NealCS wrote:
since Farnborough had asked me to transit at 2400’
I find this trend rather worrying and have experienced it more than once from this ATC unit.
I was recently asked (at my discretion) to fly not below 3400ft with Class A at 3500ft and also at 2500ft about 10 miles (4 minutes away) in front of me. This was to give separation to a biz jet that was OCAS.
I use the Autopilot in these situations. I wonder if there is any data on breaches relating to this sort of scenario, in other words, where the pilot has volunteered to help out but ended up with a CAS bust.
Peter wrote:
I bet you that most people who bust CAS were indeed running SD, with a minority doing the WW1-style stuff which still lives on
Apparently (I’m looking for the exact quote, but I can’t find it), something like 85% of the busts were made by people flying with no kind of moving map. Skydemon users are in a very small minority of airspace infringers.
Colin wrote:
I wonder if there is any data on breaches relating to this sort of scenario, in other words, where the pilot has volunteered to help out but ended up with a CAS bust.
Not a common scenario, no.
alioth wrote:
Apparently (I’m looking for the exact quote, but I can’t find it), something like 85% of the busts were made by people flying with no kind of moving map. Skydemon users are in a very small minority of airspace infringers.
I wrote the reports (for 2017 and 2018).
About the 2016 figures we said:
74% were not GPS equipped. Of the remainder, half were not being used. Of the GPS equipment, 15% was designed for IFR as opposed to VFR flight. So about 10% of the total were using VFR GPS equipment. (The subjective analysis of 100 events suggests that half of those were not being used effectively, taking the likely total to 5%.)
I think that the 85% you may be thinking of is that a panel of us looked at the 2018 reports and came to the conclusion that 85% of them wouldn’t have happened had SD been being used properly. That is, of course, opinion, but we each looked at the incidents separately and came to very similar conclusions.
… and that is pretty much self-evident.
Why does anyone bust airspace? Probably in that order:
1) Doesn’t know where the aircraft is
2) Doesn’t know where the airspace is
3) Momentarily distracted
Any moving map GPS prevents (1). If it is a moving map GPS with decent VFR airspace display, it prevents (2). And if it has some alerting function, then it also helps with (3).
So here is a creative suggestion – anyone who infringes and does not carry a unit that provides a moving map with an airspace display and alerting function gets either fined two times the cost of such a unit, or has to buy one and submit the receipt instead.
Cobalt wrote:
So here is a creative suggestion – anyone who infringes and does not carry a unit that provides a moving map with an airspace display and alerting function gets either fined two times the cost of such a unit, or has to buy one and submit the receipt instead.
My suggestion to the powers that be has been that it should be made clear that enforcement action will be lighter on those using VFR GPS and FMC, but the lawyers won’t have it.
I have to say I am fully with Timothy here. Airspace infringements are one of the top priorities we as a GA community should have to teach about and to make as sure as we possibly can to avoid. Not only are they dangerous in many cases but they also bias a lot of decision makers within ATC and elsewhere against GA. Most arguments I hear why to ban GA from e.g large airports is the prejudice that GA pilots are not capable of handling the airspace and safety concerns, are not capable of proper RT and are generally a nuissance. And I am afraid, for quite a few that is true.
It has never been more straightforward to avoid airspace infringements as it is in the day and age of products such as EasyVFR or Skydemon. Even most hand held older GPS Types such as the Garmin 495 or similar will allow a good and easy avoidance. In the areas where airspaces are really cramped into each other and where it becomes challenging to make sure one does not infringe, proper flight preparation AND live follow up on a moving map is simply normal technique today.
Those who tink they are above the law and fly without transponder on, well, what would you say if people started to drive without their headlights on in fog or night conditions in order not to be detectable? That is what you do if you fly around without the transponder on. And to say it clearly once again, if you have a transponder and don’t use it (Switch it stand by or off) you are comitting a felony!
There are always those who claim that airspace is too complex for them. Well, then stay away for gods sake. Yes, there are airspaces which ARE complex but in many cases they have been made so to provide for VFR and GA to have more space to fly. In Zurich for instance, we have a pretty much upside down cake structure which allows so far to fly below it at reasonable altitudes and also to fly in and out on a almost natural vertical profile. Yet many are too lazy or complacent to understand this structure, which is why yesterday with a lot of frustration I have seen the proposal for redesign to make it “easier”. Well, if this comes then some airfields are truely up a very smelly creek as they are inside the CTR and also flying in and out of ZRH VFR will mean scud running for uncomfortably long distances because the only way to make it easier is to lower the ceiling of the outlaying airspaces to the level of the inlaying ones and make the CTR bigger. Yea, maybe you only get 4 or 5 TMA sectors instead of 15 before, but the consequences are awful!
this is the current proposal overlaid on the map of the current airspace as shown on the Aeroclubs site.
Those who know the airspace will immediately cringe. Especcially if you are based at Speck Fehraltdort, Lommis, Birrfeld or any other airfields in the area but also in ZRH itself. i.e. flying to the south where there is quite a few mountains, you have to stay below 3500 ft until you reach the foothills which are actually higher. You are forced to stay low and go through the arrival sectors of Birrfeld or Lommis where you currently can be 1000 ft above them. The result of this will be a much increased risk of collisions between GA planes as it has happened a while ago when an airplane out of ZRH stayed low and eventually collided with one approaching an airfield in that arrival sector.
Easy airspace ALWAYS means more restricted!
If this behaviour continues, the answer will be more TMZ or RMZ’s where people who do not wish to use their transponders and radios will be banned. Or more Airspace A with more buffer zone limits, which eliminates airspace we all would like to use.
So it really is up to us VFR pilots to get our act together and avoid these situations or if it does happen own up. What the regulator can and should do is approach this with just culture and common sense. Where as repeat offenders and notorious transponder, radio and GPS refusers are concerned I don’t see what one can do other than remove those dangerous people from those parts of the sky where they clearly do not belong.
Hiding is not a solution. Nor are “easy” airspaces.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Most arguments I hear why to ban GA from e.g large airports is the prejudice that GA pilots are not capable of handling the airspace and safety concerns, are not capable of proper RT and are generally a nuissance. And I am afraid, for quite a few that is true.
Have any of these people ever been to the US?
What you’re describing is actually a completely false rationalization, demonstrably proved so to anybody who has flown in the US system and seen that ‘flying as highly trained theatre’ is not the solution and that given reasonable respect and coherent airspace, normal people fly anywhere without issue.
My suggestion to the powers that be has been that it should be made clear that enforcement action will be lighter on those using VFR GPS and FMC, but the lawyers won’t have it.
It is not the lawyers (it would be natural justice after all to allow mitigating circumstances, like in any other walk of life). It is the CAA. For decades now they have been saying GPS is the work of the devil. And if you go to the “safety evenings” you still get that crowd in there. And GPS is not integrated into PPL training and probably isn’t going to be in any of our lifetimes.
anyone who infringes and does not carry a unit that provides a moving map with an airspace display and alerting function gets either fined two times the cost of such a unit, or has to buy one and submit the receipt instead.
The reality is more complex, and more complex than the stats extracted from post-bust MOR reports where the pilot writes whatever makes him look good.
Example: I have done approx 3 “busts”:
I also did a 3rd one elsewhere which was evidently not reported; that was while I was negotiating with ATC for a transit and the radio got very complicated, with somebody jumping in and reading out war and peace and ATC taking time anyway, after indicating it should be OK but they need to call ahead to check. Maybe the ambiguity was why they didn’t shop me to the CAA. This situation is not unusual for a Solent (EGHI) transit but I tend to expect it there. Neal’s report above was also in highly ambiguous circumstances too and a travesty of justice.
Also, I have flown with a number of SD users and it was evident that none of them knew how to use it fully, particularly in the airspace configuration department. These tablet products are good for IT-type people, of which there are many in GA, but not all. That is why I fly with the “real” 1:500k chart as a moving map. There is nothing to configure. I would like airspace warnings but there is no practical way to bring out the audio.
Peter wrote:
while running a moving map and watching it like a hawk, due to talking to a passenger for a couple of minutes too long
I think distraction is the biggest thing, not information. In my recent first-ever case I had a nervous passenger and ironically I was also distracted by watching nearby traffic on the moving map very closely, as opposed to an airspace boundary intended to keep me away from from non-existent military traffic. Arguably too much information, not too little, as the nearby ADS-B traffic never became a real issue.
