Airborne_Again wrote:
I realised that controllers don’t know the Rules of the Air any better that pilots do — possibly worse! They really have no need apply most of those rules.
That may be the case at certain places, though it still takes a lot of believing. At the very least they must have passed an exam on Air Law? Such knowledge might get rusty, though, if never applied.
Round here. all the civilian CTR’s have regular helicopter traffic, VFR, usually at 500’ AMSL, so they do know what rules these chaps abide and live and fly by.
PS You have no right to generalise that pilots do not know the rules of the air! I do have met a few that knew them fairly well! 
Where do you get this little piece of wisdom from?
It’s in the French AIP.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
You have no right to generalise that pilots do not know the rules of the air!
I have said no such thing.
I realised that controllers don’t know the Rules of the Air any better that pilots do — possibly worse!
But I hope you observed the smile …
As others have said ATCs job is not to decide whether or not you abide by rules of the air per say. If they say not above 500’ and you don’t have the special authorisation to be that low then you should decline it.
There will (in certain countries anyway) be plenty of individuals and or operators who have authorisations for low flying and ATC may well be used to getting them to accept a not above 500’ clearance because that gives them a known environment in which to manage their other traffic, but it is up to the pilot to decide whether he is able to accept it or not.
In a previous flying job (not long ago) I was flying older smaller twins with basic equipment into some rather large airports frequented normally only by the more expensive stuff. Often the normal STARS/SIDS for these airports required RNAV which we did not have, or in some aircraft had but we didn’t have approval for terminal operation with them. It was not ATCs responsibility to check whether or not we were able to accept clearance on a SID, but ours to tell them that we were unable to do one.
Airborne_Again wrote:
The nice thing with this approach is that the higher minimum height is not hidden in some obscure national regulation but is in plain view as a P/R-area.
Which was probably at least one of the goals since the GM says: “In all cases, the related Aeronautical Information Publication (AIP) and charts should be made easy to comprehend for airspace users.”
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
Surely ATC would not issue such a command if they were not allowed to do so? I have always considered these people professionals, knowing the law and other rules of the air much better than myself. A controller issueing a clearance or instruction outside her/his authority must surely get in serious trouble?
Perhaps it’s not nice of them to do something like that but what do they know what you can or can’t? Not to mention that unless there is an incident, I don’t think it’s likely someone would dig into it. And in my view you’re qualified and responsible, meaning you should know what you aren’t allowed to do and that you don’t simply do something because someone says so/ gives you permission (that’s how one drives into a lake… because the navigation said so).
Aviathor wrote:
In my eyes the GM is very vague, unless you read it with a bias in which case it might be very clear to you.
I’m not reading it with a bias. I’m just not putting much stock in what GM says. It can help you interpret a regulation but for that there must be a room for interpretation in the first place. And that’s IMHO not the case here. I’m not interested in suing just out of principle and there isn’t a chance I would win a sizable enough sum of money, so if I wanted to do something about it, my weapon of choice would be to bring it to attention of EASA. AFAIK there is some review process where they check compliance of NAAs. PS: If I play the what if, after saying I don’t have the required permission, I might have asked the controller if he can give it to me ad hoc – it probably wouldn’t really make much of a difference in a court but it should make him think twice before giving it to me explicitly.
Archie wrote:
Where do you get this little piece of wisdom from?
Your quote is misattributed. IIRC, Aviathor wrote that.
Martin wrote:
Your quote is misattributed. IIRC, Aviathor wrote that.
That did not make boscomantico’s reply less true. It is, among other places, referred in the French AIP, but the legal basis is “Arrêté du 17 octobre 1957”
Here is a presentation with DGAC’s analysis of the differences between pre-SERA air law, and SERA.
Aviathor wrote:
Here is a presentation with DGAC’s analysis of the differences between pre-SERA air law, and SERA.
If I understand that correctly, they mean that the law of October 17, 1957 is a structure of the kind that GM1 to SERA.3105 refers to.
To my mind that is just FUD. It is clear from from the Guidance Material that the structures referred to are structures within the aeronautical system, which French national law is not.
In any case, the Guidance Material is just Guidance Material. It does not give the NAA the right to override the letter of the regulation.
“I’m not a lawyer”, but is would seem to me that the law of October 17, 1957 — or at least the part of it that prescribes higher minimum altitudes — ceased to be valid when SERA was published, as national law can not override EU regulations.
There are many instances where national regulators flout the law. Unfortunately, there is no realistic way to fight this in a court of law.
Cobalt wrote:
Unfortunately, there is no realistic way to fight this in a court of law.
Which is why it does not help commiserating over this here because it is sterile – it gets us nowhere. So we can just suck it in and deal with it.
