Graham wrote:
what happened with regard to the Stansted Class D stub that was in your path?
I would also be interested to know. Most of my flying is into and out of North Weald, which is just a few miles from Stapleford, and sits under the Stansted CTA the base of which is 1500 ft.
Inbound from the north, the routing is generally to leave CAS (base 2500 ft) on track BPK, which allows for further descent to 1200 ft (below the Stansted CTA and circuit altitude for North Weald. As was the case yesterday returning from East Midlands EGNX:
I have on one occasion been cleared by Luton ATC to leave CAS by descent on track North Weald (i.e. the magenta line on the above image) and to freecall destination. This can result in temporarily leaving CAS and re-entering it at the Stansted CTA. That flight was with an examiner and we both identified the potential trap and clarified the instruction. The response was an informal “yes it’s fine”, but there was no instruction to change to a Stansted frequency. It seemed counter-intuitive to fly in CAS but not be speaking to the airspace controller. The examiner took control and got us down and away from the CTA.
Had he not taken action, keeping the IFR discrete squawk would possibly mean that we would have been filtered out by the software that identified infringements.
But in the case of pilotrobbie, he was instructed to drop his IFR squawk and freecall Stapleford.
keeping the IFR discrete squawk would possibly mean that we would have been filtered out by the software that identified infringements.
Yes I think that is exactly how CAIT works. It has to look for particular squawks because “the system” doesn’t know what exact clearance you have.
“Luton/Essex Radar” manages both Luton CTA & Stansted CTA in 1500ft-3500ft band as well as the 2500ft-3500ft corridor and east corner LTMA 2500ft-3500ft, but you have to avoid the CTR & the ATZ as they are managed by approach & towers, they also feed some Cambridge OCAS arrivals
- If you stay in CAS you are cleared through any point of that “joint CTA” 
- If you leave CAS and re-enter again it’s a bust no matter how you play it, even if you do it using orbits in the same bit of airsapce in practice, CAIT will not flag it if you remain on the assigned code (ATC will not notice it or flag it unless you start climbing or if you put 2000/7000)
Graham wrote:
Did you have to go around or under (<1500ft) it, or did he clear you through, or did you have to negotiate separately?
Hi Graham,
In all the flights I have done, I’ve always flown around it. Luckily for me, common sense prevails and I just avoid re-entering CAS unless explicitly cleared. I think I was cleared through it on the way back from Liverpool or Kemble; however, I declined and routed around it because I did not want the lower level.
I did note the more I’ve flown IFR lately, the better the routings I’ve got from ATC. My arrival back from DUS was leaving CAS north of the Thames (Although I suspect the LCY arrivals had something to do with that) and my arrival from Gloucester was leaving CAS on track LAM with no restrictions to descend as soon as possible, which is usually OCAS via BPK.
But they seem to try to give me a heading or track that leaves via BPK on track LAM if coming from the N or W.
I managed to clarify the situation I outlined in Post 11.
The blue line shows the track returning to EGSX from Scotland earlier this week. The vectors and descent instructions given by Luton Radar resulted in descending below the TMA (i.e. leaving controlled airspace) and then entering the Stansted CTA.
Luton ATC said that the Stansted controller was sat next to him, and that re-entering controlled airspace had been coordinated and approved provided that the vertical profile in the CTA was a descent at all times – no levelling off or climbing.
Thanks for confirmation that was my understanding as CTA & TMA are joined between Luton & Stansted under Essex radar, if you are cleared through one you are cleared through the other
Not sure if re-entry is ok with “7000” (it gets flagged by CAIT after few seconds and likely to trigger loss of separation on 3kft/5kft unknown traffic addon), if you retain airways squawk ATC can accommodate a sensible rate of descent and 2kft delta on re-entry in their sector
I had a flight back from Cambridge recently and wasn’t handled by Luton Radar, but Essex and was cleared straight through the CTA and was allowed to contact Stapleford whilst still in CAS to get in contact just a bit quicker. Was negotiated with ATC and they didn’t mind.
