS are routinely colliding with non-transponding GA?
It might be more logical to say that failure to squawk ADSB-out is dangerous and inconsiderate, because the 99% (?) of GA which doesn’t have TAS has no affordable way of locating any other transponder signal.
As for the extent to which the UK-CAA’s policy is causing people to be selective about when and where they turn on their transponders, the only evidence we pilots are likely to have is anecdotal. I know of only three who have decided – and admitted to me – that the potential benefits of transponding in class G are outweighed by the threat of a £500 “GASCO fine” or a licence suspension.
Timothy wrote:
If there is evidence that people are switching off their transponders to avoid the consequences of being pursued following an infringement then it is a serious matter that that group must respond to
A discussion I was personally in (face to face, not on the internet) at an airfield that will remain nameless, pretty much all the pilots said they don’t turn on their transponder due to these and other concerns. I’m not going to name the airfield or anyone because due to SERA rules this will be “dobbing people in” but I would be prepared to give a sworn statement that I’ve heard this in more than one face-to-face conversation in the last couple of years.
For the record I have my transponder always turned on – it makes it a lot easier to gain access to controlled airspace for a start, and I spent good money on it.
As I posted here I am sure that IF the CAA know about the scale of the problem which they have created they will keep quiet about it. Or they just won’t accept that it is real.
It’s always been real, at a certain level. When I got the TAS/TCAS1 in 2013, long before the current CAA policy, I noticed a lot of traffic which had a txp fitted but wasn’t using it. It was blindingly obvious just sitting at the runway holding point. So I asked some of them, and the answers were all in the “deliberately OFF” to “deliberately won’t repair it” area.
And it isn’t just the UK. In France, probably almost the entire non-F-reg homebuilt community is non-txp, due to this regulation which limits long term parking to 28 days. The same regulation was introduced in the UK (concurrently as it happens, and No I don’t think that was an accident of timing) but the UK has almost no non-G-reg homebuilts; probably because the LAA is perceived as doing a fairly reasonable job on the regulatory front.
is there any evidence that aircraft equipped with TCAS or TAS are routinely colliding with non-transponding GA?
As I posted further back, I don’t think there is any.
That’s one reason why I doubt the CAA will ever mandate anything, for Class G.
Another reason is that I don’t see how they can, practically. Certified solutions all cost thousands, at a minimum. Uncertified solutions are very hard to mandate. It would be like mandating the use of ANR headsets. Also most of them are bodges.
And certified ADS-B IN doesn’t show uncertified ADS-B OUT, and uncertified ADS-B OUT doesn’t show on certified ADS-B IN 
The only compatible combination is that uncertified ADS-B IN does show certified ADS-B OUT (but almost no GA radiates certified ADS-B OUT). You really could not make it up.
Jacko wrote:
Are we sure of that? It does seem plausible, but is there any evidence that aircraft equipped with TCAS or TAS are routinely colliding with non-transponding GA?
Oh no, I do agree. I am far from convinced that in reality transponders have much beneift to GA. I do hpwever accept that like most of us I am an irrational human being and with on board traffic I like the idea of operating in a known traffic enviroment. I also accept, as I have said, that is irrational.
However, and all that aside, I agree with your point. What I rather meant is I accept that there is always a risk GA will infringe on CAS, and like it or not, it is reasonable to have guaranteed seperation between controlled traffic. My point was simply that without transponders this guarantee cant be given, so, to the extent that there is any risk of GA interacting with CAS then we should acknowledge that it would be unreasonable to turn off a perfectably serviceable transponder to avoid the risk of a trip to GASCo.
Alioth – I agree, I am persoanlly aware of a lot of pilots that will now turn off their transponders in certain circumstances and are very clear and open that they do so.
It is another disasterous consequence of the current policy which should have so easily been forseen.
It is a funny old world, the CAA massaged the infringment figures to suit their agenda, and I suspect they are now being massaged by those they thought to deceive in reverse. Of course I suspect the people who sit on the various working groups and committees are so far out of touch they have no idea what really goes on.
Snowball222 wrote:
I am sure that there will have been no CAT anywhere near the corridor
Actually, Liverpool’s approaches go overhead, that’s why they’ve not been able to raise the ceiling higher than it is now. I’ve recorded the odd airliner (via ADS-B) while transiting through the LLR. You can get a transit off Liverpool some of the time, and I’ve got good evidence that having a transponder hugely increases your chances to get a transit.
The scousers get my thumbs-up too. They’ve never refused me a transit, whatever the flight conditions.
Incidentally, is there a thread here for C and D transit refusals (or approvals so late as to be useless)? If not, should we start one?
