That changed recently, along with ATZs. Danger areas and all forms of these are now treated as controlled airspace for enforcement purposes.
@Alpha_Floor. I remembered it wrongly the Basic Service etc was brought in on the 12th March 2009. A note and a CD was (so the CAA said) was sent out to all UK pilots.
The note basically said "Those who enjoy flying in uncontrolled airspace currently receive from ATC a type of ATSOCAS, Air Traffic Service Outside Controlled Airspace, either an FIS, a RIS or an RAS.
From March 12th 2009, that is changing to provide a common set of procedures and policies for civilian and military Air Traffic Control providers.
To help pilots understand the changes the Airspace and Safety Initiative (ASI) is dispatching an educational CD on the changes to all UK -licensed private pilots.
It then goes on to describe how these changes have come about and then lists the 4 new services ie Basic Service, Traffic Service, Deconfliction Service and Procedural Service with a brief description of each.
Unfortunately my chum has lost the CD.
Alpha_Floor wrote:
Maybe a dumb question but how can a Danger Area be “busted”? Aren’t they by definition “un-busteable”?I was taught a pilot may fly through a DA at his own risk. Obviously nobody with a brain would fly through one which is hot/active, but if it wasn’t allowed to fly through one, why would it be defined as a DA rather than an RA in the first place?
A very good question. Many UK DA’s have “bylaws” that effectively make them RA’s. The UK is the only country I have heard of having that system.
That would seem to be a documentation procedure. I’d still say that e.g. France has vastly more “de facto prohibited” areas; for example much of the east and much of the west are almost permanently prohibited, and >99% of the time my request for a transit is immediately denied.
The UK has a lot of dispersed DAs (which indeed are enforced as RAs) but they tend to be small bits. Well, except the big ones like D036-D040 in the Channel. That one is a huge waste which usually has nothing happening, and I reckon that is true for most “military” areas in Europe which are declared active in most cases simply because they are there, on the basis of “if you don’t use it you will lose it”.
Qalupalik wrote:
You can download that from tye Wayback Machine archives (link).
That’s very interesting!
There is an audio example on how a Basic Service is requested:
The interesting things here are:
The QNH is repeated too many times in UK R/T! If the pilot says he’s flying on the Wessex QNH 1008 on initial contact, and this is correct, why does the ATCO/FISO still repeat the QNH and hence trigger an additional mandatory readback? Too much unnecessary clogging up of the frequency!
Lots of things wrong.
“Wessex QNH” is a regional QNH which will get you “sentenced” to gasco in no time at all for a vertical CAS bust. It is a completely useless and stupid idea which, like the circular slide rule, has no relevance to modern aviation (it is a QNH which assures obstacle clearance within the ASR – the altimeter setting region, which is a vast area, defined as one containing 100 “£3 all day breakfast” airfields). A good lawyer should be able to point out the uselessness of the regional QNH to the judge but this mechanism ensures that the principle doesn’t get tested. Much of what the UK CAA (and probably every other CAA) does relies on this mechanism; it is also called “settling on the court steps” but that’s only if you actually do engage a competent lawyer. CAAs do not want to create precedents. Much better to create lots of FUD, which gets propagated for free on pilot forums 
The idea of a “contract” is total bollox. This came in some years ago. I laughed when I first heard it. There is no “contract”. This was invented by some anally retarded CAA or NATS employee who wanted to come up with a new soundbite. There is no legal obligation on ATC to provide any service whatsoever (well, obstacle clearance is ATC responsibility while you are being vectored, but I can’t think of any other example). ATC’s job (in the GA/OCAS context) is always on a “best effort” basis, which basically means … nothing. It’s like a purchase order which can be rescheduled indefinitely (it has zero commercial value). Or, like vaccine delivery contracts 
Perhaps UVDL should run NATS?
What does “VFR tracking to Wells” mean? What is “VFR tracking”? This is quite likely to be ignored, because (a) it is an FIS only and (b) the ATCO may not know where Wells is, especially if it is London Info which covers a vast area, all the way from Dover to Wales.
Peter wrote:
What does “VFR tracking to Wells” mean? What is “VFR tracking”?
Yes, another thing I find interesting about the UK is that when flying OCAS everybody is expected to know every single town or landmark on the VFR chart.
I think position reports should be given as bearing and distance to a VOR, NDB, waypoint or airport (airport and not airfield, since there are hundreds of little airfields that London Information may not even know exist…).
During CPL training I was expected to tell London Information what my routing would be. And then London Info would say “roger, report turning at XXX”. I still don’t really know why.
Just heard back from CAA MOR and I am found ‘not guilty’ of a CTA infringement :-) Very fast response. Happy man.
Excellent outcome, Pipersport
The CAA reads EuroGA daily and they know they would have looked terrible if they busted you for what was a perfectly reasonable action.
