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:
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
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 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!
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.
Alioth, I am with you on your RT sentiments. There is a segment of GA that are RT obsessed. Not sure if it is unique to the UK but is does amuse me. When I fly with one or two of these individuals, it is fun to watch them start squirming in the right seat if I have not established two way communication with a facility of some sort. I also find it amusing observing them when they are flying, getting agitated when trying to establish comms with a busy facility and cant and then when they do make contact, they have to sign off as they need to talk to ATC at destination. How can they enjoy the trip? Can’t they not just go for listening watch and enjoy the scenery? My guess is that they don't actually enjoy flying but are more taken with the image flying gives them to Joe soap on the ground. I have had a pilot in the back of the plane shout at me to stop singing because pilot in back could not get situational awareness. That made me roar with laughter. WTF. I could write a book of short stories about some of the characters I have flown with.
I last landed at Walney Island in 1999 and I have nothing to do with BAE or SAR. permission was obtained from BAE Systems and was done so (if memory is correct) as a matter of a simple telephone call.
Sometimes you can't even win. At our airfield we (the glider club) provide A/G radio when we're operating - when we can. We're a tiny club with just half a dozen active members, so quite often we can all be busy doing something else. But one particular microlight instructor kept chewing us out for not providing something like AFIS. I was too polite to tell him to just look out the bloody window (he was complaining about ground movements, mostly, which are easy to see from the circuit. Well, they would be if he flew the standard circuit, instead he flew this bizarre shaped and enormous circuit whose size was more appropriate for turbojet aircraft).
I've probably said it before but it seems to me that the UK has this bizarre obsession with R/T (up to having the R/T section on the glider pilot bronze exam needing a higher pass rate than all the other sections, despite R/T being the absolutely least important part of flying a glider).
To be honest on a nice sunny day (when I'm not crossing the Irish Sea) I prefer to talk to no one when outside of controlled airspace. I'd also agree a lot of airfields can get rid of AFIS, especially the ones who like to think they are ATC.
I'm pretty sure the CAA mandate A/G to become AFIS when a certain number of movements are exceeded. Certainly pre 2008 an airfield close to hours what hitting 60 thousand movements and the CAA were in discussion with the airfield operator about it.
I've also read on some other forum that one airfield whose movements had dropped significantly (like a third) and they had wanted to drop down to AG (they don't have any instrument approaches) but the CAA would not allow it on safety grounds.
I know this is a bit off topic but it was mentioned.
One thing I find frustrating with regard to the Walney Island and Scottish island approaches is that, although they may be published, approval is only given to SAR and specific flights.
I had a chat with the Walney FISO about that, who said that although the ILS is published, it is documented as PPR. Reason being that only SAR, Emergency and BAE aircraft are allowed to fly it.
