As a VFR pilot you routinely check your magenta line ahead and have FIS/ATC confirm that “Rxxx is not active”.
I put them on a list and sometimes can mark them just listening to radi traffic. The rest I enquire as I go along.
Why did you do the dog leg ? 5-10degs right would have done, wouldn’t it ?
(And still – I am missing a PLan B experience; being forced low can be painful same around Venice every time but it is not a show stopper)
We can do better than that. We can see it vertically above each other, and ask what the airspace classification is between 5500’ and FL55 (which would be several hundred feet)
You mean there is Class G there?
Timothy wrote:
We can do better than that. We can see it vertically above each other, and ask what the airspace classification is between 5500’ and FL55 (which would be several hundred feet)
Actually looking at EG ENR 2.1 and EG ENR 6.2.1.12, there is a remark to say that the bottom of Portsmouth CTA become 5500’ when Solent radar is open and Solent CTA is active.
How to properly encoded that in the various database is another question.
Peter wrote:
So why design them that way?
I’m not sure they were designed, I think they were congealed.
It’s telling when one of the foremost cartography agencies in the world (Ordnance Survey) can’t make a clear aviation chart because the airspace is such a mess of odd fillets and chunks, and bits that are 5500’ and adjoining bits are at FL55. I think the airspace designers must bear some of the responsibility for the high rate of airspace busts in the UK given the maps are so cluttered due to the complexity of it all.
I also suspect GA advocates are not pushing for simplification because they know that inevitably means it would be simplified by just increasing the size of the controlled airspace.
alioth wrote:
I also suspect GA advocates are not pushing for simplification because they know that inevitably means it would be simplified by just increasing the size of the controlled airspace.
It’s not so much that it “inevitably means” as that we are told in no uncertain terms that that is exactly what will happen.
I floated the idea at DfT today, as part of the new Aviation Strategy, that we should start charging for airspace by the M³, in the same way that Ofcom charges for bandwidth and frequencies. If it gains any traction, it should focus airports and ANSP’s minds as to how much they really need. There are swathes of airspace in this country which are clearly not required, but there is no incentive (indeed a very strong anti-incentive) to release it.
A big part of airport airspace (and the LTMA) is containing published SIDs and STARs – even ones which are almost never flown. But they have to be protected by CAS.
However another big part is the absolutely watertight division between the IFR controllers (London Control mainly) and GA (VFR) services. This prevents the former allowing a transit by the latter even if there is no relevant traffic in the way. And of course the Class A classification wraps this up nicely – any VFR (non IR) pilot in there is going to get busted by the CAA even if on an ATC clearance 
And the final wrapper is the limitation on the IMC Rating to exclude Class A.
All this stuff “hangs together perfectly” and unwrapping it would be political dynamite. For example if the LTMA was classified as Class D then IMC Rated pilots could transit it. Go to some NATS presentations to get an idea of how well that would go down… those people don’t even like bizjets much because they generate 2.5 times the level busts of scheduled airlines. Also < 2T GA pays no IFR charges…
If the LTMA was made Class D then the IMCR would have to be abolished as the quid pro quo, which would be outrageous, given that flying around the LTMA is not exactly difficult.
Somehow, most of the rest of Europe manages with most airspace below FL120 being Class E without people dying. That makes all the problems for VFR go away.
That, the ridiculously large Class D zones seen at some airports, the existence of Class D at low use airports and the preference given to IFR over VFR in Class D are all things that your representatives are working at, at the highest level.
The issue is surely that Class E needs ATC service provision, which the UK doesn’t want to pay for.
Especially when you wrap up the IMC Rating privileges into this, with all these pilots needing an IFR clearance which they don’t need in Class G.
So, for political / ATC funding reasons, it isn’t going to happen.
I am talking about existing D and A changing to E, not G.
OK, but then (looking at the ATC-political angle) the Class D owners will “lose control” because VFR traffic could be in there non-radio.
You could address that with an RMZ+TMZ, I suppose. But then what is the difference between that and Class D? Only in that with Class D, ATC can refuse a clearance without a reason. That (keeping the “amateurs” out of the “professional” airspace) is a hugely powerful factor.
