Peter wrote:
The real difference between the UK and much other airspace around Europe is not in the unreadability of the depicted structure, it is in the crappy and unpredictable ATC services.
Indeed. In France you know you will get taken care of, mostly as per your request. In the UK, when you see the new airspace structure to the west of London, you know if is going to be a pain, with ATC maybe clearing you through one bit, but not the other, “2000 feet or below” (where you might want to have 5000 feet+, “controller workload” garbage", freecalling here here with thousands of words to be exchanged, lacking coordination between units and all so on. As the guy on the video said, it’s also a challenge dividing your attention between your ipad (which you absolutely HAVE to do) and looking out for all the other traffic that is sqeezing through the same corridors at more or less the same altitude…
I now recommend every visiting pilot which is going up to either the north of England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales to avoid this area completely, by either routing around London to the east or otherwise following the south coast westbound first (some challenge with the Solent area there, but manageable) and then heading up northbound. It’s just more relaxing and fun, which should also be a part of it, after all.
The frustrating thing about these airspace changes is that, as you can see in the video, everybody knows the problems, but the guys don’t know what else to do and resignate. They know these airspace nightmares will come and there is nothing that can be done.
No one celebrating ?
I thought only the French were professional complainers 
Well I am celebrating. I am based at a grass strip at the NW corner of the Brize zone. I woulndt mind of Oxford had better approaches, RNP at both ends would be great, and some better coordination with Brize too. But then proposals were total overkill.
Well I’m very happy about it too: it seems like the CAA is giving these things proper scrutiny, and it’s not the first airspace grabs they’ve rejected recently (they also rejected Exeter and another airspace grab by (IIRC) Leeds). Too bad Farnborough wasn’t rejected.
Both parts were bad.
Brize can’t, by any sensible assessment, suddenly need more airspace. The amount of actual flying the RAF does is on a fairly constant downward trajectory and they’ve operated with their block of Class D up to 3,500ft for many years, so what’s suddenly the issue? If anything the CAA should be looking at the question of how much longer they can justify having that block – perhaps they should be expected to manage with a MATZ like other RAF stations?
The safety cases for controlled airspace at places like Oxford and Farnborough are something of a sham. What it really boils down to is securing priority use of the air for their (usually high net worth) arriving and departing customers over puddlejumpers. It basically takes the premise that their customers, in their view, should not have to give way to anyone, and attempts to formalise that as part of regulation. After all, if the situation without CAS is insufficiently safe and they want to do something about it then they have the option to change / discontinue their operations…..
You only have to look at Farnborough to see what happens. Despite all the promises of easy access they don’t put enough controllers on and the consequent defensive controlling means the whole lot is basically a prohibited zone whenever one of their IFR arrivals or departures is inside it.
I’m pleased it has been rejected, but less pleased that the CAA response suggests they’d failed simply because their application didn’t say the right things rather than because they don’t warrant any controlled airspace.
Graham wrote:
Both parts were bad.
What’s was wrong with TMZ/RMZ for Oxford?
arj1 wrote:
What’s was wrong with TMZ/RMZ for Oxford?
Because it would have extended the Brize Class D ‘barrier’ (although at least you can go over the top of Brize) even further, creating a large obstacle to Class G traffic that may not have a transponder or a radio, or with a radio may not necessarily want to call up Oxford and invite being controlled.
TMZs and RMZs used in such a way would rapidly lead to defacto controlling of transits. Even before their airspace, Farnborough freely called up nearby traffic and ‘asked’ it to hold, descend or otherwise give way to their customers. An RMZ is particularly ‘useful’ because non-response can be used to exclude an aircraft. This came up in the debate over the CAA’s interpretation of ATZ-related rules, with respect in particular to Manchester Barton.
The ‘proper’ use of a TMZ as I understand it is at e.g. Stansted – to reassure the controller that the contacts he can see under his shelf are actually under it.
Graham, sorry, I meant TMZ and you are not equipped, you may cross after calling Oxford.
So, yes, just TMZ, so you are seen by everyone equipped with TAS etc and by the Radar services nearby.
And if you are on FAT to EGTK, then Oxford can advise you on conflicting traffic.
What is wrong with that one?
