Peter wrote:
Yet, it must do, to some extent, because if you rank IFR inbounds same as VFR inbounds, IFR will collapse. One clearly cannot maintain the same ( (C) WW1 Royal Air Force) Mk 1 Eyeball when following an IAP as when flying visually. Also lots of flights fly IFR only, for various reasons. For this reason IFR inbounds are prioritised at most airports, even though ATC cannot be open about this because there would be an uproar.
I bet the priority is because it’s just less disruptive to a crew to extend a downwind than to break off an approach. Just because you chose to fly IFR (don’t get me wrong, I most often do), doesn’t absolve you from looking outside. You need to do it as much as the other guy flying VFR (I’m talking about the VMC OCAS case).
When I do approaches in these circumstances, I do a mix of looking inside and outside. If you are worried, you can even turn on your autopilot and almost exclusively look outside!
I’d rather have approaches everywhere and no priority (I’d have to look outside when doing the approach in VMC), than don’t having them because it’s too limiting to VFR traffic.
What concrete measures would you take in the Lydd case? In terms of how do you give the info to VFR pilots (/publish it on the map).
Good airmanship / ATC / transponders / radios obviously help all that. I’m all for using all these, and I think in the end most people do and that’s why it’s not something that really needs a change.
Just because you chose to fly IFR (don’t get me wrong, I most often do), doesn’t absolve you from looking outside.
Technically that is true but in reality it must be less true, because as you say
it’s just less disruptive to a crew to extend a downwind than to break off an approach
flying a full missed approach (or even some halfway thing) is a lot more work than extending downwind or doing an orbit.
What concrete measures would you take in the Lydd case? In terms of how do you give the info to VFR pilots (/publish it on the map).
Maybe consider putting the IAP platform altitude on the chart, and some education within the PPL. After all, PPLs are already taught to avoid ATZs, which are Class G and flying through them is not AFAIK actually illegal. They are also taught, in the UK, to avoid MATZs and AIAAs, which are worth even less (almost no traffic most of the time) but are all over the VFR chart.
I think in the end most people do and that’s why it’s not something that really needs a change.
Many don’t in the UK, and certain categories (e.g. “foreign reg” homebuilts) don’t as a rule. The latter doesn’t bother me because I tend to fly IFR abroad, but it probably bothers most others who don’t have an IR and/or are flying to the smaller places.
JnsV wrote:
We have minimum distances from clouds for VFR flight exactly to cover this situation, don’t we?
Peter wrote:
flying a full missed approach (or even some halfway thing) is a lot more work than extending downwind or doing an orbit.
If you are VMC, On the missed approach, I don’t really expect anyone would fly a full approach (what_next might disagree) unless you really want for training (then get an extra set of eyes, or go to a controlled airfield). Everyone can and does flies Visual approaches, including airliners.
We are even mostly talking about platform altitude here, so really it’s a time where doing a 360 is not nearly as disruptive as doing it during the final phase of the approach.
Would I be a bit pissed if some guy crossed my path and forced me to abandon my approach in VMC? Probably. Do I think something needs to be changed? Probably not.
Peter wrote:
Maybe consider putting the IAP platform altitude on the chart, and some education within the PPL. After all, PPLs are already taught to avoid ATZs, which are Class G and flying through them is not AFAIK actually illegal. They are also taught, in the UK, to avoid MATZs and AIAAs, which are worth even less (almost no traffic most of the time).
In the case of Lydd, with it’s 14 NM DME arc, would you then represent some sort of circle around the whole procedure? What if there are different platform altitudes? What when there are different platform altitudes?
One thing I’ll hope anyone agrees is we cannot expect is to have the VFR pilot look at approach plates and have to figure out that to avoid from the procedure.
This topic never occurred in my PPL training. I don’t even know what “platform altitude” is. Since most German airspace is class E anyways this is not indicative of instrument approaches. Most IFR airports have class D anyways and are thus protected. Of course as a VFR only pilot I have no idea how much of the IAP is actually in class D (and more importantly, what isn’t and at which altitudes? ). Since most German VFR traffic is at or below 3000ft this should not be a problem for most IAPs I guess.
MedEwok wrote:
This topic never occurred in my PPL training. I don’t even know what “platform altitude” is. Since most German airspace is class E anyways this is not indicative of instrument approaches. Most IFR airports have class D anyways and are thus protected. Of course as a VFR only pilot I have no idea how much of the IAP is actually in class D (and more importantly, what isn’t and at which altitudes? ). Since most German VFR traffic is at or below 3000ft this should not be a problem for most IAPs I guess.
I am a little surprised that you weren’t taught about not flying through IFR approaches but bearing in mind where you did your PPL, it’s probably not something you have ever come across and the instructor probably didn’t bring it up. The issue is not so much the ILS from (e.g.) International airports with their Class C or D airspace, it’s the smaller airports such as Siegerland or Allendorf which used to have class F airspace but have now been reclassified to an RMZ. In fact, it’s not even the RMZ which I see as an issue, the problem is that if you are having a bimble from North to South at. say, 3500 feet, you are in class E – which means for VFR traffic: no clearance needed, no radio contact necessary – yet above that airport, you can have fast aircraft such as JasonC in his Mustang (thread creep: has anyone found out what his next steed will be yet?) manoeuvring and following an IFR Approach. If you’re not talking to someone – either FIS or the Tower itself, you could end up having a bad day when flying past such smaller airports.
So my flight planning will generally take account of smaller airfields and their IFR approach / departure routings…..
Generally speaking, if you are going to be flying through the area of the said airport, do it at platform plus 500ft (or higher). So flying around Lydd would be done at 3700ft+
Similarly, Shoreham you would do at 2700ft+
Note that NITEN etc at 2700ft will place you into Class A whose base is 2500ft there, but if you didn’t know that you will have other issues 
unless like half of UK GA you fly non-TXP or Mode A
Anyway, my suggestion above would be the “educating pilots” option. I don’t believe it is feasible because there will be a zero buy-in from the VFR PPL training (“use the Mk1 eyeball, young man, we beat the Germans TWICE with it so it is good enough for you!”) business, and there is close to zero chance to educate pilots after they get their PPL (the 2-yearly reval flight is signed off by any FI who survived the flight).
I am still struggly to see the issue.
We dont fly through an ATZ in VMC because we recognise it is potentially dangerous, never mind poor airmanship. We are taught as much. (Hopefully on both counts). Why would you any more think it is ok to fly through someones IA? After all it is not as if there are that many, that they arent well marked (in the UK at least) and cant be covered as a basic element of PPL training (it certainly was when I trained, and should it not be part of the mutiple guess as well?).
I just find it odd why anyone would find it such an inconvenience not to organise their flight to remain clear of an IA, or at least not to check with AT whether it is active or keep their ears open (after all even as a vanilla PPL it was pretty obvious to me when someone was flying an instrument approach).
However I do accept that with most of this stuff you could fly around all day long with a blindfold do whatever you wished and probably never hit another aircraft – until of course you happen to be the one exception to the rule!
Peter wrote:
Yet, it must do, to some extent, because if you rank IFR inbounds same as VFR inbounds, IFR will collapse.
In case of US airports, especially uncontrolled ones, I don’t see any mechanism where IFR inbounds would outrank VFR inbounds. I haven’t heard of IFR collapsing there.
Airborne_Again wrote:
“We have minimum distances from clouds for VFR flight exactly to cover this situation, don’t we?”Not in class G below 3000’ MSL…
Then maybe there is a good reason why most countries protect IFR approaches by Class E (and possibly F) airspaces.
Steve6443 wrote:
it’s the smaller airports such as Siegerland or Allendorf which used to have class F airspace but have now been reclassified to an RMZ. In fact, it’s not even the RMZ which I see as an issue, the problem is that if you are having a bimble from North to South at. say, 3500 feet, you are in class E – which means for VFR traffic: no clearance needed, no radio contact necessary – yet above that airport, you can have fast aircraft
You say that it is a RMZ. How can then someone be there without talking? Or did I miss something?
Peter wrote:
Generally speaking, if you are going to be flying through the area of the said airport, do it at platform plus 500ft (or higher). So flying around Lydd would be done at 3700ft+
That sounds quite restrictive to me, especially with all the low-level Class A around there.
Similarly, Shoreham you would do at 2700ft+
ote that NITEN etc at 2700ft will place you into Class A whose base is 2500ft there
So maybe it’s not that all practical or even possible to fly at 2700 ft+ there… By your logic, a VFR flight should not operate in the vicinity of Shoreham at all.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I just find it odd why anyone would find it such an inconvenience not to organise their flight to remain clear of an IA
Before my first reply to this thread I actually checked the UK VFR chart for S/SE England and it indeed seems a rather big inconvenience to not operate at or below the IAP platforms in uncontrolled airspace.
or at least not to check with AT whether it is active or keep their ears open (after all even as a vanilla PPL it was pretty obvious to me when someone was flying an instrument approach).
Of course this is totally OK and actually it would be sensible to require anyone there to use their radio and be on the same frequency with everyone else, including the IFR approach. But this argument works equally well for VFR-VFR separation (if you are near an aerodrome, talk on their frequency).
Overall, I find it a bit funny that UK IFR/IMCR pilots who happily fly inside clouds in class G without talking to anyone or having any chance of spotting another similarly inclined pilot want to educate VFR pilots to avoid large chunks of uncontrolled airspace in VMC because they should not only have priority with CAS access, but also when flying approaches in VMC OCAS.
On the contrary – see the map
