AFIS is just part of the growing "Groundling" problem,non flying people who take a living and add cost without value to General aviation in the UK.AFIS operatives are trained to a very low level and have very little to offer.Sadly the CAA seem to promote their use virtually insisting on their provision at some UK airfields if the airfields management are too weak to resist the pressure.The highest salary for an AFIS operative I ,ve seen yet is £32k p.a. for a 4 day week.Thats a lot of money we aviators have to generate in airfield fees for a service that adds nothing of value or arguably decreases safety compared to A/G service.VBR Stampe.
I think many of us are aware of what feel like amateurish and shabby proceedures in UK when contrasted with the US. However I suspect this one has deeper roots.
One reason that Unicom works so well in the US is that when a pilot gives a position report he is likely to be where he says he is. This in turn is due to the use of the 45 deg join and compact, standardised patterns. Contrast that with the bizarre meandering 'circuits' of so many UK airports and the fact that instructors are often the worst offenders, probably because they are afraid of serial complainers.
So my point is that the US system works well in a world with few complainers. Here, a FISO can often provide a useful service interpreting pilot calls that can have a huge error margin due to "avoid the white house" or "South of the B473" type instructions in the flight guide.
Not to say that justifies their existence!
It's a lot of money though to employ a FISO when most airfields with AFIS are PPR - information about noise abatement can be given when someone requests PPR for a darned sight less money. Otherwise, what's the point of PPR?
I guess it's not just whether their value is questionable, but whether their presence actually reduces safety by inhibiting air to air communications and/or giving some pilots a false sense of security such that they are less vigilant and situationally aware....
The logic seems to be low traffic - no ground radio, a bit more traffic - Air/Ground operator, a bit more traffic and/or commercial - FISO....added to this the UK requirement for FISO (as a minimum) for an instrument approach....all sounds very sensible...unless you start really thinking about human factors...it amazed me reading the Airprox articles that despite the common denominator being FISO, not one of the commentators raised it as a possible cause
I don't disagree with your drift, Anthony, but the "FISO common denominator" could equally be that a very large chunk of the UK GA community boycotts airfields that charge more than [insert your landing fee figure - usually about £10] and most of those will be non-ATC.
The airfields I know of where I found absolute mayhem were all FISO staffed. I don't like to fly to any of them on a sunny weekend, which is when most activity takes place.
There are several things that work against sorting this:
