Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

National CAA policies around Europe on busting pilots who bust controlled airspace (and danger areas)

Peter wrote:

I have met plenty of people who were first time very minor infringers and who went straight to Gasco.

It could be that although it was very minor in terms of time/distance, it did cause a controller to vector CAT in a way that they would not otherwise have done. That would qualify for the ICG according to their criteria.

EGLM & EGTN

Peter wrote:

I would severely question that comparison

Imho, in this particular instance, the thread on Flyer is more interresting and at least as well behaved as this one.

Some contributors have been looking at the data from their very specific view point and discarded anything else as too dificult to analyse or irrelevant.

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

That’s funny since the last one was cleaned up and locked

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Xtophe wrote:

Some contributors have been looking at the data from their very specific view point and discarded anything else as too dificult to analyse or irrelevant.

The trouble is, as has been said many times, the data almost has no value at all because it is so difficult to derive any conclusion from the limited and confusing mix.

It seems unfortunate that we cant be provided with sufficient data to at least start to make some reasonable assessment as to whether the “new” regime is more, or less, effective.

It would amaze me if anybody was willing to assert that the new regime reduces infringements, given that

  • all available evidence is that activity is falling, and
  • the reporting system is being heavily improved

It would be a very poor scientific method…

As I said above, give it maybe a year, or maybe less, and then it will be possible to work out some totals for who gets which route. One cannot do it in less time because the time delay from a bust report to the CAA decision is variable, probably between 6 and 12 weeks. A large part of this in under the pilot’s control because he gets quite a bit of time to respond to the request to incriminate himself nicely report what happened. I reckon you could stretch that out to quite a few weeks.

I am certain that infringements will not be reduced by this method in the short term. In the long term a lot of people will drop out. Most Gasco delegates will spread the word and at ~20/month that is a lot of people.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter,
On the subject of evidence, the rules for a prosecution (e.g. of thugs smashing a car) and for a defence (e.g. “it wuz nae me”) are different. The prosecutor must produce robust evidence which proves her case beyond reasonable doubt. The defence only has to cast doubt.

A GPS trace from an engine monitor or tablet or whatever would create sufficient doubt to ensure an acquittal. Furthermore, any prosecution brought in the face of such evidence would fail the Full Code Test so miserably as to make an award of costs against the CAA very likely. Not that CAA IET would necessarily care – after all, it’s not their money…

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Hmmm yes of course you must be right Jacko.

FWIW I log every flight on a tablet GPS log, with a track point every 100m. The GPS it uses uses a rooftop antenna.

But the altitude is off, by some 50ft. I have to apply an offset to it when using the data for the lat/long/alt subtitles for flying videos; the offset is adjusted (in a custom SRT converter I use) so that the runway elevation is correct in the video. One could do the same correction if trying to prove something, or not apply any correction and just draw attention to the departure airport showing 100ft when it is actually 20ft.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The thing that mainly bothers me about the infringments focus, is that it seems 100% focused on the pilot and absolutely nothing else. While it is true that most infringements are going to be the result of some kind of error made by the pilot who infringed, the same thing can be said about accidents. But if (say) someone stalls a plane and crashes and dies, the AAIB report isn’t “The pilot stalled, the dumbass”. There is a whole investigation into the systemic reasons that the pilot may have stalled the plane. However, the focus on infringments seems to be doing just that, saying “pilot was a dumbass, case closed”.

No one goes out (or at least hardly anyone goes out) to deliberately infringe airspace, just as no one goes flying to deliberately crash. It’s obvious that most infringements include some kind of error made by the PIC, but why did the PIC make those errors – and I bet you’ll find many of the holes in the Swiss cheese are because of a deeply flawed system.

The recent report into UK airspace and its design highlights there are very serious systemic problems too, but are the infringement teams even looking into this?

Andreas IOM

They would say this is outside their remit.

This contains a fair few hints on how to change things, but I can’t see any of it happening, ever.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

They would say this is outside their remit

And in doing so would position themselves as little men, with little ideas, acting out a limited social role that adds little value.

Sign in to add your message

Back to Top