Cessna 152 gets in the way!

[coley chaos]

Picture this!

Weymouth carnival, lovely day, lovely sea, lovely ice creams, lovely ladies , Harrier GR7 in the distance on its run in to display for the suntanned masses. In it comes, loads of knots - wwwhhhaaattt:eek: a Cessna 150 steadily flying over the display area in the bay at 250 ft !! same height as the harrier now rapidly approaching the rear of the Cessna!!! Harrier guy flew straight past very-very close! Harrier guy does a 360 and flies straight past them again !! Should have shot the Cessna down for being such dimwits.
Weymouth is covered by Plymouth Mil, so I dont know what went on there ?
Harrier completed the display and zoomed off, probably to look for the witdims!!:cool:

[Who has control?]

Picture this (2)

North Weald Air Show 199?.

BBMF are strutting their stuff - the Hurricane is on display and flying up RWY 20. Suddenly it peels up and starts to orbit to the North because...there is a German registered Robin/spam-can/thingie on finals for RWY02.

The D-XXXX eventually decides that further progress is Not A Good Move and sort of breaks right back towards the Fatherland and the show continues.

I couldn't help but feel that is was 'right place, but 50 years too late.'

[Rallye Driver]

An airfield in the South East last year. A BBMF Spitfire has been booked to give a flypast.

The time approaches, so flying club decamps onto grass outside clubhouse to watch the fun.

The Mk XIX Spitfire is turning base and a club Cessna 152 starts dragging itself along the grass runway and takes off.

Spitfire hurtles down runway at low level, underneath the 152, does a steep climbing turn crosswind, then comes back for second pass.

Don't know if they'd be willing to do another this year though!

RD :rolleyes:

[IanSeager]

coley chaos

This isn't an excuse, but from the notams...

RAC : FROM 02/08/02 11:00 TO 02/09/02 07:00 U1698/02
E)PLYMOUTH MILITARY RADAR LARS NOT AVBL

Ian

[EESDL]

Civvies don't read NOTAMs, so dimwit would not have known LArs was unavailable!
Sweeping statement but I hear it every weekend......for example...any Brize 134.3 controllers around?
Last weekend saw civvies flying through para drop sites, into their zone etc etc.
Same with Farnborough and its TRA for the show, Reds Temp Airspace, Brighton Political Party conferences - the list is endless.
I was using Brize for a listening watch during flying at Charlbury and could not believe the ignorance of some people.
Many 'pro' civvy pilots out there but unfortunately there seem to be more dunces!!!
No excuse for not reading the notams considering the abundance of software that will print it all out on a pretty map for you.

[IanSeager]

I agree that not enough people read NOTAMS, but as of yesterday (or perhaps today) the pretty map stuff doesn't work anymore. AIS have changed their site.

It's back to reading the text for now

Ian

[PPRuNe Radar]

EESDL

Whilst the point you make is valid, there are quite a few Airprox reports over the years where mil crews seem to have infringed notified CANPs and the like and come close to civil traffic going about their business. Are we to assume all mil pilots don't read CANPs ??

Your generalisation is far too broad.

[Talk Reaction]

I only have one thing to say,

Ian S, was it extreme coincidence or are you a NOTAM spotter, I'm actually quite worried at the thought you could recall everyone for recent history.....

ps if that is the case maybe you could fly with me and then I could say "I never bong anything..."

;)

[DamienB]

I've listened in to several highly amusing conversations over the years where pilots have been utterly unaware of NOTAMed airspace.

Old Warden - a C150 asking to land, only to be told 'Er, I'd rather you didn't. There's a Harrier about to depart' - this on a well publicised display day.

Or Flying Legends at Duxford, shortly before the big formation at the end, some bloke asking to fly through overhead. '30 assorted warbirds in the overhead, advise staying clear' - delivered in the dryest and most sarcastic tone of voice I've ever heard.

Some bloke in a microlight near Fairford this year also wanted to fly through during the practice displays, briefly argued the toss when told he couldn't too. Beggars belief really.

[IanSeager]

Talk Reaction

Just coincidence. I'd read the thread and was then trying to figure out the new AIS site. I might be many things, but I'm not a NOTAM spotter, or any other kind for that matter :-)

Ian

[EESDL]

Told you that it was a sweeping statement.....in the mil guys defence....there is an ever increasing amount of bumf to read before every sortie, it beggars belief, hardly surprising that some get overlooked in these days of over-stretch. Please don't compare that to some dim-wit getting into the air without a cursory glance over one document.
Anybody care to list the documents that have to be read then perhaps our non-mil guys will get an idea of the workload involved!

Ian, can't believe what NATS have done with the NOTAM system.....please tell me someone will get promoted for this latest crass 'improvement' !!

[Surly Bondslipper]

A disused airfield in East Anglia, NOTAMED for weekend parachuting activity, two student canopies in the air, and two C130's come blasting right through the overhead, very scary indeed. Enquiries via CAA revealed RAF 'unaware' of airfield activity, were using as turning point for navigational excercises!

It's not always the weekend warrior in his spamcan that f***s up.

Thank you for your attention.

[matspart3]

There's obviously so much to read that you don't have time to plan a sortie that doesn't take you within a gnats's todger of my ATZ of through the Instrument Approach, which (due to the complete lack of airspace policy in the UK) happens to be in the FIR!!;)

[EESDL]

Couldn't agree more, let's regulate the whole of our airspace then there would not be any infringements...'cos we'd be already in it!! Works for London.

Seen it myself in Flt Planning......clerk misplots/omits point entirely, captain gets it in the neck!!! RAF still work the policy that everyone apart the captain cannot be held responsible if it all goes pear-shaped.........so, if the capt has to double-check everything anyway, why bother with the clerks?

Certain tasks are delegated but not sufficiently monitored.......point being: The mil pilot has to check countless docs, the civ pilot very few (I know 'cos I am one).

Hells bells, I fly with pilots who don't even know the RF 'phone number!! Scary world out there, so like I said before, let's regulate all of the airspace

[matspart3]

I accept that a disappointingly large number of PPL's fail to brief themselves adequately. There's no excuse. Being an ATCO at a very busy, predominantley GA airfield, I'm often on the wrong end of converstions with people who shouldn't be let out with a shopping trolley, let alone half a ton of flying metal.
My point, however, is that military sorties are often flown extremely close my ATZ and regularly through the Instrument Approach procedures. IMHO, this is equally silly. The ATZ dimensions offer no effective protection to my traffic. Flying a 3° glidepath on the instrument approach will put you below 1000' over a mile from the ATZ boundary and the circuit often extends beyond 2 miles when we're integrating Learjets with Cessna 150's. Wouldn't it be mutually beneficial if the military gave busy civil fields in the FIR a wider berth? Maybe MATZ dimensions?

[BRL]

I got this moved from the Mil forum. I think its quite interesting. What do you lot think?

[Tee]

Got talking to a student PPL recently who was about to depart on his first solo navex and who, by that stage in his training, had never heard of NOTAMs - hadn't a clue what they were.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Personal experiences...

(1) I fly regularly from a small (non-radio, non-ATZ) but nonetheless well known and clearly visible site next door to a **** MATZ (Helicopters). We're averaging at-least 3 reportable airproxes IN OUR CIRCUIT per year with mil helos. I suppose 1-2 per year are being filed, yet the (*insert armed service of your choice*) still won't mark it on thier charts as an avoid or brief their crew on our standard circuit, join and departure procedures.

(2) A couple of days ago I was routing down the E coast to Southend in a PA28. I was intending to route nearish to Clacton, so gave them a call about 10 miles out, was told they were having an airshow and wouldn't appreciate my company, so I stayed well clear. Problem solved, wouldn't even have made the call if I'd managed to get NOTAM information out of this blasted AIS website that I still can't work properly.

(3) About this time last year I was having a break at the IRW (International Rocket Weekend, yes - Engineers have strange hobbies) in Largs, which is on the W coast of Scotland just south of Glasgow. The site was notammed all week for rocket launching to FL50. About 3 times per day, throughout, we had to stop launches as aircraft (including an Islander, so not a PPL) flew straight through the NOTAMed launching area.

(4) A few weeks ago I got dragged in to avoid a microlight site getting closed down, which is close to a Nuclear power station. A PPL had flown 300ft above the top of the reactor.

(5) Bumped into a friend (an instructor examiner) at an airfield (neither his home nor mine) where I was doing a days flying. He was revalidating somebody's instructors rating. I'd NB'd on the NOTAMs a rocket launching event going on about 5 miles from the airfield, and flagged it up to them. Both had flown in, neither had noticed it on the NOTAMs.


What this all adds up to, to me at least, is that the system simply doesn't work. So, what do we do about it? Well here's a few suggestions:-

(1) ATIS at major airfields to include NOTAMS within, say, 30nm - or whatever area gives a guaranteed overlap for most of the UK.

(2) A US style 0 - 800 - WX-BRIEF style phone briefing system.

(3) AIS to provide a map of en-route NOTAM affected sites, then we clearly know which to look up without having to either understand their awful website, or work out lats and longs from the old printout system. This surely is no harder than the MET office's charts to produce - 2 pages, a map of the FIR with numbers on, and a numbered list of warnings.

Better still, all of these.

G

[andrewc]

Returning from Cardiff to Cambridge last week I got the handling
agent to print out the Notam's list so that I could go through
it prior to flight. He stated that I was the first person to do
that with him that year!

There seems to be a lot of the 'damn the torpedoes' attitude
going around nowadays.

-- Andrew

[englishal]

I saw the C150 at < 500'...though it was about 1½ hrs after the Harrier had done its display.

Still it did cross my mind that they probably shouldn't have been there, with a spitfire (or whatever), couple of Extra's, Whisky Bravo and the Red Arrows on their way...not to mention the sight seeing helo and the Police helicopter buzzing around and the 500' rule...

Cheers
EA:)

[bluskis]

NOTAMS must be the most difficult items of aviation to interpret, or to find the ones that are relevant. I have read that there was a software help for this problem, but that the latest NOTAM system has incapacitated the necessary links for that system to work.
Why can't notams be clearly indexed by date, by Alphabetical order, or by a logical geographical order, or better still byall three?

Looking up 15-20 grid references is hardly the most efficient or enjoyable task, only to find none apply.

[Rattus]

I never left the house without reading NOTAMs, until the cretins switched them off.:mad: :mad: :mad: