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Scotland Meetup - Oban EGEO 22/23 July 2017

I would be interested. Never been in UK by GA and it is short notice for me – could anyone redirect me to any summary. Thanks

EPBC

Yes, but this is from 2011 and has not been updated since. Consequentially, it is no longer on the CAA website since 2014 I believe. It does not reflect all the changes brought about by SERA.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Thomas73 wrote:

I would be interested. Never been in UK by GA and it is short notice for me – could anyone redirect me to any summary

Hi Thomas,

I’m not sure what sort of a summary you are looking for? Are you asking about the flyin, or about flying in the UK?

If the flyin, then we will just meet up at Oban EGEO airport. I plan to leave Dublin around 10am, depending on the weather, so should be there around 11:45-12:00. Then leave around lunch time the following day.

If you mean flying, then I guess it depends on whether you’re flying IFR or VFR. If VFR, then the guide linked above is very handy, even if it’s a bit out of date. But there’s not that much different. Here are a few quick differences that I can think of.

Pass your Message
When you first contact ATC, they will ask you to “Pass your Message”. A foreign pilot, will often be scratching their head wondering what exactly they want to know! Well there is a defined order for your response:
Aircraft Type,
Departure point
Destination point
Current location/altitude
Estimate for your next turning point
Nature of your request (eg request transit of controlled airspace, or type of service).

Don’t worry if you don’t get it all right, but try to get it as close to that as you can, and it will save the controller prompting you for extra details

Types of ATC service
In the rest of the world, we have a flight information service. Sometimes you’ll get traffic called to you and sometimes not.
In the UK, then have a number of different services. For you there are only two that you are likely to be interested (outside controlled airspace). A basic service or a traffic service.
A basic service basically gets you very little. You can get the latest pressure setting, ask about restricted areas etc, but not much else. In return you make little or no commitments to the controller.

The second service is a traffic service. In this case a controller will warn you about any traffic that they see that might conflict with you (assuming they can see it and they have the time to warn you). In return you agree not to change altitude without advising the controller (not you don’t need permission, you just need to let them know what you are doing). A traffic service will often be refused as the controller doesn’t have the time.

Contact/Freecall
If a controller tells you to contact someone, it means that your details have already been passed to the next ATC unit. You should need to pass little more than your callsign to the next unit. If they tell you to “Freecall” the next unit, then you will need to go through the whole “pass your message” thing to the next ATC unit.

Pressure settings
You will often be given a “Regional pressure setting”. This is a forecast QNH, and is only useful for separation from terrain. I personally think it’s dangerous to give this to traffic, but all ATC seems to do this. You will almost always be higher than the altimeter reads if you’ve it set to the regional pressure setting. If you want to keep yourself separated from a particular airspace as for the QNH rather than the regional pressure setting.

Joining an airfield
The UK have a different way of joining an airfield. In many cases, they use what’s called a standard overhead join. You can see more about it here
http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ga_srgwebStandardOverheadJoinPosterJan09.pdf
You won’t be doing one of those in Oban, and will most likely join downwind or base, but you might have to do one at some smaller airport enroute.

London
The airspace around London is quite congested. Avoid it as much as possible, and if you need to go there keep your eyes peeled! There is more GA traffic there than I’ve ever seen anywhere else in one place in Europe.

Airspace
The UK has some airspace types that you might not have seen before such as ATZ, MATZ, AIAA. They are listed in the VFR guide linked to earlier in this thread. Most you won’t need to know about unless your route actually goes through one, but ATZ is important because it’s common. Basically you can’t go into an ATZ until you’ve been able to make contact to appraise yourself of the traffic that’s inside it. You don’t need a clearance, just need to know what traffic is in there.

Customs/Immigration/Police
You’ll need to notify your arrival into the UK in advance. This is done with a GAR form.
Go to here and sign up
https//www.onlinegar.com
You want the free AOPA membership. This will allow you to submit your information in advance and give you a receipt for it.

That’s the main things. It seems like a lot, but if you know that you’ll be better prepared than most foreign pilots visiting the UK!
If you need any help planning your VFR trip, I’d be happy to help you out here, by private message or via Skype.

If you’re going IFR, then it will be a lot easier, and I’m sure others here will be able to help you out with that!

Colm

EIWT Weston, Ireland

If this wx pic holds up, it’s gonna be nice

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Thank you Colm! That’s perfect sumarry. Seems like 6-7 hours flying for me. So far the only place in Scotland I used to be is (of course) Edinburgh… It’s so interesting area that I think I should explore it …slower. I was looking for a destination for first two weeks of July, and probably find one ;) Thanks again, Tomasz

EPBC

Sorry Peter, the local forecast is poor for Friday through Monday. South Westerly, 12kts, rain, and cloud……..best to check of course, just prior to departure. It could be CAVOK

Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow

Yes; everything has changed… I especially like the transition from a cold front to a warm front which usually produces proper character-building wx

and looking at the direction of movement, it isn’t going to magically become CAVOK…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

That’s still a 5 day forecast. Nothing is sure at this point other than that won’t be the forecast the day before ;)

No need to lose hope until a bit closer to the thime

EIWT Weston, Ireland

We always live in hope!…….the weather here for the past ten days has been crap. Prior to that it has been ok, if a bit ’’localised’’.

Fly in I was going to last weekend, cancelled. Also have a pretty waterlogged grass strip, where I need to get out of.

That said, it is Western Scotland, so anything can actually happen.

Fly safe. I want this thing to land l...
EGPF Glasgow
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