Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Looking for an old UK CAA VFR chart (UK post CAS infringement procedure)

The CAA has published this local copy on the infringement procedure. However it doesn’t help with the question of what happens to foreign pilots.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I was at a local infringement meeting recently.

15% percent of airspace busts of one airfield close to where I am based are by foreign registered aircraft. Which for the number of hours flown that they represent must make them a very high proportion.

The representative there wanted to dust over this as quickly as possible but someone there wouldn’t let them. He then revealed that they report such infringements to the appropriate national aviation authority that the aircraft is registered to. And then leave it to them to deal with. .

The same person also suggested some reasons why they represent such a large proportion of busts eg our confusing airspace which isn’t joined up and perhaps we should have one common appearance /legend for all VFR maps throughout Europe. But of course this as well as all the other suggestions pur forward by the audience were ignored.

15% percent of airspace busts of one airfield close to where I am based are by foreign registered aircraft.

Loads of visiting aircraft bust CAS because they get dropped by London Control (Eurocontrol IFR flight) more or less as soon as they are into Class G, and they don’t know that their IFR clearance has been silently cancelled.

In recent years, LC started telling people to remain OCAS, but I have noticed that they no longer use the phrase now.

One could argue that a pilot should be airspace-class-aware at all times but that is not how IFR works in most of the world where GA is active, especially in the arrival phase where you have an IFR clearance, implicit all the way to the destination. In the non-towered departure case you get this issue potentially anywhere – apart from the USA where you have the clearance-void system – until you can raise the right sort of unit on the radio. You have to remain VMC and OCAS – a dangerous phase of flight.

I am however surprised it is just 15% because much more than 15% of “A-B active” GA in the UK is N-reg.

He then revealed that they report such infringements to the appropriate national aviation authority that the aircraft is registered to. And then leave it to them to deal with. .

That is per ICAO; standard procedure.

But of course this as well as all the other suggestions pur forward by the audience were ignored.

Politics is the art of the possible Nationalist / national sovereignity issues rule in Europe. Airspace will never be unified.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I am however surprised it is just 15% because much more than 15% of “A-B active” GA in the UK is N-reg.

Local flights are probably good infringement contenders, they tend to involve less diligent planning than an A-B flight, no?

Did you call ATC after your bust? I’m surprised you had to do the test, I busted twice class A (once in an IFR A → G → A) and a quick phonecall on the ground ended the matter with no further issue at all.

I think the “Gold Standard” is quickly fading away, as a primary means it’s just plain worse than an electronic version. Some examiners seem to agree that they are not needed / accept not flying with them, and on my aforementioned phonecalls, I never mentioned having (I didn’t) or using them, and was never asked about it.

I do have the UK one in Garmin Pilot, but not sure I’ll buy it in the future. The one in SkyDemon (I only have tried GP and FF, not the others), is good enough.

FWIW warnings from the tablet / phone via bluetooth work really well (and I also get terrain). You can even disable them for the planned route so you don’t get false alerts when flying IFR.

Last Edited by Noe at 02 Aug 07:47

We were also told that when an aircraft infringes the ATC software reports it and the controller now has to report it. (I think he said the controller gets repremanded if he doesn’t – but I’m not 100 percent sure)

With this in mind I now report ever time I get refused a zone transit.

I think if you bust some smaller airport airspace then a phone call will work – or better still an apology to ATC on the radio. But if you bust NATS-run airspace, say the LTMA, they activate a very fast one-way process, make the (de facto) “prosecution or not” decision fast and there is nothing a phone call will do (yes I called them; they asked for that initially) and they just say they are reporting you to the CAA etc.

I agree the most likely bust case is an unplanned flight, but some of the biggest ones have been planned flights where the pilot deviated from the plan to “take a look” at something… If you stick to a plan and monitor CAS on a moving map GPS like a hawk, a bust should be very hard to do. However such a flight is also hard work and much easier on autopilot.

I am not sure all UK CAS has the automatic bust detection. I am sure the LTMA has got it but maybe not the smaller Class D places. Also with Class D you might have a clearance (so there is more work for the reporter to do) but with Class A you cannot.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

One of mine was the LTMA, but I guess there’s not much point discussing as we won’t really know the workings of their machine! I bust airspace 3 times, (2 UK, 1 in France many year ago, I watched the post for a long time since apparently Orly had to cancel some approaches (long story, which I think I told once here)), and never got any sort of prosecution, so I was actually only trying to find indicators if calling and be really apologetic / try to explain worked. Sounds like not always!

@Peter did your licence get suspended when you failed the test? According to CAP1404, “Normally, pilot licences will be provisionally suspended when a pilot
declines to undertake a remedial measure or fails a remedial measure.”

We're glad you're here
Oxford EGTK

Peter wrote:

Loads of visiting aircraft bust CAS because they get dropped by London Control (Eurocontrol IFR flight) more or less as soon as they are into Class G, and they don’t know that their IFR clearance has been silently cancelled.

Only the PIC can cancel IFR, which actually may be refused by ATC some times near a CTR, or am I wrong? How can London Control just cancel their IFR silently?

ESME, ESMS

Charlie, no, of course not. As I stated, I did the ground school option. You may get it suspended when you refuse to do the final option (one of 3) or fail to do it within the time frame. They write to you saying this:

Otherwise, the vast majority of the 1000 cases a year would have almost immediately suspended licenses…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top