Post mortem on R112?

[peterh337]

Looking back on this saga, the best thing for me was that I did not have problems booking the IFR slots at Shoreham.

This really suprised me, given that 8am-9am they had just one IFR movement allowed.

The only explanation I can come up with is that other IFR pilots simply avoided flying - same as so many people (and probably almost everybody with money) avoided London.

I avoided flying through the RA anyway because I had no interest in summarily losing my license as per the CAA threat, on the slightest mistake or mis-communication. But IFR flights worked as usual.

I hope lessons are learnt for future events - notably that

- almost nobody will arrive in a business jet
- almost nobody will arrive by light GA
- hardly anybody will arrive by airline :) :)
- almost everybody with any money will avoid the whole thing :)

[Genghis the Engineer]

At EGTC various restrictions were put in place, none of which were necessary as we saw maybe 2 business jets daily. In the meantime, we've just been told that having banned all fire crew leave through August, nothing but light aircraft ops will be possible with September as they all go on holiday.

At EGTB I largely avoided and ignored it until late in the process when I particularly wanted to do a trip through there (straight out of the zone). I tried for over 2 hours to get a flight plan accepted, but it continuously told me I couldn't - well fly from EGTB to the lat-long for Stokenchurch mast basically. Utter cobblers, but I gave up in the end and didn't fly.

On the whole, it was a royal buggers muddle and most people just didn't both flying anywhere near London. The economic damage to various airfields and operators in the SE will be substantial but very hard to quantify.

G

[piperarcher]

The aircraft group I am in are based at an airfield that was within R112. Sadly for me, the group consensus was to chicken out, so we temporarily moved the plane to a different airfield, one which had an defined entry/exit exemption and that worked well for us.

Personally I was up for the challenge of operating within the zone, trying to be more accurate with flight plans and timing. I did some flying as a passenger somewhere else which was in the zone, and it seemed to be staightforward, the atlas controllers were very efficient and helpful and it wasnt all that bad. Though, on the first day of the CAS(T) enforcement, I heard it was chaos.

I do know of one person who had a flight plan accepted, was en-route somewhere and planned to transit along the edge of R112. He got in contact with atlas, who asked for his authorisation and in amongst multiple transmissions and multiple transmissions, thought he was in two-way contact with atlas. Well, he was'nt, (maybe he should have realised because it was busy and he wasnt handed over to one of the discreet frequencies), and he was later duly met by some (fairly) friendly heli-police at his destination. I am not sure of his fate, but I was kinda glad I did go along with the group decision to move elsewhere and play it safe.

PiperArcher

[silverknapper]

Used Blackbushe IFR. No problems, though atlas gave me a separate AFTN address to send the fpl to as they said they werent automatically getting every plan.
Chatting to the guys at Blackbushe and they said they had been quieter than hoped. So it does seem that for all the hype all that has happened is GA has suffered. Though apart from our small community who will care.

[high wing harry]

Flying from EGTB we were all actually pretty impressed with the guys at Atlas. They continually improved the service as the weeks went on and, by the end, there were no hassles at all.

We flight planned everything the day before and while there was less flexibility in our days, the VFR version seemed to work well.


A big thanks to Booker ATC for being so chilled out about not having comms with their traffic when it was above 200 feet on the climb out and dealing with rejoin calls with about 60 seconds notice. Apologies to Atlas for all of us who landed 90% of the time still squawking the atlas code and not the airfield code and

They were professional and courteous and did their best to help us at all times and we owe them a big thanks for making what could have been an impossible situation really okay.In fact, we're kind of missing them now!! At EGTB we got a different initial contact frequency which I think we shared with Denham and Waltham and that made such a difference.

Only thing is... next time, can we just have an entry /exit lane?!!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Only thing is... next time, can we just have an entry /exit lane?!!

A simple lane via Stokenchurch at EGTB would have solved everything so far as I could see.

G

[The500man]

The prohibited zone was probably justified, but the restricted zone was not necessary. Hopefully next time someone will actually look at all the recorded traffic in the known-traffic-environment-restricted-zone of this time and see that it was not necessary. I'm almost sure they won't though.

[chrisbl]

Flew about 12 flights with Atlas, and there was little consistancy until the end. Even then odd frequencies would be given with traffic west of london sharing with Essex traffic so obviously not a lot going on.

I had to make my exit routes 6 miles long just to go through the Atlas stuff before leaving 112.

If I was doing flights for myself, then I could have put up with it but training flights were not that easy and subject to delays which wasted students time and money especially when put on standby whilst they try and find the flight plan and authorisation used to exit 112 45 earlier.

Thankfully nothing like this will be needed again - nothing against the RAF.

As to the traffic estimate produced by Atkins in the report published by the DfT I hope someone in the DfT asks for their money back, as they got it spectacularily wrong.

[hingey]

Anyone know what the predicted stats were for movements, and how does this compare to actual movements?

Had a three leg day near the end of the restrictions. One into the zone, one to take me out and a third completely outside. Atlas control were fine, no quibbles. Filed my plans using rocket route, with an open copy of the Olympic Airspace guide as I did so. Was a pain having to stick to the time slots, almost had to bin the first leg despite the fairly generous 30mins either side window!

Rather oddly, after having my flight plans accepted with no hassle from Atlas, upon landing outside the zone after the second flight I received a text telling my flight plan for the first flight had been rejected :confused: Oh well, didn't stop me getting home and I was at no stage in the day greeted by a licence shredding machine.

h

[Sir Niall Dementia]

I flew in and out most days, the flight planning was just an extra hassle, but the two hour notice cost us quite a lot of work (most of our rotary ops involve a very short notice go, sometimes well under an hour for something like a Luton-Battersea)

Being told they had no knowledge of my flight plan on two seperate occasions, despite me quoting their clearance number and being told to remain outside was an utter pain. (one entry delay of 20 mins at £31 per minute)

Outside of working hours it was just very quiet flying, and once the controllers had started to get used to it, really rather easy.

However, the person in charge at DAP has not helped herself by refusing to talk to operators, and is now treated as something of a joke, and I'm ever so glad to have Farnborough Radar back.

[Peter Geldard]

Concur with most of the above.
Although I think Atlas did their best - and had to 'obey' commands - a lack of flexibility at times was quite costly.
On at least one occasion, the '2 hour rule' meant aircraft had to lodge over night at Shoreham in order to return the next day.
For myself, twice coming back through France via Le Touquet, when I did not know my exact ETA there well in advance, it meant that I had to 'hang around' LT for two hours for a flight plan to be lodged since there was no facility for a 'delay' on a plan possible. Good business for the restaurant at LT; but frustrating, none the less.
My real concern would be the curtailment that it did to both GA flying and GA training at a field like Rochester. I sadly await to hear of who, and how many, facilities will declare 'closure' later this year.

[betterfromabove]

Why on earth were Atkins engaged to produce the traffic estimates? They are great at building stuff, but hardly ATM experts?!

One lesson we could learn from this would be, the necessity for a FPL aside, the extra safety that could be gained from a few extra controllers and decent radar coverage. I'm thinking particularly about the NW corner of the zone (WW/Denham/Booker).

Wonder if GA will get that as a present for good behaviour? Er, I think not....

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Why on earth were Atkins engaged to produce the traffic estimates?
They do so for road and rail, why would you go elsewhere if Atkins were on your approved suppliers list?

[betterfromabove]

Atkins are well respected in their field, but with all due respect, road and rail are very different beasts to aviation. And the forecasts here were not just for commercial transport but to a large degree for GA.

Were Eurocontrol or NATS sufficiently consulted I wonder? AOPA, GAAC, business aviation operators etc?

Running up to the event, there were few indications of a massive influx of non-scheduled traffic. From what I understand from those involved in planning the arrival of VIP's, their movements - understandably - were arranged many months in advance. Any groups coming in on a charter would also need to be booked well ahead of time. As would media organisations operating TV footage etc. As for the athletes, the vast majority of these were carried by CAT.

So, who were these mysterious hordes meant to be descending on our fair isle? Billionaires and celebs wafting in on a whim in their BBJ's? Billionaires are increasing by the day in China, but there's not THAT many of them.

All seems strange.....

[betterfromabove]

The effect on GA has been completely unreported in the press. Hope someone picks up on this story if any organisation does go under this year.

[pudoc]

I flew about 60 hours VFR during the R112 period and didn't have a single issue at all. No FPLs rejected, no confusion over the radio and I even had an electrical emergency and Atlas permitted me to fly through the R112 despite a complete electrical failure imminent. The longest I ever had to orbit waiting for permission to enter was about 10 minutes but that was only once, every other time I was inside within a couple of minutes of requesting entry.

Don't see why everyone was so negative about it, was easy.

[ninja-lewis]

betterfromabove

"Atkins are well respected in their field, but with all due respect, road and rail are very different beasts to aviation. And the forecasts here were not just for commercial transport but to a large degree for GA.

Were Eurocontrol or NATS sufficiently consulted I wonder? AOPA, GAAC, business aviation operators etc?

Running up to the event, there were few indications of a massive influx of non-scheduled traffic. From what I understand from those involved in planning the arrival of VIP's, their movements - understandably - were arranged many months in advance. Any groups coming in on a charter would also need to be booked well ahead of time. As would media organisations operating TV footage etc. As for the athletes, the vast majority of these were carried by CAT.

So, who were these mysterious hordes meant to be descending on our fair isle? Billionaires and celebs wafting in on a whim in their BBJ's? Billionaires are increasing by the day in China, but there's not THAT many of them.

All seems strange....."

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa? Inundated with last minute flights AVCANADA • View topic - World Cup South Africa . . . biz jets . . . (http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=105&t=66224)

This time around 25% less than predictions apparently and a disappointment for some. London airports fail to benefit from Olympics bonanza - Corporate Jet Investor (http://corpjetfin.live.subhub.com/articles/london-airports-fail-to-benefit-from-olympics-657)

[Sir Niall Dementia]

One classic;

Ops scheduled me to fly a well known bod from an airfield near London to one outside R112 late one afternoon and back late that night. Simple job, airfield to private site, back in the dark, happens a lot in this job, airfield staying open for me, celeb a nice bloke, and weather looking lovely.

Atlas insisted on an IFR slot (well it was night) into an airfield with no IFR approaches. They then got totally knotted with IFR slots in the TMA, and insisted that the celeb should return at 21:45. When my ops told them that he would still be on stage at 21:45 Atlas told us that he would have to change his show times!

After two weeks worth of hassle the celeb went by road, we had wasted about 60 man hours of ops time and lost a £7000 charter. There was a total lack of understanding of GA before the event, some of the controllers were very good, others hidebound rule followers, we have done the sums re lost business and the figures hurt, esp as this is the busiest time of year for our rotary operation. If anyone in GA loses their jobs as a result of R112 and the stupidity which caused it I hope Lord Coe, Tessa Jowell et al will be there with profuse apologies, and compensation.

[A and C]

Coe & May don't give a damm about anyone but themselfs, they are bathing in the reflected glory and looking good, why would they worry about who they trod on to get to this position?

[peterh337]

Huge numbers of people (contractors to the games) made large amounts of money out of it, and they are very happy.

Probably a huge economic loss for London's businesses though, because today's sport fans are almost totally uninterested in the stuff one does in London.

Has anybody seen a breakdown of how they propose to recoup the £12BN?