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?
It is quite controller workload dependant, so not sure how scientific. Cardiff, East Midlands, Brize, Luton and Stansted in the South are quite helpful.
Tread-drift
In general, I’m happy with the experience I’ve had requesting and receiving transits, and feel happy to give a thumbs-up overall. (This absolutely does not mean I sanction further ridiculous additions in the south east)
However it’s a very different ‘feel’ to any transit I’ve had in France or Italy where I didn’t suddenly feel like I was very lucky to be there, and had to sit up straight and ‘fly right’ to keep the controller happy.
October 2019 decisions are out now at the usual place
The “Safety Intervention measures applied (9)” is most likely that avoidance was passed to an airliner. I reckon all those (which are outside the 5000ft/5nm volume; inside that volume it is a “loss of separation”) go to Gasco.
With “CAP1404 escalatory measure” they are trying hard to make it look like some official procedure is being followed. It sounds like somebody got a lawyer on the case. CAP1404 itself is still ambiguous, however, and was written by the very same people who run the scheme.
This one is great: “PIC request to attend in lieu of online test to improve knowledge (1)”. Yeah, right 
He probably knew he is likely to fail the test, in which case he would get Gasco anyway.
Gasco are doing well out of it, despite the lousy wx, with 22 x £200.
I wonder what the real cost of GASCo is? I assume its a small room at a second rate hotel? I assume you pay for your own lunch? So I am guessing its one, or is it two, retired bods happy with a bit of pin money and trip off the same party line each time? Whats the basic profit on each day run?
A few people have told me the hotel would charge £500-£1000. In the Gasco accounts – discussion much further back – they put in what looked like a £1200 average amount, which seems high, but probably includes travel expenses for the two presenters who, like most of the “delegates”, stay in the hotel the night before. Volunteers normally get all expenses reimbursed, especially in an organisation which has plenty of money sloshing around.
The one I did was at Hilton Avisford Park, Yapton Lane, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 0LS. The room was big enough for about 25 people sitting.
is it possible to get the statistics for the pass rate for the online test?
Pass rate is horrendous lots of highly irrelevant questions and an incredibly short time to answer.I know lots of people who have had the misfortune to take the test none have passed most were professional pilots who I hold in high regard.I have managed to avoid this unpleasant situation by always flying a minimum of 400 feet below vertical airspace boundaries.I believe vertical supposed infringements by over-reading transponders yet still within tolerance is the major problem.The intransigence and tunnel vision of one ex Air Force Air trafficker serving out his time to pension in the CAA is causing most of the problems.In the the south east the safety of operation for GA has been hugely reduced with a large volume of airspace effectively sterilised to transponding traffic forced to operate at low level below MSA.Some common-sense needs to be introduced into CAA and NATS thinking but they seem incapable entirely rule based and non technical.
Regards
This and the associated threads make interesting reading on a slow Sunday morning . I have a question for Peter. You say you have done, and failed, the online test and you say that was resolved through a CFI. You then had to do the GASCO course; why did the CAA make you do that. I can’t see where there CFI aspect fits on with failing the test.
Off_field, according to what it says at the end of CAP1404, the figures are issued on passes and fails. I assume that is done at the end of the year; only a few months to wait maybe?
I did a CAS bust 2 years ago, got the online test, failed it as most do, and got the CFI route. I don’t think Gasco was running then. I did another one earlier this year and got Gasco. Both were brief; the last was 1min 35 secs according to NATS. I have ~ 2500hrs which is not as much as a good number of those in the Gasco room
Re the CAA numbers, they are nowadays released monthly. I don’t think this is real however
given the % who fail as released by the CAA here. The above number implies only 1 in 8 fail it.
Naturally the CAA removed the embarrassing video from the above link but you can find a youtube version here With anything interesting from the CAA one needs to make a snapshot.
Stampe above is spot on in his assessment. I did a practice ILS this morning down the road but strictly no sightseeing flights with passengers anymore. One more brief distraction and my license is gone. Luckily I have always been much more interested in flying abroad.
A good insight to the process Peter. Thank you to someone who has been there. The one thing missing from the numbers you have posted above is whether that 1 test fail is one of the 8 as you have 28 days to do the test according to the CAP or whether is was one from September and fell in the month at the start (if that makes sense). If 2 had the sit the test last month, that’s a 50% fail rate and if 10 had to do it, it is a pretty good pass rate. Of course it could be one of the 8 if it was completed straight away. The trouble with data is that you need a period of if time to provide a suitable set to make it worthy and the trouble with human nature is we often lack the patience to wait.
