Silvaire wrote:
Just out of interest why in either place would you be in mandatory radio contact when flying in Class E airspace? A country specific requirement for ATC control of VFR traffic?
Germany requires an ATC clearance for VFR aerobatics in class E.
Is that still the case even after SERA?
Yes, even after SERA the proposed amended national regulations of the air that are currently with the 2nd Chamber of the German Parliament state in § 14:
And § 21 says that an ATC clearance is required before commencing aerobatics in controlled airspace.
The parliament’s remarks on §14 state that SERA.3130 leaves it up to the national authorities to regulate aerobatics.
I could never see why airspace E was called controlled airspace in a strict sense…
Well, the VFR weather minima are very different between controlled and uncontrolled airspace if nothing else.
Just define “controlled airspace” as “airspace controlled for certain or all types of traffic” and your problem goes away
How do you define “aerobatics” for the purposes of that German law?
SERA Article 2 contains the definitions:
‘aerobatic flight‘ means manoeuvres intentionally performed by an aircraft involving an abrupt change in its
attitude, an abnormal attitude, or an abnormal variation in speed, not necessary for normal flight or for
instruction for licenses or ratings other than aerobatic rating.
Does it define “abrupt” “abnormal” etc?
I can see they picked the wording out of FAR 91.303
but that doesn’t define the aircraft attitude, which is much more usefully defined elsewhere (can’t find it right now) as anything exceeding 30deg pitch or 60deg roll.