Are the airspace altitudes charted as QNH or QNE?
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.
Later this year EASA are making a change and it will be an offence to operate a transponder in anything but its fullest mode.
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.
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.
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.
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 :-)
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?
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.
Surely there wouldn’t have been a problem with this incident, Peter, if you’d:
Hence the earlier-referenced discussions about terrain and airspace warning options.
An existing Easy VFR thread is here