It is all Class G, too. Class G ATZs are busted all day long. What was the penalty?
I contested it and three weeks later get a letter that said ‘….The authority now looks on this as closed’.
I departed Thruxton, runway 25, for an IFR join at SAM. Thruxton, helpfully arranged with Southampton, and gave me a squawk, route towards Chillbolton and the normal ‘Remain outside controlled airspace’.
Having used Thruxton many times, this was the first time to be given a left turnout, all previous departures from 25 have been a right turnout. With the normal higher work load at the beginning of an IFR flight I missed the existence of the ATZ because I had planned for a Right turnout. I accept that this was poor airmanship and should have departed direct to the East, or not carried the Southampton squawk immediately, and called Boscombe first.
I sent the two images down loaded of the actual track from an iPad, and a panel mounted GPS with external Antenna, and both agree that I was very close but not infringing Middle Wallop ATZ.
After giving me a clearance Southampton very nicely (I mean nicely) told me that MW would be filing a MOD for infringing. What is the best time to advise a pilot of this? I’m glad Southampton told me because I could ensure I had the tracks, but it is also a bad time just going IMC and as the flight was to Avignon its on your mind, and the passenger is probably thinking what am I doing here.
@Timothy, while the analogy with road traffic speed enforcement should not be overemphasised, do you think that the CAA ought to publish clear and detailed guidance on enforcement thresholds along the lines of NPCC (formerly ACPO) policy on speed enforcement?.
Should any such thresholds take account of an “infringer’s” transponder/ADSB electronic conspicuity settings/emissions?
France works the same way as Germany (see post #66) .
In France, our VFR FIS sectors have a radar view, and they do an excellent job at preventing airspace busts
The only airspace bust I’ve seen reported in years involved a VFR traffic switching off the transponder after he realised its bust and exited the CTR with the shortest route.
P-area are monitored by the military and busts are unlikely to go unnoticed.
Many thanks @Guillaume.
I have this info for the UK:
…it would be 3nm laterally and/or 3,000ft vertically, and if I recall correctly also with the caveat that the returns must never be allowed to touch.
Historically it was 5nm and/or 5,000ft (and no touching) but it was decided rather pragmatically that that was excessive, so in an effort to reduce the amount of disruption caused in busier airspace the ‘bubble’ was reduced to the lower figure…
I have this info for Belgium:
…in Belgium you need to stay clear at least 5 nm from unidentified objects in controlled airspace. No use in using vertical separation because mode C is unverified. If the mode C was previously verified by another unit then you can use 1000’ vertical separation…
It would thus appear that France and Germany consider a loss of separation at 1000ft/3nm, while Belgium uses 5nm and does not make any use of an unverified Mode C altitude.
And the UK is the strictest at declaring an official loss of separation at 3000ft/3nm. That 3000ft pretty well ensures that anyone busting CAS from underneath will cause an official loss of separation situation way before they trigger an RA.
Moreover, vast (if undocumented) evidence suggests the UK is much hotter than anywhere else for going after the infringers, with a 100% rate currently being applied around the LTMA. But short of doing an FOIA request nobody will know for sure.
What I don’t have is an overview of when ATC get pro-active and start vectoring airliners around, when someone busts that unit’s CAS. Obviously this will be done way before you reach the loss of separation criteria. I have a vague recollection of reading something years ago that UK ATC commence this process at 5000ft/15nm, although from recent info there are no hard rules for this; it is the ATCOs discretion and obviously if e.g. the bust is behind the airliner then it is a lot less relevant.
The “problem” for the infringer is that IF the subsequent enforcement action depends on whether ATC did commence any pro-active action (whether it is vectoring, or just passing traffic info to the airliner) such a 5000ft/15nm spacing (if indeed that is correct) will more or less guarantee that any bust of any UK Class A is going to land him in much hotter water than if he busted completely empty airspace. It is obvious from FR24 that there is be somebody within 5000ft/15nm almost anywhere. You can draw your own conclusion as to the result: the server for the CAA tutorial and the dodgy exam getting busy, and booking.com getting equally busy around the infringements classroom locations 
Peter wrote:
You can draw your own conclusion as to the result: the server for the CAA tutorial and the dodgy exam getting busy, and booking.com getting equally busy around the infringements classroom locations
Sounds very familiar. I’ve never known anybody personally to be fined for airspace infringement in the US, and only vague rumors of mandatory training but…. in my area, there is a very healthy business in ‘traffic schools’ taught by retired policeman. The court charges the entire fine as ‘bail’, plus an extra processing fee, so they make money on the deal. And the retired policeman and friend of the court makes good money.
The business is built on the court’s legal authority to hide your driving record from the insurance companies if you attend the school. When that law was originally put into place, the court would drop the fine entirely but they soon figured out that people would still choose the school to save money on insurance over several years, even if they took the fine and more. Yes, it’s coercion, recognized by everybody as such but power is power, and the court has it.
Radar separation minimum depends on radar hardware / software (among other things). It varies from 3nm /1000ft (reduced to 2.5 nm when established on the localizer) to up to 8nm / 1000ft in France.
LeSving wrote:
But there is a huge contradiction here. Flying VFR you are supposed to look outside, not bury your head in a pad while avoiding airspaces.
This works in some parts of Europe but is an illusion in others where airspaces are manyfold and witout much tolerance between. In many places, moving maps are essential to keep out of trouble. The only way to safely avoid this is basically to take a LARGE detour around these airspaces if you really want to fly without a moving map.
I would fly without an mm in places where there is nothing in terms of airspaces within 10 NM of my track, but that exists in very few places now. Airspace mazes like in Switzerland, Italy or France are simply too challenging for many pilots.
Frankly, I hope that with the upcoming BIR the situation will change in the direction that more people will simply stop flying VFR and go IFR for starters in such regions. That was one of the things I always felt the EIR was useful for as well.
Let’s get rid of the bad pilots
Ha! I pointed that article out when I came across it almost a decade ago. To this date, barely any existing complex airspace boundaries in the UK have been revised, and noise continues to remain in the NOTAM system.
That said, UK AIS has been in the process of being cleaned up, such that Skydemon charts are looking much less messy at higher altitudes (due to CTAs replacing overlapping AWYs).
