dublinpilot wrote:
Part of this might be the fact that they’ve been judged and “sentenced” without having got to put their side of the story across.
That is not correct. They are expected to submit their side of the story in writing, and they are interviewed. The group who decide on disposal know both their factual response and their demeanour.
I’ve seen some of the questions to the online test (I think they were published here at one stage). To be frank, they really weren’t appropriate to the task at hand.
I think that there is fairly widespread concern about both the test and the inability of pilots to pass it.
A lot of the criticism of the course comes from both the cost and the incidental costs
Are you sure that this isn’t one criticism often repeated, though claiming to come from “everyone knows”? 
there could be a webinar course as an option
I am sure that GASCo is looking at the value of the courses and whether the same effect could be produced by streamlining them. I am sure that the GASCo trainers are no keener to traipse round the country than anyone else. However, the same could be said for Speed Awareness Courses, and they haven’t migrated online.
Also, there may be a question of identifying who is sitting at the other end of the line.
The CAA should instruct its instructors/examiners that as part of this interaction…
There is no provision in law to allow this. The CAA can ask, even beg, instructors to focus on infringements, but if they choose to focus on skills, or even going for lunch, there is little the CAA can do. Furthermore, the pilot can be absolutely appalling and dangerous, and the instructor cannot fail him.
I appreciate that the CAA is in a difficult position here. Make the airspace less complicated and it becomes too big, and make it smaller and it becomes more complicated. But the issue should be considered.
I fear you don’t appreciate how difficult is the CAA’s position. In law, they cannot initiate any airspace change proposal. They can only react and regulate. So, if NATS ask that the entire CTA south east of Stoney Cross-CPT-Cranfield-Cambridge have a unified base of 1500’, the CAA can look at the responses to the consultation and decide yes or no, but they can’t ask NATS to make the proposal.
Airspace Access
Here I totally agree with you. If only Class D were treated as Class D, as indeed it is in France, then it would make life much easier.
However, it is only fair to say that I cross Class D almost every time I fly VFR, and I get turned down very rarely indeed, less than once a year; probably less than 1% of the time.
People should ask for crossing clearances and ATC are obliged to give them unless there are pressing operational reasons not to. If only people would ask for them, and report to the CAA whenever they are refused, the myth of lack of access might go away.
Obviously it is considerably more difficult for non-radio aircraft, and I fear that they are best advised to give airspace a wide berth.
“However, it is only fair to say that I cross Class D almost every time I fly VFR”
My understanding you are guaranteed a VFR crossing on all class D zones if weather is good (except one airport and it is not City or Heathrow ;) ), if you have a transponder/sent pre-clearance it does help but none of those is required: many of those zone transit “away from London” were actually on gliders with no “clear intentions” but with a generous height restrictions…
The two cases where I got class D crossing denied I was IFR(IMC) from OCAS and both were clearly operational
I don’t think VFR acess to Class D CAS in the UK airspace is limited or problematic vs say in France, it is just less busy IMHO
I’m afraid that website borders on dishonesty, like so much of CAA-IET’s work (which is perhaps why they were ordered to pay me more than £11,000 costs in the Ullswater “crash” case).
Only the successful prosecutions (i.e. those which result in at least one conviction) are published there. Last time I checked, there were more than twice as many unsuccessful prosecutions, but those figures are well hidden, perhaps even from the chief executive.
Indeed, but I think, like with speeding, all that a lawyer can do for you is to reduce the sentence (if you were prosecuted), or take legal action to prevent the CAA suspending your license (if there is no prosecution). If you busted airspace, AIUI you can’t prevent yourself being sent to do one of the routes discussed – at least the ones which stop short of losing your license. Also a decent lawyer is going to cost you 5-10k.
I think this is just common decency to allow someone to put their side of the case forward. I suspect that there may often be lessons to be learned on both side, but that’s ignored at present. People will always feel hard done by if they feel that they’ve been judged without being able to put forward their side of the story.
An excellent point, though perhaps one not open to be fully appreciated by the guy who runs this. He has after all over 1k per year to process. Also I am sure most pilots want to do everything possible to avoid going anywhere near the CAA HQ – with so many ex RAF guys there, most would expect to get a court martial 
I think what really p1sses people off, and makes them feel unfairly treated, is
My understanding you are guaranteed a VFR crossing on all class D zones if weather is good
Certainly not the case – try Solent (EGHI) for example. Often they are busy, sometimes so busy they don’t call you back after the first call.
They are expected to submit their side of the story in writing, and they are interviewed
This is certainly not the case for those getting the 3-step processing. It looks correct for those getting an interview at the CAA office, which are probably the serious cases. What % of the total get an interview at Gatwick?
What actually happens is that NATS ask you to fill in a form with how it happened. It states “NATS makes available this information for flight safety purposes only; specifically to enable the completion of an airspace infringement questionnaire.”. Then you get one from the CAA which states “The purpose of occurrence reporting is to improve aviation safety by ensuring that relevant safety information relating to civil aviation is reported, collected, stored, protected, exchanged, disseminated and analysed. It is not to attribute blame or liability. This delivers a European Just Culture Declaration.” So you fill in both of these, in the belief that the more thoroughly you do it, the more consideration will be given to any circumstances. Then about a month later you get the standard letter from the well known CAA guy who has decided what to do with you, with the clear impression that he doesn’t care about any helpful circumstances.
I think that there is fairly widespread concern about both the test and the inability of pilots to pass it.
I would not have put it that way. You have 20 questions and you need to get 16 right, and I reckon you are likely to get 2-3 duff ones (which are not credited if you try to complain) so the odds are strongly rigged against you. Moreover the exam is rigged to be extra hard by having 45 secs per question and you can go only forward in the order of answering them. Clearly it was set by someone from the military (a large % of the CAA regulatory/enforcement staff?); the problem is that he used a ~25 year old QB. How can anybody defend that? It’s a total joke. But it isn’t a joke, because it is a step along a process which can lead to the loss of one’s license.
However, the same could be said for Speed Awareness Courses, and they haven’t migrated online.
It would be too convenient, which is not the objective, which is to create significant hassle which is remembered. Also you could substitute someone, etc.
Furthermore, the pilot can be absolutely appalling and dangerous, and the instructor cannot fail him.
That is at the discretion of the CAA, however, which has made its bed and now has to lie in it. I suppose EASA has formalised it? The 2-yearly renewal gets signed off provided the instructor survives the flight. This is not the case under FAA where the CFI can refuse to sign you off.
The really revealing thing is the relative lack of posts in this thread from outside the UK I think most of those people read this with total disbelief… starting with the stated 5000ft figure for creating an official loss of separation. All countries get really serious CAS busts, and all countries get really bad p1sstakers, but it looks like the UK is the odd one out in doing this processing of infringing pilots so thoroughly. This is turn maintains the high % of nontransponding or Mode A traffic, which nothing can be done about. This is interesting reading.
Peter wrote:
I think most of those people read this with total disbelief
Indeed I agree with Silvaire here. It seems like some kind of weird medieval theatrical exercise more than anything else. The Emperor’s new clothes comes to mind, although that’s about something similar, yet slightly different topic.
Also, where is the greater picture? In Norway, only 60% of the airspace infringements are private GA. The rest is military/state and commercial GA (helicopters mostly). Still, this is only one factor of the greater factor called loss of separation. Looking at loss of separation, airliners are the worst. Only natural, since they fly a factor 1000? times more than everybody else. Now, looking at airspace infringements causing loss of separation, I bet they can be counted on one hand (although I don’t know, just my gut feeling).
Only one thing is interesting here (in addition to mere amusement). Airspace infringement is something we can do something about. I believe in talking to the ATC, or stay far away from the TMA. There is no other way. Moving maps works regarding infringements, but using that alone (as they are today) will come at the expense of loss of separation in G. We also have loss of separation in G in the statistics. I assume this is mainly in TIA/TIZ for CAT and helicopters with their routes in G (being reported by those. The grand total of loss of separation in G must be phenomenal, depending on the interpretation of “loss of separation” by various actors). The numbers here are at least as high as airspace infringements, and much more serious being actual loss of separation. Moving maps will have a worsening effect, being in contact with ATC and looking out will help (IMO)
@LeSving, the big difference between the UK and Norway (and indeed almost everywhere else) is that our ATS service is privatised rather than state run and universal.
That means that we have a principle that “the user pays”, only the airlines pay and airlines operate in controlled airspace so we have very fragmented and poor ATSOCAS.
Thus, the option of talking to a radar equipped ATS unit is very limited. The privately operated radar service in the London area, Farnborough Radar, rapidly gets overwhelmed on a sunny weekend.
It’s just not like the rest of Europe. In a bad way.
The privately operated radar service in the London area, Farnborough Radar, rapidly gets overwhelmed on a sunny weekend.
That’s just the nature of the things – try Bremen Info / Langen etc on a sunny weekend.
The funniest response I got from them – straight after the initial call – was “Guten Morgen, It’s sunny and my screen is full of VFR squawks, have a nice flight!”. Except after listening to the same spiel non-stop for a few minutes as more pilots called in, it was getting annoying…
Timothy wrote:
the big difference between the UK and Norway (and indeed almost everywhere else) is that our ATS service is privatised rather than state run and universal
It is commercial in Norway as well. AVINOR is state owned, but self financed. The way it works in practice is that only the 4-5 largest airports make any income. On the other hand they really are huge money machines, Gardermoen in particular. That “profit” pays for running everything else, because that’s the whole purpose with AVINOR. All the smaller airports, all of ATC and so on. Originally it was one entity, like the FAA. Then, some 20-30? years ago it was divided into one branch responsible for legislation, safety etc, and one branch for airspace and airport operations. The former is financed by the state, the latter is self financed.
I mean, Heathrow alone must be making enough money to run ATC in all of Europe.
And thus, in addressing the question of why there are so many infringements in the UK, do we consider the fact that outside of certain limited areas there are no useful radar-equipped ATS units and thus no expectation that pilots will be talking to them?
I’d be interested to compare infringement stats for the Paris TMA with the London TMA. Then I’d be asking questions about whether anyone flies anywhere near the Paris TMA without talking to a radar controller.
Flying a different sort of mission in a different part of the country recently has been an eye-opener terms in just how few enroute ATS units there are that are worth talking to.
Peter wrote:
The really revealing thing is the relative lack of posts in this thread from outside the UK I think most of those people read this with total disbelief…
Yes… I was about to suggest that we rename the thread. But to keep the UK topic: Can’t you appeal administrative decisions made by the CAA to a court of law?
the big difference between the UK and Norway (and indeed almost everywhere else) is that our ATS service is privatised rather than state run and universal
Also making it worse is that, unlike Canada (where it is also privatised), there is no requirement for profits to be invested back to developing infrastructure.
That said, the NATS en-route business is price regulated.
