Today I went and did some instrument flying. Perfect day for it.
On routing out to SFD, Shoreham hops on the radio to another aircraft; G-XYZ Gatwick has contacted us and asks if you would be kind enough to leave their airspace in which you have been flying for awhile. Dude was at 5000ft. He reply's and apologises. A few minutes pass and again Shoreham pops on the radio waves to ask him to leave Gatwick's airspace as he has bust it again. He bust the space a third time when I think he finally listened to Shoreham and descended, well I hope that was the case as I had to change frequencies. He was urged to buy new maps and study them more carefully but it still did not appear to penetrate his grey matter. I wonder what was going on in his cockpit that his work load was so high that he had zoned out. I cant accept that there are pilots that would without care blunder around without a care? I also wonder if after the third time he was invited to tea without bikkies.
Anyhow, I just felt like a natter after a great days flying and I have no one to take to the pub and de-brief. I miss the days when aviation had a social life. :-) Bye.
I went for a local today and heard the same.
Hard to believe, indeed.
The airspace has not been lowered anywhere in the 13 years I have been flying around there - except the FL055 to 5500ft change, which will catch you out if the QNH is > 1013. That caught me out because I delayed the purchase of the new chart by 2 weeks, but today's QNH was 1015 which would be only 60ft too high if he used the 2 years old chart and was flying at FL055.
So it sounds like a more basic nav error, or he wasn't flying with a chart and maybe was using some electronic representation which he didn't know how to use.
Bases in the area were FEW/SCT ~ 1300ft and tops ~ 5500ft.
I miss the days when aviation had a social life. :-)
It still would have at Shoreham, if the T2 cafe had not been trashed by the quickly-aborted plan to turn it into a simulator room. That was where all the pilots used to meet. The main cafe is barely usable now (at lunchtime) because they are block-booking large chunks of it from the local care homes, it is too damn noisy to talk to anybody (except in the entrance hall area and that is the bit where they are block booking the care homes) and if you are alone, by the time you queued up, your table will be gone.
One can see the cafe wants to make money (it's a franchise so no incentive to provide a service to airport customers as such) but T2 was very busy and clearly making good money in its days.
Unfortunately I think that even if they re-opened T2, it would remain empty, because once the bad word gets around in today's internet scene, people never come back. They tried to re-open it over a period of time 1-2 years ago but it remained mostly empty. However that might have been because of the poor food choice.
I hear that there are plans to create more seating in the main cafe, using a bit of the upstairs, which is good news.
You and I may have met... let me know next time you are down there. I plan to be down Saturday morning to do some stuff on the plane. My email is in my profile.
What an idiot.
But a secondary issue here was whether any traffic for Gatwick was interrupted.
If not then a clearance could have been issued to let him get on with his business in that bit of airspace.
Would any ATC issue a clearance into CAS to a pilot who is apparently unable to navigate?
They might (should) help him get out of there (but only if he is on frequency which prob99 he won't be) but they are not going to clear him to bimble around inside CAS.
I wonder if Gatwick can see the Mode S aircraft reg. In this case, Shoreham ATC told him "the story" as soon as he called them up for arrival, so they must have known it was him.
Most of UK ATC cannot see any Mode S data.
In Germany some units at least can see your mode S. I was queried on my Altitude Select and QNH by Munchen Approach earlier this week. Wrongly in fact - they thought I was still on standard pressure but had actually changed.
but they are not going to clear him to bimble around inside CAS.
Why not? Flying assigned headings and altitudes is a hell of a lot easier than DIY?
And almost everyone would say that IFR (or VFR with Flight Following) touring is much easier than VFR own-navigation, own-frequency selection?
Out of interest, Fuzzy6988, are you an ATCO?
No, I am a pilot.
My point is that there are some quarters in the UK where people get far too hung up about the huge amounts of airspace incursions when there is absolutely no risk of a mid air collision!
If they are on the right frequency any aircraft should be able to seamlessly go in and out of airspace if there is no conflict. No big deal. No gold plating needed.
It is certainly an "interesting" discussion topic that ATC should give somebody busting CAS an automatic clearance to continue the flight, if there is no conflicting traffic.
Even in the USA you can't do that - even though you can enter Class D and I think C also, upon first establishing a two way radio contact.
In this case there were a few other factors:
No radio contact
Busting a Class A TMA so no possibility of a clearance to a VFR pilot
Approx 1300 LT so not in the middle of the night... can anybody get an archive pic of the ADS-B picture? I was ~ 4000ft and had loads of contacts on TCAS, within the CTR and above it.
You can get a crossing of Gatwick airspace, VFR, but only within the SFC-2500ft Class D CTR. Generally they do it at 2400ft.
UK Class A is almost impenetrable for a casual pop-up clearance. You need to be on a Eurocontrol flight plan.
There are things which ought to be changed e.g. the difficulty of getting a pop-up clearance, but I would suggest that busting CAS first and expecting to get it afterwards is not the best way to do it.
If they are on the right frequency
That might well be the crux: we recently discussed differences between UK and the rest of the world, and my main point was (and I think not mine only) that the UK has places where several frequencies may be right, or at least "not wrong". Pilots seem to have a free choice of radar operators to contact - a bewildering thought to me. In my own EBBU FIR, each place in the three-dimensional airspace has one and only one service in charge, with an associated frequency; and operators will be quick to point you elsewhere if you picked the wrong one.
BTW don't forget that radio is not the end of all wisdom. I am not sure about the UK but many countries allow no-radio (NORDO) flying in uncontrolled airspace, some even have procedures for NORDO operation in CTR's (look up EBAW in the relevant AIP if you are curious).
And even where radio is mandatory, total electrical/radio failure may occur.
