GPS approaches in UK?

[n5296s]

I was talking with someone the other day about GPS approaches in the UK (I'm in the US). I was under the impression that there were still very few, but he claimed that they are now widespread. Just wondering what the actual situation is...?

Thanks...

[IO540]

No; just a few. Lydd, Shoreham, and a few others.

The UK requirement for mandatory ATC will ensure they continue to mean very little, because nearly all airfields with ATC already have conventional approaches, and you can fly those with any GPS, whereas to fly a proper RNAV/GPS approach you need a GPS installation specifically certified for flying GPS approaches and you need a flight manual supplement stating that.

It's a dreadful waste... but it is unlikely to change because nobody wants to pay for the ATC salaries, and nobody wants to pay for the ATCO desks which would be needed, one way or another, to control the approach traffic to a non-towered airfield.

[Duchess_Driver]

Shoreham, Cambridge and Gloucester have RNAV approaches without even thinging about it or researching further.

Pitifully few.

[soay]

Blackpool's comes and goes:

Q) EGTT/QGAXX/I/NBO/A/000/999/5346N00302W005
B) FROM: 11/10/01 06:00C) TO: 11/12/31 21:00
E) RNAV(GNSS) IAP RWY 28 AVBL, SUP S24/2008 (http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadbasic/pamslight-4539D5AC3EA4FD1548956FEA790162F5/7FE5QZZF3FXUS/EN/SUP/NON_AIRAC/024-2008/EG_SUP_2008_24_en_2008-07-17.pdf) REFERS.

Anyone know what the procedure is for starting again after a missed approach? The charts for Shoreham and Blackpool just abandon you at the beacon.

[Sir George Cayley]

+ Heathrow, Gatwick (26R) Manchester (23L) Lydd, Exeter, Staverton.

More in the pipeline too.

SGC

[GeeWhizz]

Anyone know what the procedure is for starting again after a missed approach? The charts for Shoreham and Blackpool just abandon you at the beacon.

Fly a proper approach with a procedure turn ;)

[bravobravo74]

Alderney has a RNAV approach too. The sooner that everything becomes RNAV the better in my opinion however I know a die-hard NDB advocate who'd punch me in the face for saying that.

[wigglyamp]

Alderney will have the first UK LPV approach approved - it comes out in the Nov 17 AIRAC cycle so those with a Garmin 530W/430W or GTN unit suitably approved will be able to fly it.

[Fuji Abound]

I think the missed for SHM for example is clear, for 02 climb on heading 013 to 1,500 then left turn and back to the beacon or as directed. Hopefully by the time you get back to the beacon ATC will ask your intentions! Dont forget many of the airports with these approaches in the UK have no radar so obvioulsy you are not going to get vectors. More worringly a number also rely on NDBs for the missed so you can have all the juicy GPS kit in the world but you are not legal when you fly the missed without the oldest bit of kit in the world. ;)

PS Dont delay the climb Truleigh Hill is best avoided. ;)

[chevvron]

A word of caution; many people 'design' their own GPS approaches without taking into account things like missed approach procedures, other adjacent airfields, and above all factoring in the correct MDA taking into account the lighting or markings available on the landing runway. A list of lighting requirements is available in the UK AIP.

[soay]

Hopefully by the time you get back to the beacon ATC will ask your intentions! Dont forget many of the airports with these approaches in the UK have no radar so obvioulsy you are not going to get vectors.
This seems to be a retrograde step, compared with a conventional ILS which has a published procedure for returning to the approach from the beacon. I wonder why they chose to design GPS approaches in this half-baked way, which can't make life any easier for ATC, or pilots. A standard procedure could be programmed into the GPS, whereas this requires it to be reprogrammed on the fly, depending on the instructions from ATC.

[GeeWhizz]

Dont forget many of the airports with these approaches in the UK have no radar so obvioulsy you are not going to get vectors.

Utter Rubbish! Why would you want to fly an instrument (in this case GPS) approach to begin with? Above/in cloud? Night? You'd be very brave not to receive a radar service, especially if the airport hasn't been granted a class D CTR; procedural control could be exercised without Radar in this sense. Try explaining to your passengers how else can you be separated from other aircraft, known or unknown, or sequenced in the landing pattern?

The notes on the chart at the Supplement for Blackpool above, states that the missed approach shall become a conventional procedure on reaching 2000ft. Is it sensible suggestion that GPS procedures are still relatively new and therefore incomplete? Maybe that's rubbish too.

[Fuji Abound]

Hang on getting GPS approaches over here was a shocking result in the first place, horrible new fangled things. ;)

I bet someone was chuffed to bits including "not to be flown without NDB"!

Funny think is they now want to save a few pounds by getting rid of all the NDBs (quite rightly) so it will be interesting to see how they redesign the approach.

[GeeWhizz]

Absolutely. I'm opposed to chopping NDBs and VORs; there's something aviator-esque not using electronic maps that calculate everything. Alas these aids are being turned off, and it will be interesting how GPS approaches change alongside.

[soay]

The missed app procedure simply comprises being sent offshore for a few miles into a GPS hold.
So once ATC release you from the hold, where would they route you? It would be a bit risky to go direct to SADDE, with no climb gradient specified, unless you climbed in the hold.

[GeeWhizz]

I stand corrected, perhaps I should re-phrase to specify changes to the MAP.

[disco87]

Alderney has a RNAV approach too. The sooner that everything becomes RNAV the better in my opinion however I know a die-hard NDB advocate who'd punch me in the face for saying that.

That's what owning it does for you though.

[n5296s]

So once ATC release you from the hold, where would they route you? It would be a bit risky to go direct to SADDE, with no climb gradient specified, unless you climbed in the hold.
Huh? You'd have something like 25 miles to climb 2200 feet.

Ordinarily you'd never get to either the hold or SADDE. On the way in I'd expect direct CUDAK, with altitudes as appropriate for the terrain. And if you went missed and wanted to try again (why?) then they'd ask your intentions as soon as you reported missed, and you'd get "climb and maintain 4500, direct CUDAK". (Why 4500? Dunno, but my experience is you usually get multiples of 500 even when the approach would let you go a little lower). (Oxnard has an ILS anyway so unless it was out of service you'd probably never fly the GPS).

I've flown my local GPS (Palo Alto) dozens if not hundreds of times. Even when my route takes me directly past an IAF, I've still been given direct to the intermediate fix (DOCAL). Sometimes even vectored to just outside the FAF (PUDBY).

Many thanks for all the answers.

[JW411]

Compared to the USA, we in the UK are still very much in the beginning of GNS approaches.

A couple of years ago, a few airfields in UK agreed to take part in GNS approach trials. As one of the inhabitants of one of the chosen few airfields and who had an aircraft with a fitted bit of kit (Garmin 430) and who had a lot of interest in having GNS approaches approved, I volunteered to take part in the trials.

I took part in the trials right from the beginning.

As a professional pilot of getting on for 50 years experience, I was not too happy with the way things were going so I called the Belgrano (the CAA) and asked to speak to the GNS team.

I found myself talking to a very nice chap who, when I started to talk "practicality", admitted that he had never done an RNAV approach in his life.

So; I said "Get your arse down here and we shall go and do some".

The next piece of fascination is that he called me to tell me that he could not fly with me between the hours of 0900 and 1700 because his Lords and Masters in the CAA had told him that "since I did not have an AOC, he would not be covered for insurance if we had an accident between 0900 and 1700".

To give him his due, he asked me if we could fly after 1700 and I was happy to do this. He came along with cameras and videos and went away happy after several approaches having finally seen the ease of making a GNS approach for the first time.

According to the UK University that was involved in collating the results of the GNS trials, I did nearly 10% of the total approaches flown during the trial.

What really p*ssed me off at the end of the day was when my local airfield was finally approved by the CAA for GNS approaches, the let down plate had been modified in one very important fashion.

The MAP (Missed Approach Point) had been changed from a GNS distance from touchdown to to the airfield NDB.

Now this is a nonsense. The whole object of having a GNS let down is that it is a "stand alone" aircraft aid.

Now we have a situation whereby the fact that if the Victorian NDB (which I thought we were getting rid off) is U/S, then we cannot legally do a GNS approach since the MAP cannot be determined according to the CAA!!!!!!!

However, it is a good move from the airport operator's point of view for they can now charge you for the use of their (probably dubious) NDB when doing a GNS approach.

[IO540]

Why would you want to fly an instrument (in this case GPS) approach to begin with? Above/in cloud? Night? You'd be very brave not to receive a radar service, especially if the airport hasn't been granted a class D CTR; procedural control could be exercised without Radar in this sense. Try explaining to your passengers how else can you be separated from other aircraft, known or unknown, or sequenced in the landing pattern?

Are you a pilot?

[n5296s]

It could equally have been Camarillo's GPS approach where they do not have ILS.
Sorry, didn't mean that in a negative way. I was just looking to see what alternatives you'd have and realised you'd only be on the GPS if you'd asked for it explicitly. Though maybe the long term plan is to remove the ILS from airports like Oxnard that have little or no non-GA traffic and rely on WAAS. [removes tinfoil hat]
The whole object of having a GNS let down is that it is a "stand alone" aircraft aid.
This (using the NDB) is doubly nuts. Because even if it's u/s, the GPS knows where it is and can fly you there, and after all you MUST have a functioning GPS. As far as the GPS is concerned it's just some coordinates like any other waypoint.

[JW411]

Sadly being an idiot is not a crime:

That is absolutely correct. I have spent a lifetime trying to teach idiots. I have not tried to put them in compartments for that is not the way the world works.

I have taught people to fly everything from hang gliders to DC-10s.

My biggest challenge was a bunch of pilots from the Far East.

The young first officers were terrified of advising their captains that they were not, perhaps, doing their best.

I used to bang their heads together on Night 1 in the simulator and try to give them a basis of CRM.

One of my biggest triumphs was to get one of my F/Os back on a Captains course. He did a great job so I gave him an "Above the Average" rating. The sh*t immediately hit the fan because none of his seniors had achieved that rating from me.

If Boy Rosalez is still out there, then bloody good luck!

[soay]

when you have requested another approach, which may be before arriving at or during the hold, they will typically vector you at a specified altitude back a couple of miles outside the FAF to intercept.
Anyone know how ATC handle that at airports where they don't have radar, such as Shoreham (EGKA)?

[IO540]

It then has to be procedural separation only.

At a Class G airport, the concept of "separation" is illusory anyway. Try the ILS into say Lydd, and every so often you will have an airprox with somebody flying through the IAP at the platform altitude :)

Class G is Class G...

[Fuji Abound]

I am surprised that procedural seperation is so poorly understood. If everyone obeys the rules it works just fine and after all if the radar head is on the field (southend comes to mind) radar is still not much help.

If you dont understand flying an approach in the uk without radar then your training has been remiss.

As to how it is done it really is as simple as stacking traffic in the hold, descending them in the hold sequentially so as each aircraft reaches the bottom of the stack it is cleared for the procedure. The aircraft will land or go missed in which event it will get injected back into the stack at an unoccupied height. Atc will at least know from vdf where the aircraft is in the hold or procedure even if they cant confirm the aircrafts height.

I0540 referred to chimps elsewhere, and without doubt some chimp flying through the iap unannounced has every ability to cause chaos if not disaster but in blighty we struggle to afford to fly these days never mind provide coast to coast radar cover for all and sundry.

[GeeWhizz]

This thread's interesting. Yes I do fly; perhaps not on instruments or GPS often enough. My point initially was that there will invariably be some kind of ATC to provide vectors where notified IAPs exist, GPS or otherwise. Although there probably are exceptions.

As already stated, procedural separation works well but only within certain classes of airspace. Also IO540 mentioned airprox as a real possibility outside CAS, which in my mind lends even more reason to provide an approach radar service for all instrument/GPS arrivals. Although separation my be 'illusory' in class G, at least traffic information could be provided reducing the 'surprise' factor:confused:

Ultimately IMO GPS will improve further, the number of procedures will increase and become mainstream, consequently and sadly bring about the total abolition of conventional aids and associated approaches :{

[IO540]

Also IO540 mentioned airprox as a real possibility outside CAS, which in my mind lends even more reason to provide an approach radar service for all instrument/GPS arrivals. Sadly, again, you need to discover the reality of flying in the UK.

ATC was privatised some years ago. NATS (or anybody else) is not going to provide a service which costs them money. The only services UK ATC provide are

1) Those they make money on

2) Those which the CAA told them they must provide when they went private (basically ICAO obligations like a FIS; not called the "BS").

GA under 2000kg IFR or under 5700kg VFR does not pay route charges.

The only remaining driver for any kind of service to GA is to keep some kind of a lid on the several hundred serious CAS busts which happen every year and which threaten a GA-airliner midair. This has not happened yet in the UK but has happened elsewhere and statistically is only a matter of time. This is why units such as Farnborough receive funding; they are not doing it as a service to GA.

If ATC was not privatised then we could have the system they have in every other country where e.g. you have a regional approach controller who schedules traffic to IAPs and then you can have gPS approaches to unmanned runways, like they have in the USA, France, and elsewhere. Here, it will never happen because the whole system has been shafted years ago.

DIY approaches is the only way. They are legal in a G-reg but arguably not in an N-reg (ref: FAR 91.175).

Although separation my be 'illusory' in class G, at least traffic information could be provided reducing the 'surprise' factorTraffic info is nearly useless, because most traffic will not be talking to the unit. If even a significant % of enroute traffic called up London Info, the service would collapse immediately.

We have to accept that flying in the UK is flying on your own, using your own nav (GPS being by far the best) and if you can get a radar service from somebody, that's good. But even then the radar controller is under no obligation to give you info on all conflicting traffic.

[Fuji Abound]

There is little evidence of airprox issues outside CAS in conditions you would be flying an IAP in earnest. The reality is there are few aircraft flying and thankfully most know what they are doing. Yes there is a risk, but statistically it is so small as to not be worth worrying about.

Irrationally I would far rather transponders became mandatory because I am as happy using TCAS for avoidance but I accept that the case for mandatory transponders is very weak given my earlier remarks.

At airports without class D I see so little traffic in IMC conditions that procedural seperation works just fine, and there is no evidence of which I am aware to the contrary. If the volume of traffic were to increase significantly that might change - but I dont think that is going to happen any time soon in the present economic climate.

Frankly based on the evidence I could fly around the UK OCAS in IMC for the rest of my life making a few approaches every day using a procedural service and never have an airprox, so based on that I think you are worrying about a solution to a problem that doesnt exist. All of which means that if someone wants to provide a flight following service OCAS free of charge I will still sign up. :)

[IO540]

There is little evidence of airprox issues outside CAS in conditions you would be flying an IAP in earnest

Of course; there is hardly any traffic about then.

Also there are no known IMC mid-airs in the UK since about WW2.

IAP practice is the problem.

Irrationally I would far rather transponders became mandatory

I agree, but I don't think it is irrational because there are fairly regular mid-airs in VMC. Lookout doesn't work.

ADS-B would be even better :)

[Fuji Abound]

I agree, but I don't think it is irrational because there are fairly regular mid-airs in VMC. Lookout doesn't work.

I also agree. I suppose the reason I used the word irrational is because how many mid airs are there in an average year - a couple maybe, there or there abouts. On the one hand it seems to me the cost of fitting out the entire fleet with transponders (on a case by case basis) is not significant (setting aside the usual arguments about power, space and regulatory issues) but the cost of fitting TCAS is significant and probably almost impossible in many aircraft. So in reality at best you would end up with a fleet with at best a few percent having TCAS. Transponders would improve radar visibility, but that is assuming a radar service is available and that primary radar is not.

It is a tough economic argument - is the cost outweighed by the perceived benefit of possibly avoiding a couple of mid airs a year, and owuld it actually avoid those mid airs given the current radar service and lack of TCAS in most aircraft?

Of course for the selfish point of view of anyone flying an aircraft with TCAS we would love to see everyone else flying with a transponder. ;)

[soay]

Of course for the selfish point of view of anyone flying an aircraft with TCAS we would love to see everyone else flying with a transponder.
Seconded! TCAS makes you aware how poor the eyes are at spotting other aircraft.

There's an article on transponders in the latest issue of Loop. In it, the author (Nick Heard) cites a friend he was flying with who, when asked why he hadn't switched his on, replied "am I supposed to". :ugh: