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What discourages European pilots from flying to the UK?

The biggest issue I have with flying in the UK is that ridiculous anachronism, the Basic Service. Why the UK refuses to offer a joined up, radar backed Flight Information Service is beyond me. No matter how good your look out is, it isn’t going to keep you 100% safe which is why I have Flarm, Pilot Aware and ask for a traffic service where possible. In conjunction with that comes the extent of Class A airspace which increases your risk when flying VFR in the South East, both because you’re pushed lower than necessary and channeled into ‘MiG Alleys’. Finally, I don’t like the attitude of some air traffic controllers at certain provincial airports who appear to treat their class D as their personal fiefdom, denying access to all they consider unworthy, usually due to ‘controller workload’. If that’s not the biggest cop-out ever, I don’t know what is……

EDL*, Germany

I don’t fly very often in the south east, but when I do it is usually to the east of London and I can’t recall being refused a Class D airspace transit, even passing Stansted. Maybe having an ES transponder helps, or maybe the controllers just like to see a Maule on their screens.

As for the Basic Service, yes, it’s a bit anachronistic, but no more so than, say, not being allowed to land on any suitable loch, river or field – in both cases the risks may be more imaginary than real.

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Turning the question around, why do Brits fly to France?

The other side of the pond is too far?

Joking aside, I would fly to France from Croatia more frequently if more airports with immigration are available or Croatia is in Schengen.

Back to the topic, I’m also hesitant to fly to UK because it looks like everything is a bit different than in the rest of European airspace and there’s also a language barrier it’s not an easy task to tune your ears to the British ATC accent. Our Cambridge fly-in will be my first visit to UK myself flying.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

The language can be tough for us too, because we have such a rich variety of dialects. Put a geezer from Essex in a train carriage with a group of Glaswegian teenagers, and they might as well be speaking Finnish.

Partly because of that, and because some form of English is the first or second language for nearly every educated soul on earth, ATC are used to “foreign” English and no matter what you say they will understand. Well, nearly so – I remember being tempted to interpret for a London FISO who struggled a bit when an equally confused French pilot lapsed into his native tongue. But I kept silent and, sure enough, they worked it out.

In the other direction, a pilot’s golden phrase is “say again”. It is the ATCO’s job to be understood, and when they judge it necessary they’ll make allowances, for instance by issuing a new squawk and COM frequency one at a time. “Say again” is a signal that they have misjudged and they will respond by saying less, more slowly and more clearly.

Finally, consider that “English” is the world’s language, so it is yours just as much as mine, or any ATCO’s.

Last Edited by Jacko at 30 Mar 17:58
Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

PhilG wrote:

Here is the busiest area in all of the UK filtered to exclude airspace above 2000’.

Well, not that many people like to fly THAT low, particularly not over the sea. I am comfortable flying at round 7000-8000 ft and so is my airplane, economically scud running low down is not so appealing. So yes, the south of England looks really complex if you want to fly a bit higher and above 5500 there is airspace A even in the best case. Combine that with less than plannable weather and probably a lot of people shy away. Come to think of that however, it is more psychological than real, people love to fly to Scandinavia and the weather there is not at all more plannable…

Or for instance going along the south coast, there is a lot of airspaces even down to the ground which make flying there “interesting”. As Phil said, below 2000 ft it looks fine but that is really low. I wonder if forcing all VFR that low down does not increase the risk of collisions.

I save flying to the UK until I got my IR I suppose.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

I only used 2000’ as the height to show that the U.K. still has lots of uncontrolled airspace in the South East where easy, unrestricted flight can take place. For the sea crossing at Dover, controlled airspace does not start until FL65 so no problem to get higher for the sea crossing.

Is 2000’ generally considered a low and uncomfortable VFR cruising altitude?

Maybe the U.K. airspace structure does condition us that this is ok as that is all I have known and seems perfectly fine VFR. Even in a Meridian, although I try to ignore the fuel consumption….

Lydd

PhilG wrote:

For the sea crossing at Dover, controlled airspace does not start until FL65 so no problem to get higher for the sea crossing.

Chances of reaching land in glide gets better with each ft height. In my plane I get about 1.8 NM out of 1000 ft altitude glide, which means at 6500 ft I could glide roughly 11 NM. Incidently the distance is rougly 22 NM but that cuts it awfully tight… out of 12000 ft I’d get 21 NM glide distance which out of any position there would allow going back to land and arrive at about 5000 ft to look for a field to land on.

PhilG wrote:

Is 2000’ generally considered a low and uncomfortable VFR cruising altitude?

Unusual for me anyhow. I prefer 7-9k as a general altitude which I use most of the time, often higher. The options simply go up. Out of 2000 ft I have 3.6 NM to choose a landing site, out of 8000 ft around 15 NM. Particularly over water height is essential. Or going further north: Manston to Clacton is about 31 NM over open sea if you want to avoid the maze around Southend, which would require about 20 NM to reach land safely, which translates into 11000 ft. Along the south coast I’d consider 5-6k ft comfortable…

You are right though, once the South England maze is behind you, it gets pretty easy.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Is 2000’ generally considered a low and uncomfortable VFR cruising altitude?

No, not at all. In Germany most VFR traffic seems to fly at 2000 ft. Before SERA this was the minimum cross-country cruise altitude and many still stick to it. Personally I feel most at ease between 1000 and 2000 ft. Obviously as pointed out by Mooney, the higher you are the more options you have in case of engine failure. Still for me the lower I fly the better I feel, strange, isn’t it?

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

For me it’s quite opposite @MedEwok, while learning in EDVE, I was happy that leaving the control zone with a direct climb vertically was allowed most of the time and hence climbing to the range Mooney_Driver mentioned (FL70-FL90) could be accomplished in the shortest time possible. Only with the Aquila I was flying lower, as the routes where often short, but even then I climbed to 3500ft to 5000ft normally. The reasons where already mentioned, more options and to avoid all those pilots thinking the 2000ft AGL is the place to be.

Climbing to the FLs also helps to avoid more Airspace in Germany. You are above all CTRs, a lot of ED-Rs are avoided and you are still below TRAs. Only the airspaces of the large airports come in the way, but crossings can be coordinated easily (not for EDDF of course) and the medium airports class D are already below (e.g. EDDW).

To be honest my first flight out of Frankfurt Egelsbach felt a bit strange. Staying at 1400ft to remain clear of C was not what I am used to.

P19 EDFE EDVE EDDS

The original question of this thread has a very simple mathematical answer or solution, if you wish. Just think of it. If I (living in central Europe) decide to go flying wishing to venture abroad I have four general directions to go. This is true or partially true for most other continental Europe pilots. British pilot, on the contrary, has got generally one direction to go. Simple statistics explain there could be up to 4:1 ratio of British pilots flying to continental Europe to continental Europe pilots flying to Britain.

Other than that:

1) no the fuel in the UK is not cheaper than continental Europe (this cannot be generalized as we also have Finland, Italy and so on…)
2) immigration is a great hassle for me (I can fly abroad in four general directions from the place where I live even without a flight plan and I do it often – two weeks ago I went to Bratislava main airport (Slovak capital) with no plan, actually making the decision to fly to Bratislava in the air and week ago I flew across whole Germany with a helicopter with no fpl as well
3) LANGUAGE barrier – it seems to me that British controllers compete with American ones trying to be as much unintelligible as possible. The difference between US and UK controllers is that in case of US controllers they at least try to give you information that is practical and pertinent to your flight… (I mean they are helpful :-))

LKHK, Czech Republic
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