Why has noise abatement for the public become a consideration, why do we only not have to upset those who are social distancing and not everyone else, and how can we be in the circuit as high as possible, ten miles away not below 1000ft…..
It is crazy. Everyone packed in the circuit, stacked up between 1000ft and 2200ft under the LTMA 
Buzzing around and with loads of Joe Publics hearing all the little planes having a lot of fun and complaining to their local journos.
This has the footprint of “we must not upset Joe Public” all over it, which is totally understandable, and any pilot flying now will be doing that anyway, but the way to do it is to get out of the airfield area ASAP, fly 50-100nm away at a decent altitude, say 4000ft+, fly back and land, as quietly as possible. This is no doubt why e.g. Shoreham’s guidance (posted further back) prohibits circuits, which makes complete sense. But now the CAA wants everybody to fly circuits!
I thought this was appropriate
However, this result is an example of each GA “organisation” pushing the CAA for “guidance”, so the CAA sure enough did come up with “guidance”. And now each “organisation” can claim credit for having negotiated this “guidance”.
Jujupilote wrote:
Welcome to the world of incompetent over-regulation !
It certainly does read like complete nonsense, both in the need to be so specific and the specifics themselves. A complete waste of effort that will promote discussion that expands the waste much more. Carrying these people around is a huge burden.
Sounds a bit like what Hawaii just announced: „Beaches are closed, surfing allowed, sunbathing not allowed, swimming allowed, picnic forbidden.“
Rwy20 wrote:
Sounds a bit like what Hawaii just announced: „Beaches are closed, surfing allowed, sunbathing not allowed, swimming allowed, picnic forbidden.“
That sounds basically rational to me – nobody gets too close swimming or surfing. That said, I think the best approach is just to close beach parking lots and leave it at that. It eliminates the crowd fairly effectively.
So avoid vast expanses of beach where isolation is easy, and cram people onto narrow pavements (sidewalks) and other populated urban and residential areas instead?
(N.B. Genuine question. I have no knowledge of regulations in Hawaii)
Have you ever been to a public beach? Isolation is not exactly in evidence.
Surfers don’t get too close to each other because it messes them up. Swimmers are invariably solo.
I still think closing the parking lots and stopping at that is generally the better idea. There is rarely anywhere near the beach to park a car, few want to walk far, and that eliminates the crowds. The crowds normally on the beach do not generally live near the beach, although in areas where many hotels are near that might not be true.
Jujupilote wrote:
Welcome to the world of incompetent over-regulation !
This is stuff of Alexis de Tocqueville’s soft despotism from his chapter on “what sort of despotism democratic nations have to fear.”
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
de Tocqueville, Alexis. (1840). Democracy In America, vol II, book 4, ch 6. Trans. Reeve, H. New York, Colonial Press. (link).
MattL wrote:
Each flight should be at the highest practical height to minimise to the noise impact on members of the public maintaining social distancing, and not below 1,000ft AGL except for take-off, approach and landing. If the engine manufacturer’s instructions indicate that the engine only needs to be run at idle or at low power whilst on the ground and no other essential maintenance is required, then no flight may be performed.
This is completely obvious as an exercise of someone who is scared more of the reaction of local noise complainers than actually caring for the engine health. The whole regulation is totally crazy and pretty much unusable.
We had huge discussions in Switzerland about the fact that quite some airports are open to GA while others have shut down in “solidarity”. There has been quite some activity VFR and some fun flights such as two which followed the Swiss border in an SR22 and two days later a Mooney 231.
The above flight was commented upon in a Swiss tabloid with actually quite favorable comments.
In the initial phase of the shutdown here it was communicated both by the FOCA and Aeroclubs that apart from forbidden activities (eg. flight training, flights with people outside the own household for obvious reasons) a general ban was NOT enforced, yet flying was discouraged out of solidarity to all the other activities which had to be banned. It is difficult to make it clear to those who were the problem in this that they are told to stay home and any increased risk was to be avoided and then see and hear airplanes fly for “fun”. Either nobody has fun or the whole thing won’t work was the appeal. In some ways I understand that even, particularly as any 2 wheel activities (bicycles and particularly motorbikes) were directly addressed, because they generate nasty accidents in this time of the year, as does GA unfortunately when people brush off the winter dust. Following this and also considering the fact that airfields do attract spectator crowds which does not correspond to the “stay home” campaingn, many popular airfields have shut down their operations.
By now however it appears that the effect of the lockdown starts to be quite visible and there has been an understanding by the people that this is not something the government has done to piss them off but out of necessity. The more people follow the hygiene rules, the less it is necessary to use brute force approaches. Those who do not conform or still pretend it’s all a hoax or conspiracy and misbehave, are quickly put into place by the rest of the public or the police. The more that the “new normal” starts to work, the more it is possible again to do things which were restricted before. GA activity is part of this and I guess at the end of the month when the first relaxations of the lockdown will become active, we will also see airports now shut re-open for some business.
Unfortunately the “school trip mentality” sometimes breeds pretty weird flowers.
Is there any legal basis for this absurd “instruction” from our CAA? If not how can it beenforced?
Mooney_Driver wrote:
fun flights such as two which followed the Swiss border in an SR22 and two days later a Mooney 231.
How long does such a flight take ? In Norway, even in a jet it would take what? 5-6-7 hours?
