Peter wrote:
I am sure the EuroGA exposure is mainly behind this. Discussion of this topic was squashed on Flyer (I got banned from there after posting about it) and IIRC nonexistent on Pprune (which is now largely gone anyway, for GA). Flyer is packed with CAA, NATS, ex CAA, ex NATS staff. We’ve had them here too, but they gave up trying.
Hmm, are there no organization of private GA in the UK other than these boards? Nothing wrong with boards, but they can hardly do an impact anywhere remotely close to a “lean and mean” organization. In Norway we are all organized in NLF, which is essentially like AOPA and EAA and then some put together in the US. Sweden has something very similar, France has it. Not sure about Germany, there seems to be several more or less in cooperation. I know there is the LAA, but that is rather specific, not?
LeSving wrote:
Hmm, are there no organization of private GA in the UK other than these boards?
@LeSving there are other organisations, but then the usual message from the DfT/CAA is: if you don’t like the process, you don’t follow it.
Meaning that you could refuse to follow the “mild route” and just say “see you in court”. There is a very high probability that you will win – in the end the burden of proof in a criminal court is much higher. But a) it is expensive, and b) if you lose, you risk getting a criminal conviction for breaking the law.
And typically this “mild route” works OK, unless you are being processed by someone who had a bad day and then they just punsih you for that (I’m exaggerating!). :)
Please note that when the UK CAA sees that the offence was bad and impact high (like Luton had to divert everything for some time) and they could easily prove it, then they just prosecute this anyway, not sure that they follow the mild route at all…
are there no organization of private GA in the UK
Not in the UK. There is AOPA but they don’t seem to do anything. Then you have the other bodies (LAA, BGA) but they mostly don’t talk to each other, or to AOPA, or to PPL/IR, etc 
It’s the first two posts at this link
The problem is that the UK CAA implementation has been extremely aggressive. Not surprising; implemented by military (ex RAF, ex RAF ATC) figures. When you get this sort of thing and the guy who runs it says there is nothing wrong with the system, there is little room for “talking”.
like Luton had to divert everything for some time
Sure, but the annual number of those is so small – around 1% of total – that it would not be worth setting up a website for them These guys do however always get dragged out in ATC presentations, and made to sound like this is the typical CAS bust which happens all the time, and how stupid GA pilots are, etc. Then the presenter moves on to level busts, with a thinly disguised dislike of bizjets (“cannot reveal level bust stats by operator, sorry”) which are believed to produce 2.5x more level busts (not surprising, given the variety of routes, flown mostly at very short notice).
Some time ago (quite recent but won’t post details) I was witness of an infringement case in Germany on FIS frequency. The controller told a callsign that he is seeing the aircraft already 200 feet inside airspace C, and that he really should descent. Pilot acknowledged and apologized. Five minutes later, controller said to same callsign that he is again in that airspace C without clearance and that he should get out quickly. One minute later controller reached out again to that callsign and said something in the meaning of “it looks like we’re lucky this time, RADAR most probably didn’t notice this, but please try harder to stay out”.
I was quite amazed. For one side, this feels somewhat normal to me, it’s not the first time that I heard something like this, and often when I flew quite close around a corner of any controlled airspace I got an informational call about restricted/controlled airspace nearby. For the other side, I read here about how this is treated in the U.K. and this sounds so ugly. There may be some exceptions, but most of the times I talk to RADAR or FIS in Germany, I really do appreciate the aid they provide and the degree of courtesy which is often applied here. I don’t remember how often I infringed airspaces when I was young and did not have the same level of attention on these things like I have today. I never did something “really bad” but I do remember moments when I thought shit, I am too high or already inside. I never got pursued. But this is so important to not look at or have controllers as “the enemy”. That’s not what they should be doing and is, in itself, an environmental threat and a cause for accidents, if you (have to) distrust ATC in any respect.
Peter wrote:
but they mostly don’t talk to each other
Why not? OK, perhaps a stupid question with an obvious answer However, some problems are common between all flying individuals. Airspace and ATC is definitely one such problem. If a common enemy cannot unite, then nothing can, that’s for sure. So my question will be, has it ever been tried?
People always find some solutions they can live with somehow. They may not be the optional solution, or even a solution at all but more like a dodging mechanism.
I will expect AOPA simply dodges the whole problem complex by saying IFR is THE solution ? Also, my impression of AOPA is they rather be in bed with the authorities joining lunch meeting and dinners, than in opposition to them.
I will expect the LAA to solve it “technically” either by flying IFR or by removing the transponder ?
The rest will probably just fly mostly at “safe” places ?
None of this will work all of the time, so a lots will always be busted. Clearly a united front is needed IMO.
UdoR wrote:
But this is so important to not look at or have controllers as “the enemy”. That’s not what they should be doing and is, in itself, an environmental threat and a cause for accidents, if you (have to) distrust ATC in any respect.
Amen to that.
Don’t mix up “trust” with “comradeship”.
“Trust” is mainly a function of credibility, consitency, reliability and predictability – if the job of a controller would be tor report every single infringement, and the controller does exactly this while applying superior skill and dilligence to determine if an infringement has really happened, then there is no reason at all to distrust the controller.
To the opposite: Copuld you trust a controller that decides arbitrarily if a specific transgression is reported or not?
The discussion here is heavily influenced by different oppinions on how strict or not strict a national CAA or ATC actually is. The problem: There is no data on the share of actual airspace infringements that are finally sanctioned – because there is no statistic whatsoever which counts infringements that are not reported.
The onlky things we can positively say: Both UK and Germany sanction some airspace infringements but neither UK nor Germany sanction all such infringements – the latter one I can testify by own experience (obviously from observing other planes that violated an airspace while I was keeping closey off its boundary …)
I am pretty sure the UK does take action on practically every CAS bust (CAIT software picks them up almost 100% and logs them; the exceptions are to do with retaining CAS squawks upon exit and have already been discussed), every DA bust on an active DA (somebody watching radar), every ATC bust which is spotted by somebody “interested” (tower staff, or instructors, usually). Discretion has been removed from radar controllers, several years ago.
There are still some people in the ATC system who risk their job by not reporting something. This happened to me on the last one I did, about 3 years ago. They found out only when I did the old decent thing and phoned them up to apologise. They told me they had nothing reported, but the phone call got some yellow jacket type to go through the logs, and I got the “gasco £400 treatment”. NEVER phone up ATC and apologise, here in the UK.
AFAIK no other country in the world has implemented such a punitive system.
Quite a good YouTube pointing out that perhaps PPL training is not building good OCAS planning.
Also quite fair on CAA.
As I have seen saying, most busts are in-flight errors, not planning errors, so almost the entire “course” is wasted.
He completely misses the point about the 5nm x 5000ft cylinder is actually a really stupid and pointless “rod for the ATC’s back”. Totally unquestioning Stockholm Syndrome there.
The ATZ business is very recent too. I was never taught in the PPL (2000-2001) about ATZs having any relevance – other than the basic precaution of keeping away from airfields when enroute. He says he got his PPL 10 years ago and it would have been the same then.
He is now going to do a dead reckoning lesson. Oh dear…
