UK CAP2304 - a new approach to instrument approaches at GA airfields

CAA plans for London Info to became radar-equipped.

London Info has been radar equipped for at least 10 years.

The reason they are INFO is because, per ATC job demarcation / union-assured job protection, they are not radar qualified ATCOs, they are FISOs, which cost a lot less money, and since 99% of GA pays no route charges, nobody will pay the extra money.

So they can see you but are not allowed to say so. Even if you were about to die they would not be allowed to tell you. And they certainly cannot discuss it openly.

Otherwise the solution for an approach controller would be trivial. London Info → London Radar

radar nearby that could tell you if the hold is available or not

While these things are really nice to have, the long story short PIC has to “move on” if flying IFR OCAS

As rules of thumb,
- You can’t ask for IFR de-confliction service, 5nm/5kft from unknown traffic is impossible if heading toward a VFR airfield
- You can’t ask for IFR traffic service bellow 3kft in UK: controller workload, radar performance, min VEC/TS altitudes

This may work fine when Radar is in TWR and Golf airspace around in empty (e.g. Newquay) but anywhere near LTMA it will not work

I would not ask London TC if they see traffic OCAS on their radars before leaving CAS, it’s viewed as an insult as the PIC is not owning his responsibilities, anyone who is concerned about Radar Service provisions for IFR they should seriously stick to landing in Franbrough, Luton, Gatwick or Southend while flying fully in airspace then wait for weather to clear up before flying to Elstree, or bite the bullet and get TAS/ADSB for OCAS: both come cheap from 300£ to 12k£

There are no magical solutions to the above “problem”, you can shut-down every VFR/IFR traffic OCAS because someone is concerned about their separation in holds or clouds? and radar is technically not feasible bellow 3kft unless you are landing in Gatwick…

I doubt London Info will ever get “traffic radar”, they cover 600nm*600nm square with two frequencies, however, I don’t see why they can’t handle info about IAF/HOLD sequence for IAP like they already handle “coasting in/out”? they tell you to report Dover, Folkeseton, Seaford, Margate, IoW…the frequency is not very busy when weather is bad and there are few IAP and few GA pilots to fly them

arj1 wrote:

AFIS could you the traffic advisory display for

It will be lot of cluttering with radio talks: it’s unnecessary and very unadvisable when one is busy staying on stable approach and out of terrain while in clouds…why not Air-to-Air Radio, Mode-S, PAW/SE or TAS for traffic? ADL, G5+OAT, ATIS/STAP for wind & weather? GPS WAAS for QNH? SkyDemon for TAWS?

Or why not leave all these concerns to PIC? some people can fly IFR just fine they know the wind, the heading, the turn and how far they are from antenna and other traffic

One compromise is RNP with TWR RMZ and CAS TMZ (IFR has Mode-S anyway), no ATZ and no AFIS/AG, just let traffic organize between themselves: IFR on long final to join circuit or go missed if straight-in, base leg or runway is occupied

New Zeland has copied lot of things from UK: they copy-past UK ANO, similar airspace “as is”, same freestyle IFR OCAS (no FPL, no radio, no clearance), no en-route ATC to support low end GA, no LPV/WAAS just LNAV, they went for same ATZ concept but called it MBZ (mandatory broadcast zone), however, they magically managed to implement GPS IAP with VFR/IFR mix in Golf on UNICOM frequency no AFIS/AG

https://www.aip.net.nz/assets/AIP/Aerodrome-Charts/Kerikeri-Bay-of-Islands-NZKK/NZKK_45.1_45.2.pdf

The risk of mid-air collisions may increase when you move from 3D randomness to 1D published flight paths but if CAA declare starting from tomorrow that “Cat3C operations in zero/zero weather using GPS are published & approved to every UK runway”, I would bet you are likely to find 1000 aircraft burning on ground vs 2 hitting each other on the procedure, there are not that many GA IR/IRR rated pilots to fill up the whole airspace in weather days, I know one or two in my home airfield but I get worried when it’s sunny…

Ibra wrote:

Yes that was just the fees, what is the cost of research? is it really that cheap near 25K one-off as arj1 mentioned?

With 1 traffic PPR every 90min, blanket 500ft OCH sitting outside ATZ, flat 3kft being a terrain safe altitude on whole UK (except GPS IAP to Mt Nevis and Snowdon), plenty of approved aerodrome obstacles performance B charts being already available, I am not sure what rocket science involved there? well other than deciding if it’s Y-shape or T-shape and checking that the initial & missed segments are out of any nearby controlled airspace

I don’t know what the consultants cost, other than it’s a lot. More than small airfields are going to pay to get an IAP, unless they have some particular pressing business case that makes it a good idea. Kemble have a big runway and airliners arriving there for end-of-life storage and breaking up. I don’t know exactly what Sywell’s case is, other than there must be one because the approach is (or at least was) restricted to commercial operators approved by the airport management.

Correct, it’s not rocket science. But it’s good business for the CAA and the consultants to pretend that it is. As with many things (and this is not just aviation) the requirements are such that it’s technically possible to do it all yourself without hiring a consultant, but for all practical purposes impossible. The consultants know what ‘solutions’ the CAA will accept, because they all swim in the same pond. If you try to do it yourself you will probably find your solutions rebuffed without much useful feedback on what they might accept – and probably deliberately because they want you to hire one of their mates a consultant.

Airborne_Again wrote:

AFIS?

RMZ is enough to be honest

Even Germany manages GPS IAP using mandatory ATC + Echo TMA then mandatory AFIS + Golf RMZ, it would be foolish to think that is known traffic environment, unless it’s serious IMC…

Malibuflyer wrote:

There is very little in between those two solutions.

AFIS?