There is no requirement for an official approach at all under part NCO. How you design it and how you fly it is the operator’s own decision. And yes, if I am satisfied that the outdated chart or outdated database is accurate and safe, I would fly it.
Which is different from commercial operations, where indeed an “official” approach is required, so flying one that has been withdrawn would indeed be illegal.
The airport “permitted operation” thing is a bit more complicated.
In the UK, an aircraft can take off and land anywhere with the land owner’s permission, VFR, IFR, anytime. There may be planning restrictions that make it hard in practice to create your own airfield, but there is nothing in the air law, SERA, or Part-NCC to prohibit that.
A licenced airfield (which are the ones in the AIP) is licenced for a particular type of operation, under particular conditions, etc., when they do not meet these conditions you can still land there as if it were any piece of land. So an airport licenced for VFR operations is NOT illegal to land at under IFR. Whether the land owner (or airport operator as their delegate) allows you to do so is an entirely different matter, and in practice the operator may be prohibited from doing that under the conditions of his licence.
On a more practical note, as long as you have 1,500m visibility, are clear of cloud and sin sight of surface when landing, you are in VMC and can arrive / depart VFR. It is not illegal to just take off and disappear in a 200ft cloudbase as long as the visibility is sufficient.
Apparently the CAA allows an airport with A/G a maximum of 6 movements per hour! This is the current CAA-imposed limit at Shoreham.
That means any airport which offers more than a grass runway and a 15W50-fry-up cafe is going to eventually go bust. To make money you have to make the best of nice days, because on bad days almost nobody is flying (since nearly all GA activity is nice-day VFR).
Peter wrote:
That means any airport which offers more than a grass runway and a 15W50-fry-up cafe is going to eventually go bust. To make money you have to make the best of nice days, because on bad days almost nobody is flying (since nearly all GA activity is nice-day VFR).
Or you do as Turweston did and go unlicenced, have a radio service and have an excellent cafe.
Perhaps you can suggest it to them. I am sure they are staying licensed for a reason, but I don’t know what it is. One reason could be CAA protection in various areas.
Is it possible to have ATC and be unlicensed? With no ATC you get no approaches so you probably lose the based FTO.
Tower closures were also going on at Blackpool on Sunday (NOTAM only till today, Monday) but generally a lot more workable than what’s been reported at Shoreham – the ATC closures IIRC were four times during Sunday, lasting half an hour and the airfield is open till 9pm at night so it wasn’t much of a factor for me this weekend.
If this is a permanent removal this is a sad day considering that Shoreham was one of the very limited number of airfields involved in the initial RNAV trials: a procedure that I then flew many times to report back on bearings etc.
Surely, once a RNAV procedure has been plotted it, requires no further ‘maintenance costs’ to keep it current.
Peter_G wrote:
Surely, once a RNAV procedure has been plotted it, requires no further ‘maintenance costs’ to keep it current.
Not quite true. Any structure that pops up in the protected area may require modifications to the minima. And the approach will vanish from the database.
If this is a permanent removal this is a sad day considering that Shoreham was one of the very limited number of airfields involved in the initial RNAV trials: a procedure that I then flew many times to report back on bearings etc.
Shoreham doesn’t have full time ATC, so even though ATC is there a part of the time, that triggered the AIP removal. Also the remaining ATC might not be approach qualified, which is an ICAO requirement. Yes, it’s pretty crap. People will continue to fly the published profiles I am sure… using user waypoints.
Does that mean that the previous LPV consultation is pretty much dead? Do you think the IAPs would be reinstated if there is going to be proper ATC again?
I am asking as that would mean there is one less diversion airport around to use.
