Agreed, a sensible ATC and airspace setup is not going to happen – even if Shapps made it his number one priority.
There is too much to unravel, too many vested interests, too much of a commercial angle and no will to treat the whole thing as infrastructure. The ‘user pays’ principle is deeply embedded and no British government of any flavour is going to start installing regional radar controllers paid from the public purse.
Even Corbyn’s Labour Party, who plan to renationalise rail and water, would not touch NATS.
Graham wrote:
Even Corbyn’s Labour Party, who plan to renationalise rail and water, would not touch NATS.
My understanding is that under a Corbyn government there will be no need for any ATSOCAS, as there will be no private aviation. Have I misunderstood?
Looks like I might have work to do moving posts again, to the usual place…
And please note this change to the Guidelines which was necessary because there are people who contribute next to nothing (without a doubt intentionally) but given half a chance post lots of political stuff which they could not post elsewhere.
Graham wrote:
There is too much to unravel, too many vested interests, too much of a commercial angle and no will to treat the whole thing as infrastructure. The ‘user pays’ principle is deeply embedded and no British government of any flavour is going to start installing regional radar controllers paid from the public purse.
But Germany also has the “the user pays” principle deeply embedded in its public infrastructure. And yet we have radar equipped FIS throughout the country, proper airspace design and little problems with airspace infringements. What is stopping the UK from emulating us?
I think there are a whole group of vested interests that are far too out of touch to climb down on GASCo and the current approach to infringements, will ignore all the evidence that their policy is ineffective, out of step with every other juristiction and ultimately badly conceived. It will take ministerial intervention, or a huge groudswell of pilot intervention before there is any change. Unfortunately I dont see the later happening, because the poilcy impacts on relatively few month to month, and the rest of us think it will not happen, or be of concern to me so I dont think it has the same campaign potential as the IMC rating.
Unfortunately the various working groups and AOPA UK that could have assisted have been as useless as we have all come to expect, and would far rather not rock the boat and play to the party line.
I guess like many of us I despair, but there is only so much one has the energy for.
tmo wrote:
They went as far as to say something to the effect of “if you’re mode-s you don’t need to bother checking in, we have your back and will call you if needed”. And they do.
If there isn’t a paired FMC/frequency, how to they know and be certain of the frequency on which to call you?
Timothy wrote:
My understanding is that under a Corbyn government there will be no need for any ATSOCAS, as there will be no private aviation. Have I misunderstood?
My point wasn’t political at all, just pointing out that no government of any flavour, not even those most keen on nationalisation, has any intention of sorting the airspace/ATS mess out.
The point about private aviation referred to jets I believe, and was based on the usual ‘technology’ fallacy giving rise to the assumption that electrically-powered aircraft will be not only viable but widespread by the mid-2020s.
What is stopping the UK from emulating us?
It’s the same all over. The basic logic is:
They eat Sauerkraut, we don’t. Therefore we have to do it our way, or not at all. Seriously, that is the basics of it.
The funny thing here is that UK politicians/bureaucrats actually think that this logic apply to them, but not the other way around. They seem to believe, or at least use as an argument towards them they serve, that other countries look at the UK for “wisdom”. I mean mean, they may look, they may talk, they may even cooperate on certain things. But when back home discussing how to do stuff, it’s back to; ha ha, they drive on the wrong side of the road, no wisdom to be gathered from that place 
It’s just the way it is.
chflyer wrote:
If there isn’t a paired FMC/frequency, how to they know and be certain of the frequency on which to call you?
If you take a look at a map of Polish airspace you will see that there are five large FIS sectors (Gdańsk, Poznań, Kraków, Warszawa, Olsztyn) in all of the country, so it is usually quite obvious which frequency to call you on. Yeah, could be confusing around the middle of the country, around EPWK, but IME it “just works”.
MedEwok wrote:
But Germany also has the “the user pays” principle deeply embedded in its public infrastructure
What is the mechanism by which GA pays for FIS and others in Germany? Is there an annual tax for a/c owner? Is part of the fuel duty directed towards ATC?
