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UK CAA heel dragging on GPS approaches, including LPV, and approaches with no ATC, and CAP1122

If GPS is accurate enough to take me to 200 feet I’m sure it’s more accurate than an NDB! If you have WAAS for the approach surely you also have it on the missed?

Darley Moor, Gamston (UK)

Neil wrote:

If GPS is accurate enough to take me to 200 feet I’m sure it’s more accurate than an NDB! If you have WAAS for the approach surely you also have it on the missed?

The question is not what the equipment is capable of. The question is what it is certified for and how the whole “system” is set up. According to the PPL/IR PBN manual (which I tend to trust) missed approaches require only 1 NM 95% accuracy.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Status of UK RNAV approaches

Does anyone know what the status of the various proposed RNAV approaches in the UK is?

http://www.caa.co.uk/Commercial-industry/Airspace/Airspace-change/Decisions/Permanent-airspace-change-proposals-under-the-old-process/ seems to show a long list of proposed RNAV approaches, going all the way back to 2014. Clicking into the various proposals there seems to have been no tangible progress since 2015 or 2016.

I have seen more RNAV approaches popping up in Malaysia and Indonesia than in the UK…

Wolfgang

EGTF, EGLK, United Kingdom

That’s a fair summary.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Essentially, the UK CAA is much better at thinking why a new approach should not be permitted than why it should.

But we are told not to worry, they now have bow-ties.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Timothy wrote:

Essentially, the UK CAA is much better at thinking why a new approach should not be permitted than why it should.

But we are told not to worry, they now have bow-ties.

They are paid (by us) to come up with ways to prevent anything happening. Whereas I would have thought a better way of going about it is to say, how do we make this happen. I live in hope. It’s a bit like the Mafia, you pay to get into the system and you pay again if you want something positive to happen.

EGLK, United Kingdom

I think that that’s a bit unfair. They are judged if there is an accident resulting from something they have done, but not if nothing changes.

So, in this example, if they allow a CAP1122 approach into an airfield and someone descends on it and collides with another aircraft, then it’s the CAA’s fault for approving the procedure.

However, if someone crashes into trees trying to get in visually, because there is no approach, as happened recently in Dunkeswell and Chalgrove, then it is entirely the pilot’s fault and the CAA cannot be blamed.

Thus there is pressure on the CAA to approve nothing.

That there have been no civilian collisions in IMC outside controlled airspace ever, yet people crashing into the ground trying to land in poor weather and killing themselves and their families is pretty much an annual event doesn’t seem to play in the argument, which is all about who “owns” the risk. It is clearly better for the CAA if the pilot is responsible for the risk.

However, the point becomes moot with the latest version of GTN software, which gives everyone an LPV into every runway. That is a way for the pilot to own the risk, and yet have a safer approach than scud running, so it becomes win-win.

EGKB Biggin Hill

if they allow a CAP1122 approach into an airfield and someone descends on it and collides with another aircraft, then it’s the CAA’s fault for approving the procedure.

I am not sure CAP1122 is the problem. IMHO the reasons why so few new approaches are being done in the UK is because each one costs the airfield about 30k (per runway end) and this has to be recovered via new IFR traffic (damn unlikely, frankly).

There are very few candidates.

Redhill is one, has full ATC, but in GA’s dog-eat-dog situation Biggin Hill blocks any moves to improve Redhill so it could support an IAP!

Shoreham’s LPV application is another. The application has been stuck for ~2 years in the CAA which AIUI argues that there is no 5.5. degree LPV elsewhere.

Not many others in the UK.

As regards the CAA’s liability, an CAP1122, as everybody knows I enjoy taking the pi$$ out of the anality of ar$e-covering officialdom (of which e.g. ISO9000 is just one in a million worthless manifestations) so I agree with you Timothy that that is the probable reality inside the CAA.

But it is nonsense, because if the correct procedure is followed by the CAA i.e. a risk assessment carried out IAW with the law, then the CAA is not liable for the accident. Otherwise, a logical conclusion must be that the CAA is liable for every aviation accident – because they “own” the air, its rules, they issued the pilot’s license, more importantly they licensed the school and the FIs who trained him, they pay the salary of the FE who did the IRT for his IR, etc, etc.

This is how it works in industry: Let’s say there is a cabinet full of electrical equipment. In the goode olde days if something packed up, you sent a man down there, he would open the door, troubleshoot it, and fix it. Today, if the voltage exceeds some value, you have to do a risk assessment before the door can be opened. But once you do that, if the man sticks a finger on each hand into some terminal block with 3kV on it and gets fried, the company has NO liability provided the correct procedures were followed. Any any residual liability (arguing that one exists is what 75.3% of lawyers do for a living ) is covered by insurance…. which, hey, is valid only if the correct procedures were followed.

So the real issue must be that the CAA has nobody competent, or nobody who is willing to take responsibility for making any big decision.

the point becomes moot with the latest version of GTN software, which gives everyone an LPV into every runway. That is a way for the pilot to own the risk, and yet have a safer approach than scud running, so it becomes win-win.

Actually, many pilots don’t want to fly DIY IAPs (with no controller) because of the high % of “pilots” who deliberately fly with no transponder or with it turned off. Bizjet pilots mostly won’t touch them. Not just in the UK… abroad there are large GA communities which fly below the radar. And it is going to get worse – see e.g. this.

Would I want to fly a DIY IAP into e.g. Stapleford? I would be suicidal to do that.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

In the case of a scud-running accident as mentioned, is there no way for someone to place partial responsibility on the CAA for not improving safety by providing an approach? Don’t they have a safety improvement mandate where they could be shown to be negligent?

LSZK, Switzerland

I think the heel-dragging in IAPs without ATC and IAPs without a published procedure (which implies the former, because an approach controller cannot clear a flight onto an IAP which doesn’t exist ) is not just the CAA, but also many other groups, with ATC being the first in line because they obviously want to safeguard their jobs. ATC have powerful unions.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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