Another thing to note is that the LPV ceiling and prevailing visibility are by far the lowest amongst the other options (LNAV/VNAV and LNAV) in most cases. Combined with much improved lateral guidance (hence the lower minima, the lateral guidance is in fact ‘’ILS – like’’ it’s likely going to be the way forward. Personally I find it sad to see the UK doesn’t see the advantage of moving into this century while the rest of the world is adopting these approaches very quickly…
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Another thing to note is that the LPV ceiling and prevailing visibility are by far the lowest amongst the other options (LNAV/VNAV and LNAV) in most cases.
That’s what you’d think, but in my experience it is common that LNAV/VNAV minima are lower than LPV minima. My guess is that there are two reasons for this. 1) It is not LPV200 but the “old” LPV with 250’ system minimum and 2) obstacle clearance is computed differently for LNAV/VNAV and LPV.
Peter wrote:
Whether the UK turns off its monitoring stations, which must be costing it millions, is a really interesting Q.
Peter, if I recall correctly, the monitoring stations are not run by the UK. They are run by the GSA (the European GNSS Agency) and/or ESA (the European Space Agency).
Interesting…
The UK remains in the ESA, AFAIK.
They must be “run” by the UK, unless the power cable comes all the way from the Continent 
The funding may be fully from the EU, etc. So they may remain switched on.
Peter wrote:
They must be “run” by the UK, unless the power cable comes all the way from the Continent
OK, they are “run by the UK” in the same meaning that e.g. the Aston Martin factory in Gaydon or the IBM offices in Manchester are “run by the UK”; it is run by an organisation that is not the state nor one of its subdivisions, not the crown, not a public body, etc, but that uses the general infrastructure of the country, which is managed and run by the state (or public bodies or private companies under contract with the state or one of its subdivisions, …): electricity, roads, health & pensions for workers, etc.
Reading all the information re: LPV, EGNOS & UK, I don’t think the subject is correct anymore – from what I understood, the UK could sign a separate agreement with the ESSP (like other non-EASA countries do) and UK actually CHOSE not to add this into the Brexit agreement.
And even now nothing stops DfT from doing that.
Does it matter if it’s “evil Brussels blocking it” or “stubborn England choosing not”? at the end of the day, we had something that is now lost after Brexit, well it’s there for PIC to use but DfT/CAA are not liceneced to use it in official IAP plates
Well – it does matter in that it points you to the right tree.
Saving you from barking up the wrong one…
After reading the thread, I would guess the title is at least misleading ;-)
It seems to have been a case of Brussels asking for more money than the UK was willing to pay, so Brussels de-authorised the “safety of life” usage for the UK, which “as a matter of legalistic procedure” blocks LPV usage because while the signal will not change, the IAPs have to be de-published from the AIP and then Jeppesen will remove them from their GPS databases.
A homemade LPV GPS could continue to fly them, of course.
Whether the title is wrong depends on whether one believes the UK should be made to pay a heavier price for leaving the EU. Personally, if I was getting divorced, I would be amicable and not try to “maximally screw” the other party. I know many (most?) do exactly that, but I am entitled to my view, and I hold others to my standard I mean, de-authorising the “safety of life” usage is so utterly petty. It is like telling your ex wife that she can no longer drive her car onto you drive when dropping off the kids, but has to park down the road. If I did that to somebody (the EGNOS stuff, or the drive) I would want to crawl into a hole afterwards, of shame. Clearly the people who run these things are so far stuck up their own back orifices that they don’t see that. If my ex wife was living next door and piggy-backing onto my wifi, I would not cut it off, or charge her for it. Why not? Because I am not a mean bastard, and because it costs me exactly zero, zilch, nothing, absolutely nowt, and I will get easier access to the kids in return
Logically, the UK should have paid the (reported – maybe not true?) £30M/year, but as I have written before, the instant NATS would have got a smell of that they would have killed it simply because most users don’t pay route charges.
I also think the CAA should just leave the IAPs in the AIP and pretend nothing has changed. They are probably worried that they will get sued when somebody kills themselves flying an LPV approach.
Exactly. All the major airports in the UK have ILS, all the airliners use it for every approach, and this isn’t changing anytime soon. Who would use the LPV approaches enabled by EGNOS? Us? We don’t pay, so we don’t count. There is no lobby of any significance that will object to the loss of LPV in the UK.
A bit sad and a bit 20th century, but there it is.
