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

Are the airspace altitudes charted as QNH or QNE?

KUZA, United States

QNH.

That of course raises an interesting Q: whose QNH?

In theory, flying in that area, ahem, arguably, you are supposed to dial the EGKK (the airspace owner there) ATIS and set that. In practice, anyone doing a local out of say EGKA will stay on that QNH. I believe ATC allow you 200ft before they file a report, although EGKK will be on the phone to EGKA if they see a target with an EGKA TXP code which is 50ft over.

So if you are doing a cross country flight in the UK, you need to call up various units enroute and get their QNH. Or, if flying non-radio, stay way below the CAS base.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Later this year EASA are making a change and it will be an offence to operate a transponder in anything but its fullest mode.

Last Edited by Bathman at 29 Jul 21:34

Here.

However, presumably, a legal workaround will be a faulty altitude encoder. Or, of course, no transponder at all.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

No.

Yes. It’s called CHIRP. Back in the days when it was printed, it was even printed on the same blue paper with the same kind of style as the US NASA reports.

https://www.chirp.co.uk/

Unfortunately I don’t think it grants the limited immunity that the NASA report grants (e.g. if the CAA has found out about your infraction by some other means), but it is confidential and “fessing up” to CHIRP won’t get you in trouble.

Last Edited by alioth at 31 Jul 13:00
Andreas IOM

It doesn’t give you immunity; that’s what I meant. Sure, you can file an MOR or CHIRP etc. But most people won’t bother, and especially won’t file anything if they did something which they think they will get busted for. You never know for sure whether you got caught on radar, and even if ATC spoke to you, you don’t ever know for sure if a report will be filed and acted on.

That said, I have been told (not by a lawyer) that if the CAA invites you to fill in a form saying what you did, they can’t prosecute you afterwards, because they invited you to incriminate yourself. The CAA disagrees with that (evidently from their website) but it would make sense, and if it is true it means the decision whether to prosecute or not is de facto taken at a very early stage, doubtless by the very first official person you come into contact with.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

That said, I have been told (not by a lawyer) that if the CAA invites you to fill in a form saying what you did, they can’t prosecute you afterwards, because they invited you to incriminate yourself. The CAA disagrees with that

Perhaps this is why the CAA loses the majority of the cases that are contested :-)

Andreas IOM

Surely there wouldn’t have been a problem with this incident, Peter, if you’d:

1) Assuming you were VFR, talked to Farnborough East, even on Basic – they would have given you the relevant QNH, and almost certainly, having identified you, would have warned about the TMA.

2) Using Sky Demon would have given you very noticeable visual warnings (impossible to ignore) getting close to the TMA. In addition, of course, NOTAM would be displayed, and if you’d invested £5/month on a sim card, up-to-date weathers, NOTAM, VFR plates for the majority of airfields. Does Easy VFR offer this?

Swanborough Farm (UK), Shoreham EGKA, Soysambu (Kenya), Kenya

2greens1red wrote:

2) Using Sky Demon would have given you very noticeable visual warnings (impossible to ignore) getting close to the TMA. In addition, of course, NOTAM would be displayed, and if you’d invested £5/month on a sim card, up-to-date weathers, NOTAM, VFR plates for the majority of airfields. Does Easy VFR offer this?

I know the question wasn’t directed to me, but I’ll answer it none the less.

Yes, EasyVFR offers all this. In addition with EasyVFR NOTAMs are synced across devices. So you can do your NOTAM briefing on your PC for example, and those notams you hide (or collapse) are hidden (or collapsed) on your mobile device too.

Weather briefing is more comprehensive on EasyVFR, with hour by hour forecast available, for up to 72 hours.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Surely there wouldn’t have been a problem with this incident, Peter, if you’d:

  • Farnborough would have had to have been really quick on the radio because the whole thing took just 2 mins (I checked the logged GPS track). Probably a listening watch on the Gatwick frequency and a squawk would be better, but one doesn’t normally plan to bust CAS
  • I can’t hear any ex-tablet airspace warnings in flight (the headset is too good); one needs a connection to the aircraft intercom. As mentioned earlier in the thread, someone I know does it via bluetooth direct to his headset. It could also be done via a 3.5mm cable to the audio-in of the Bose A20 but that’s tacky.

Hence the earlier-referenced discussions about terrain and airspace warning options.

An existing Easy VFR thread is here

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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