The re-design of Rome TMA was discussed here: http://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/3689-italy-re-designs-its-tmas#post_60638
Now they are tackling the other big class A TMA: Milan.
ENAV has published an AIC (no. 9/2015) where they announce the resdesign and state that it will become effective with AIRAC cycle 10/2015 (effective date 12th November 2015).
The main change is that those ridiculous “VFR sectors” will be deleted, so that (as per international standards) the maximum altitude at which VFR traffic can operate remaining in airspace classified “G” is determined by the lower vertical limits of each sector of TMA or CTR zones that do not start from SFC.
From a practical standpoint, unfortunately, not much will change (still class A and still huge, with extreme inconvenience for VFR Alps crossings).
Here’s the current proposal for the “new” Milan TMA:
Some notes:
-lateral dimensions seem to be unchanged, i.e. one still has to consider that TMA anywhere from the Swiss and French border, all the way to Brescia, Bologna and Genoa
-as you can see, a whopping 24 sectors!
-on the vertical side, not a lot will change. It looks this there are a couple of minor improvements for VFr traffic (so far, the lowest bits of the TMA were at 1000 feet, in the future it looks like it will be 2000 feet)
-still on a typical VFR Alps crossing via CANNE, SRN, VOG, GEN, one will still have to descend (quickly) all the way down to 2000 feet. A VFR corridor (class D or C) at FL105 or so would be great, but probably won’t happen
Will there be any benefit for the plight of Bresso LIMB?
Has nothing to do with it. Also, when these changes become effective, Expo will be over.
boscomantico wrote:
A VFR corridor (class D or C) at FL105 or so would be great, but probably won’t happen
You know what bugs me? It used to exist! There was a CVFR transit route SRN-VOG-GEN at FL105/115 available which made the whole thing a lot easier. Unfortunately it disappeared just like that.
The other thing: Yes, so far, lower limits were 1000 AGL, now they are 2000 MSL?
At least now their highly irregular VFR sectors in Airspace A disappear so finally they have a normally structured airspace. Yet, they missed the chance to really do a proper change and get rid of the Airspace A and replace it by D/C as just about everyone else does in Europe. Pity. Like that, TMA Milano will still be a major reason for Swiss (and other) GA Pilots to get at least an EIR.
The Class A situation has been a thorn here for too long.
Do Italian airspace designers make any effort to listen to the issues faced by non-instrument rated pilots and attempt to reclassify parts to Class C or below?
If not, what are pilots and their representative organizations doing?
AOPA Italy has always had a rather weak AOPA (I guess you in the UK will know something about that 
).
Recently, they have improved and their current leader is definitely a “good man”. But their membership base is now very small (this has reasons, too) and so is their leverage.
They’ve had their share of “successes” in recent years (even though when that happens, the people in italian GA always fight about whose success exactly it was). Most notably:
-cancellation of the luxury tax for visitors
-redesign of the airspace in the italian northeast
-reduction of other CTRs
-lowering of fire protection requirements at small airfields
I am sure they are working on the case of the Milan TMA (much more than in the case of Rome, because AOPA is based in Milan and is generally very Milan-centric in their actions).
The AIRAC AMDT containing the new Milan TMA has been published today. And there is some good news:
Many (15 out of 24) sectors of the new TMA will, as of 12/11/15, be class D, and not class A.
The less good news is that many of the very central sectors of the TMA (lower Lombardy) are still class A.
Let’s have a look in detail. Here’s the schematic map of the TMA again:
And here is the legend of the new VFR chart:
So: many sectors are now class D, in particular the southerly and easterly parts of the TMA which can thus be used by VFR traffic, subject to clearance.
Pilots coming over the Alps (let’s say via Gottard) will however still have to descend most of the way, down to 2000/3000 feet upon reaching the plains, no matter what. What is indeed very unfortunate is the shape of the various sectors. Look closely at sectors 2 and 14 for example. These are class A (even though the surrounding ones are mostly D), thus blocking north-south passages at FL95 and above, for anywhere between west of Turin and Lake Garda!
The pilots over at the italian forum are cheerful, but honestly, most of them have not studied the details too well.
Thanks for info! If I may ask: which/what is “the” Italian forum referred to?
(and, to be honest, it still does look like an incredible mess, I can’t bring myself to work out the implications for myself/my plane. If ever I go and fly there I’ll declare myself “basico” and make do with the associated limitations – but there is no hurry … so many other nice places to fly to, with no such complications/embarassments)
boscomantico wrote:
Pilots coming over the Alps (let’s say via Gottard) will however still have to descend most of the way, down to 2000/3000 feet upon reaching the plains, no matter what. What is indeed very unfortunate is the shape of the various sectors. Look closely at sectors 2 and 14 for example. These are class A (even though the surrounding ones are mostly D), thus blocking north-south passages at FL95 and above, for anywhere between west of Turin and Lake Garda!
you hit the nail on the head. All that this did is to at some extent adapt the status quo ante to a normal airspace classification, that is the VFR sectors in A now become D as they should have been years ago. The “A Barrier” in the Milan area is still the same, not much has changed. The 2000 ft lower A limit in Lombardia, Oltrepo and the 3000 ft in Iseo are enough to ruin any reasonable routing from the Gotthard area towards Genova, as before.
These are the current barrier of “low flying areas” for VFR, Red is 2000 ft, orange 3000 ft, yellow 4500 ft and pink 5500 ft lower limit of the “A” airspace. Pardon me for the very dirty shading but where I am I only have Windows Paint…
The next thing I have to point out is that this structure is ridiculously complex and will almost invite airspace violations. It is even worse than some others which have been criticized, a lot worse in my opinion. The “upside down wedding cake” principle can hardly be reckognized here.
This is a totally missed chance to fundamentally change the system, do away with A and assume a reasonable and customer friendly airspace structure which a “normal” pilot will fly around in without having to bury his head on the GPS screed to make sure he doesn’t bust anything. It appears that the conservative forces in that airspace design team prevailed and were able to keep their anti VFR stance largely intact. And I wonder how much of the A to D coverted spaces were because someone came with a gun and told them they HAD to do it.
Yes, there are improvements in the fringe areas but the main problem is unchanged. The Milan TMA is still something best flown in IFR.
@Jan
Sorry for reporting back late. The main italian GA forum (mostly ultralighters) is www.vfrflight.net
@MD
I agree on the degree of complexity and the risk of airspace violations, or at least total confusion on the frequency. Immagine “n12345 negative, there is a five-mile wide bit of class A on this requested routing, but if you fly further to the west, descend to 4000 and later climb at FL100, then is it possible”…
What is more probable though is that they will downright refuse any drossings of the D where it gets “complicated”…
