What percentage of pilots fly abroad?

Peter, just curious, how would you negotiate the double ATZ crossing at Farnborough and Blackbushe?

An ATZ is 2000ft AAL.
Farnborough is 238ft AMSL.
Blackbushe is 325ft AMSL.

So at 2400ft one is above both ATZs.

The airspace is Class G. No clearance required.

So, nothing to negotiate.

In reality one is talking to Farnborough 125.25 all the way, and the GPS track is adjusted (as I say, I would never fly VFR without a moving map showing the real “printed” chart) to avoid flying through ATZs unnecessarily.

Ask Farnborough to let Blackbushe know you are coming when you first contact Farnborough?

Up to them.

Hope to contact each of them separately in rapid order?

Not my business.

Just blast over the top of the ATZs no contact?

Yes. Where would you draw the line? 3000ft? 4000ft? FL600? One can’t go above 2500ft there (Class A).

Even more fun if Farnborough get class D of course…..

Indeed! They will have to provide a service and allow transits, or there will be hell to pay via CAS busts. Since Farnborough LARS is funded primarily to keep a lid on CAS busts (not as a service to GA) they will be doing that OK.

Officially, it is 2000ft AAL.

The unfortunate thing about this system is the UK’s all-time favourite institution: the standard overhead join. Normally this is done at – guess what – 2000ft AAL.

Obviously it would be really stupid for Blackbushe to be doing OHJs. I don’t have the book handy so I don’t know what they actually do, which is why on a flight like that one would steer left and right and generally treat ATZs like CBs.

But that’s Class G…

On my (confidential) company fuel price list, fuel at LFGA is 40% more expensive than my homebase EDDS.

Is that avgas or avtur?

As an AOC holder you can get duty free avgas at the pump, in Europe generally (not in the UK) on production of a piece of paper with “AOC” on it. Could it be that the German pump does it but the French one doesn’t?

I think the French military airspace issue is OK with the French locals because

• they know exactly which bits are active in their area
• they have the phone numbers for each of them anyway
• they can call them in French (there is no obligation on any military unit to speak English)
• they mostly do relatively local trips

whereas a foreign visitor has to do it “from ground up” which might be to buy the 1:1M SIA charts, get the handbook which comes with them, look up each piece of “R” airspace by its number in that book, look up its hours of activity, and either fly through it if not active or plan a (possibly complicated) route via adjacent bits which are not active. A GPS moving map showing the actual VFR chart is, ahem, advisable…

The other approach is to plan a DCT right through it and rely on ATC to sort out transits, which is OK so long as they keep doing it. They are under no obligation to do it. I think it usually works, especially at higher levels. But I often find, on weekdays, that even IFR routes (say FL150) get shifted around due to military activity.

The UK is comparatively simple because in Class G, if you avoid the D and R areas (are there others?) and avoid any ATZs (or stay above 2000ft AAL) you can just fly anywhere non-radio. The military don’t own any other airspace. What you really have to watch is the base of controlled airspace, which is mostly Class A so you can’t get a transit anyway. I have busted CAS a few times in a very minor way during a descent from a higher piece of it (got told off on 2 occasions I recall) and both times were from underneath. I don’t know the stats but I think most UK CAS busts are simply from the side, i.e. a basic nav error.