Mooney_Driver wrote:
Some airfields (mis) use PPR to just force the pilots to call a number or visit a website where they will communicate wether the airport is available for use or not
Yeah right, let’s replace modern technology which allows you to include graphic content like HD webcams (which gives you a pretty good indication of actual weather) with that last century teletype technology called NOTAM…
boscomantico wrote:
Filling of a flightplan constitutes PPR
How do they refuse permission if it’s done by flight plan? PPR infers that you’re asking “May I use your airfield?” and they can answer “Yes” or “No”. How do they reply to a flight plan if they want to tell you “no”?
Or do you get passed the bad news by London Info once you’re actually airborne?
Finners wrote:
I don’t turn up at people’s houses uninvited either, even if I think I would be welcome. If I want to visit, I call first
This is a bit different. This is a commercial business, it’s a bit like having to phone up your local supermarket to get permission to shop before you go shopping.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Many private fields in Switzerland have a PPR of sorts
It’s the same in Norway. Most airports that are not part of the public infrastructure are PPR. They are private, military or run by the local authorities (not many military fields left though). Most of the private ones does not even have a working web site, and no one would even know they existed if it haven’t been for one single guy who keeps a semi-official web site with maps and phone numbers for the ones he knows about. But then there are some 50 public airports, most of which are owned and run by Avinor, it’s just that the nice ones are the private smaller GA airfields.
How do they refuse permission if it’s done by flight plan? PPR infers that you’re asking “May I use your airfield?” and they can answer “Yes” or “No”. How do they reply to a flight plan if they want to tell you “no”?
Or do you get passed the bad news by London Info once you’re actually airborne?
Nope. As I said above, it is not a yes/no thing. It’s actually a prior notice only. Yet for simplicity, they use the term “PPR” because everybody understands it whereas “PNR” is not so commonly understood.
Theoreticallly, they can even contact you with a “no” even if you merely filed a flightplan as long as you indicate a cellphone number on the FPL.
tomjnx wrote:
Yeah right, let’s replace modern technology which allows you to include graphic content like HD webcams (which gives you a pretty good indication of actual weather) with that last century teletype technology called NOTAM…
No, why. But then you don´t need to declare it PPR, the actual action of getting PPR can´t even be verified if done like that.
The only airfield where PPR was actually handled by a living human being who told me when they had parking available (not when I wanted to go there) was Triengen.
And of course, I face PPR every time I go fly in Zürich.
This is a commercial business.
Negative. Only the fewest aerdromes are commercial ventures. Most are either operated by some authority, as a public service, or private, either by an individual or by a team/club of volunteers.
Biggin Hill is quite clearly a commercial enterprise, though.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
No, why.
It was you who complained there was no NOTAM, so you get to explain the “why?”.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
the actual action of getting PPR can´t even be verified
Eh? And why is that a problem for you?
The airfields you mentioned are small airfields which are most of the time not manned. There’s no Flugleiter to act as pseudo tower able to give you information about the state of the runway. Many of them have grass runways, and all of them no regular snow clearing. So I would want to know the runway state before landing there. And most of those airfields also have pretty good webcams now that give you a good idea how the weather looks like there, much better than your GAFOR IMO (and our main HEMS provider almost exclusively uses webcams for their weather briefing, they even funded some webcams…) All of those airfields have stated that they consider having consulted their webpage before flight and observing instructions found therein as having obtained PPR.
Most of the airfields you mention actually do post a telephone number on their webpage (or the VFR manual), so if you really insist on calling someone, you can. But that’s apparently not enough for you, so what are the options?
Quite frankly, I find all of these options much worse than the current “please take a look at our website for latest information about runway state before flight, thank you” which is unfortunately called PPR.
As for not putting out NOTAM: I’m pretty sure the reason is that it is much simpler updating a web page than to inject a NOTAM. I’m fairly sure these airfields cannot do it themselves, they need to get the ANSP involved. And that probably takes time. If there’s a torrential rain that renders the runway waterlogged, you want to get that information out immediately, not a day later due to a complicated chain for processing NOTAMs. Also, there’s a limit of 10000 NOTAMs (4 digit NOTAM number) per series per NOF per year, so I guess if all ~30 “PPR” airfields in switzerland started to inject daily NOTAMs about their runway state, the NOTAM system would overflow (hey, it’s a last century system, be gentle with it)
As for not putting out NOTAM: I’m pretty sure the reason is that it is much simpler updating a web page than to inject a NOTAM. I’m fairly sure these airfields cannot do it themselves, they need to get the ANSP involved. And that probably takes time. If there’s a torrential rain that renders the runway waterlogged, you want to get that information out immediately, not a day later due to a complicated chain for processing NOTAMs. Also, there’s a limit of 10000 NOTAMs (4 digit NOTAM number) per series per NOF per year, so I guess if all ~30 “PPR” airfields in switzerland started to inject daily NOTAMs about their runway state, the NOTAM system would overflow (hey, it’s a last century system, be gentle with it)
It is very easy for airfields to put out NOTAMs. Just send a short email (or even a handwritten fax) to the national/local AIS/NOTAM office and they will process/format and publish it within a couple of hours, 24/7. Much easier than updating a website, which few people know how to do (apart from the fact that there is a right way to do it, which is by NOTAM, for licensed airfields).
“Runway wet” or “runway soft” are not approved as the message text of a NOTAM. “Runway closed” is. This makes sure that the number of NOTAMs doesn’t explode.
