PPR: If you have rats in your house, do you block up the hole from the sewer, or do you write an app for them?

Peter wrote:

Is anyone able to address the points I made above?

That PPR is automatically given is the normal situation. Why shouldn’t it be? But, with MyPPR for instance, the owner can close the airfield when needed. No one will be given permission to use the field. Typically this would be due to heavy snow, and no time to clean the field in a week or two. This is obviously also nice info to have for pilots. OK, the field cannot be used for at least a week.

This is also the main reason why Avinor fields use MyPPR outside opening hours. They can close the field. No one will clean it for snow if there’s no one there. In addition they often do maintenance work outside opening hours, and if that is going on no one will be given permission. Avinor fields could certainly also use NOTAM, and they do. This summer ENRO had some maintenance work. It was NOTAM’ed and no permissions were given outside opening hours through MyPPR. Avinor also use it to count movements. They are very keen on counting these Avinor people

Just think of MyPPR as some strange form of NOTAM/AIP, because that is essentially what it is used for. It has lots of information also about each airport. Permission to use the airport is always given, unless when for some reason it isn’t But it is kind of backward logically perhaps, but makes sense legally.

Peter wrote:

OK, but then you don’t need an app. The airport just needs to put a statement on its website. Or NOTAM it, if that is possible.

Creating an app is just another layer on top of that, which needs coordination, airport participation in the “back end” of the system, etc. And the app dev has to make money somehow…

MyPPR is just a web site, or web app or whatever you call it. It’s not a dedicated Android/iOS app. I agree, it could also be a normal web site, with the owner of fields having the rights to write NOTAMs. But that’s in essence what it is (MyPPR), only the format is different and more “per airport”.

Peter wrote:

Almost nobody reads AIP GEN, but AIP AD + NOTAMs should be standard briefing today, and any school which does not teach this should be shut down. Same for any FI who does the class rating revalidation.

heavy sigh
The schools do teach that today, but:
a.) how many people got their licenses well before that and
b.) how many people agressively don’t follow the rules (“I know better”) – just look at using seat belt while driving.

I agree that under most circumstances the PPR is approved automatically, but you could set limits for example, or have some flag set to “false” and after that you have no chance of misreading the AIP/Websire – you just don’t give the PPR e-mail, so a no go.

Peter wrote:

That’s why PPR should not use email, or actually anything other than a website which tells you whether the runway is waterlogged, snowed over, etc. A website could also show # of parking positions left. Gosh – even a webcam!

That does not take the time difference between flight planning and actual arrival into consideration. There might be a website telling me “3 parking positions left”, but that doesn’t guarantee that those are still available when I’m coming. See a PPR in this regard as a kind of parking reservation.

Peter wrote:

There again if an “app” is easy to use, everybody who might think of going somewhere will chuck in a reservation, and the whole thing collapses.

Peter, normally a pilot books PPR if it is needed, yes, of course it is open to abuse (like everything in this world), and if the capacity is limited the airfield might just start asking for pre-payment / deposit not later than X days before the trip etc.

Peter wrote:

So I don’t see “PPR” as a workable solution to anything other than exercising authority.

In the current situation I don’t see an alternative for some airfields – as we already know that there are many pilots who just wouldn’t read the AIP etc and will ignore the noise abaitment procedures (yes, I know, some of the procedures are ridiculous), so for the AD administration that is (somewhat) acceptable process set up:
- to improve the compliance and
- to show the local NIMBYs that “something has been done”.

But there are two separate debates here which are being combined into 1.

1. Is PPR really necessary, or just a useless evil that shouldn’t be required.
and
2. If PPR is required, is it better to have an automated online system or the current “telephone for PPR” system (which some are happy to accept via a Radio call, some only via telephone, some via email).

The first seems very country and legal system dependent. If the software in the first post leads to people imposing PPR where it didn’t previously exist (first question), then I’d be against it.

But if PPR already was required (second question) then I’d be very much in favour of being able to get it online, outside airport hours, via an automated system.