Being in the ATZ makes it mandatory to be in contact with ATC, overriding normal class G rules.
It isn’t quite so strict because an aircraft flying straight through the ATZ i.e. within its radius and below 2000ft AAL, cannot (apparently) be prosecuted unless something else happens.
Whereas if you bust CAS, they can definitely go after you.
Lots of pilots ignore ATZs and fly through them, through IAPs, etc.
Personally, I think the UK’s entire The Rules of the Air Regulations 2015 is ultra vires, but I’m not sure I’d want to test that in a UK court.
Why do you think @bookworm? Is it that the EU over-rules it?
I am having difficulty locating Schedule 13.
I used to depart Inverness EGPE with permission on Sunday mornings when it opened at 11.30. It’s still in Class G airspace, but opens early and “Out of hours” is no longer permitted.
ATZ busts certainly can get prosecuted, and as far as I can tell the process is not much different from CAS bust – i.e., “reeducation” for the remorseful and prosecution for the mouthy.
The main difference is probably that the discovery and reporting rate is a bit lower. CAS with a radar unit can easily track the “offender” to their destination, and has internal rules requiring them to do so. A Class G tower only has a “traffic awareness display”, if at all, and an AFIS unit only has eyeballs.
Many airports have an out of hours indemnity waver scheme. So long as you have signed up to it and notify your out of hours departure or arrival it is no problem. A few years ago we were operating out of Coventry when the airfield was closed.
Some years ago I departed (without seeking permission) from a full-ATC airport in Class G airspace after it had closed for the day.
The reason was to recover the aircraft, which was effectively being held hostage by a maintenance organisation that I believe was under the same overall control as the airfield operator.
Consensus in our syndicate was that ATC had probably been briefed on the maintenance disagreement and any attempt to depart during opening hours would have been met with a refusal to issue taxi clearance.
We never heard anything more, and although they must have realised what we’d done they may have struggled to prove it. I left it late enough (just before sunset in mid-June) that there was definitely no-one around to see it. They also knew that we had quite a lot of dirt on them regarding failure to comply with the CAMO rules, so perhaps they elected to just leave it.
I’ve just read somewhere, a statement by an airline pilot, in connection with this, that there is a long history of airports blocking an aircraft physically, because it is not actually illegal to taxi and take off, if the radio is turned off.
It would amaze me if this is true. It would have a dramatic impact on the ability to recover one’s plane from an airport which has shut down / gone bust, trapping planes there.
Presumably if you did it at night, with runway lights off, the CAA could bust you for “reckless endangerment” or the equivalent in whatever country.
