Psst - want to stop infringements?

[Flyontrack]

For those of you who may not know, we have a project, sponsored by the CAA which has three non-CAA working pilots looking into the reasons behind Airspace Infringements and actively encouraging suggestions on how to reduce them.

We have been running for about 18 months and have a website at www.flyontrack.co.uk The site has been the main vehicle for obtaining information from pilots and controllers, and features an open forum for ideas and suggestions from you at the sharp end.

It also provides a questionnaire to gather infringement 'stories' from those who have been there - all anonymous with no need to register at all.

Many of your colleagues have heard of us, as witness the many suggestions and discussions we have already received from pilots. This is really directed therefore to those of you who have not yet had a peek at our site, or not heard of the 'ON TRACK' project. We accept there may be some who haven't!!

The project is due to wind up on the 31 December 02, and we will be starting to write the final report to the CAA in early January. Clearly we are anxious that the report carries as much weight as possible to achieve maximum results. If you know of something that needs fixing, make sure your views are heard.

The more comments and reporters we can quote, the more chance we all have of getting improvements to the system.

Please don't dismiss the project with a "No chance!" As Neil Armstrong said, "One small step for the CAA - one giant leap for aviation safety" or something similar.

Well, this is definitely a first step for the CAA and they're keen to see results.

So if you have any ideas or suggestions to make the skies in and around controlled airspace safer, then please get over to our website quickly and give us your contribution on the Your Say forum.

Let’s face it – this is the first time you’ve been asked directly for an opinion, so don’t let it pass unnoticed!!

Alternatively you can e-mail us, or phone, write or fax us for free! Details on the site.

Thanks

David Esson, Mike Nash & Chris Gould

“The On Track Pilots”

[The Inspector]

How to stop infringements??? Hmmm, now theres a question..

How about:
1) Reduce the amount of controlled airspace in the UK.
2) Improve the teaching of basic navigation skills i.e stopwatch, chart & compass.
3) Ban the use of GPS as primary nav tool.
4) Reduce the amount of clutter on UK Charts.

OK, No.1 is maybe a little too tongue in cheek, but No's 2, 3 & 4 are surely (IMHO) the biggest causes of airspace infringements in the UK?

The correct use of GPS relies on being programmed accurately. Garbage in, Garbage out etc.. How many pilots have programmed an incorrect position into the GPS unit, then blindly followed it without checking the route and headings etc before flight on a chart, as well as constant cross-checks as the flight progresses? And how many pilots can say that they are 100% familiar with the operation and capabilities of their GPS unit before they venture into the air?

My point here is that basic nav skills are being forgotten because of an over-reliance on electronic nav aids.

Look out of the cockpit, theres a lot to see out there..........

[Stampe]

Hey guys your link doesn,t work !!.My suggestion all controlled airspace should be required to have a dedicated radar controller to handle VFR passing/transitting traffic.This would have a advantage for IFR traffic as nothings worse than coming off airways to approach whilst looking for descent and having to listen to "life story ums and ahs " of some of the less able members of the private flying community.!!.GPS just love it ,pilots just need to make sure they use it properly and always check tracks and distances are sensible.:)

[Flyin'Dutch']

Hi Inspector

Allowing for tongue in cheek for number one I was a bit surprised about your suggestion for not allowing a GPS as primary nav-aid.

You no doubt know that unless you have an IFR approved GPS you are not allowed to use if as primary means of navigation.

Dont you think that rather than banning the use of GPS it would be more helpful to educate people in the use of them so that they are aware of its limitations and capabilities.

I think that education is what is needed rather than limitation. After all I assume that you use 'modern'electrics in your house rather than candles; or is your PC steam driven.

How many people have done any serious XC flying before and just after they have got their coveted PPL under the supervision off or help from more experienced jockeys?

Its trial and error for most.

MHO of course

FD

[powerless]

The link does not work because there is a . at the end. Try www.flyontrack.co.uk

[Flyontrack]

Thanks for the comments so far - interesting variation on GPS which is covered in some depth on our website.

We've also been asked to look at more LARS, dedicated Radar and an expanded service to include "Flight Following" and "Listening Watch".

I've edited the link to www.flyontrack.co.uk which works now - too many dots!!

There's much more on these subjects and others on our "Your Say" section - why not take a look and get your word in.

Keep 'em coming.

Thanks.

Dave

[chrisN]

I don't agree with "too much clutter on charts". I use the geographic data for navigating, the airspace data for avoiding it, the radio frequencies for contacting ATC on occasions when I hadn't planned to but then need to, etc. I can't think of anything that is redundant for a glider pilot like me.

[Bouncy Landing]

Losing Luton's LARS and Stanstead's (Essex Radar) reluctance to provide any real RIS / RAS does not help GA in the Luton / Stanstead choke point, which, I understand, is where a high proportion of infringements takes place.

I know that we (GA) are obligued to avoid unauthorised excursions into CAS and they (Luton, Essex, etc) have no obligation to provide any service, but with significantly increasing CAS traffic to both airfields they should be required to increase the service to GA, not reducing it, as a quid pro quo for the restrictions on GA.

I have a half mill chart of South East England dating 1984 (NOT still in use, I hasten to add!!) and comparing controlled airspace then and now makes very depressing reading. The least we should get is an air traffic service maintained at same levels when losing "open" airspace, not reduced or withdrawn service. Without condoning poor airmanship or bad navigation, if both are reduced it stands to reason that infringements will increase.

[Hairyplane]

TO suggest the banning of GPS is nuts.

It is also completely non-enforceable.

I expect that the degree of infringements caused by finger trouble will reduce as technology continues its inexorable march forward - there are some reet clever ******s out there!

I can understand a few years ago that your average pilot (who like me needs to find an 8 year old to programe the video) was a little fuddled by the new gizmo.

However, with aviaton databases pretty much the norm these days, there is less to go wrong. Put in one letter wrong on the ICAO ident and you end up with a distance and direction that is quite obviously wrong as opposed to getting a digit or two wrong on a user waypoint.

I started with a Garmin 100 (still have one!) but have a 430 and a 420 in my ship currently.

Enter the code and 'bing!' you get a nice magenta line lighting the route all the way.

What would be useful is for the half mil - French/Jep style - to include the codes alongside the actual facility.

Problem with the map page set is that the various airfields (and the dreaded airports!) are just shown up in their 4 letter codes and not names.

It is therefore difficult to cross refer them by looking at the map, especially on some screen settings.

Include the designator alongside the facility on the map and it will make things a lot easier.

Buy a GPS with an aviation database on it, however tempting it is to buy a 99 quid hikers aid. Revise the maps. Fly in nice weather.

Thats my contribution to reduce the risk of infringements!

HP

[Flyontrack]

Thanks - we'll have a look at the inclusion of codes as you suggest.

Of course no-one is suggesting banning GPS, quite the contrary. What we have received is many requests for the acknowledgement of GPS by authority, which currently almost ignores GPS for GA.

In otherwords - "it's there, a huge number of GA pilots are using it, let's make it as safe as possible by making it secure & easy to use"

Other suggestions include data compliance for the manufacturers so the database is as accurate as possible, more information on how to use the kit, better manuals, proper training; all these and more feature so far.

We'll take any suggestions to reduce infringements - either here or join the debate at www.flyontrack.co.uk

Thanks

Dave

[ratsarrse]

I saw the stand at the PFA rally. The VFR corridor charts for Stansted and Manchester were/are a fantastic idea.
If anyone hasn't seen them, here's a link:
http://www.caa.co.uk/dap/dapcharts/ontrack/document.asp?groupid=302

[Genghis the Engineer]

One or two thoughts from the coalface:-

GPS - superb toy, very useful. But dangerous unless pilots are educated not so much in how to use them, but in how to integrate them into the overal nav task. Those of us with a military background are generally okay, because it's little different to how we were taught to integrate INS and TACAN. But it's not properly covered by the PPL syllabi, the standard texts, or the otherwise excellent safety sessions run by CAA, PFA, GASCo, etc.

I would recommend a little booklet, costing about a quid, called "navigating with GPS" by the late Ann Welch and Bill Scull.


Controlled airspace - Yes, why is there so much? Surely virtually all the traffic in controlled airspace is under IFR, even when VMC, so should be capable of being safely channelled down narrower corridors than VFR traffic, yet the reverse seems to be the case more and more.


Controllers - Let's face it, there aren't enough of them and they're overworked. I had a prox I didn't report a while ago when flying home into the sun whilst under FIS. Because my on-track viz was so poor I'd asked for a RIS but been refused citing controller workload and the fact I hadn't got a transponder. Whilst I was fairly rude to him at the time (not entirely unfairly having just been missed by 300 ft by a light twin he was talking to and I didn't know about) this is in large part down to his workload and the system behind that, not the chap himself. This is frankly a top-level resources and management issue. In this instance, airproxes and infringements are equally likely to happen.

Airmanship - Well, lets face it, if pilots flying VFR routes don't plan properly, we'll get infringements. And many don't.

G

[Flyontrack]

Thanks Genghis

Spot on comment! Do you have a link or any more info on the GPS booklet?

Dave

[Mak]

Very good thread and glad to know the CAA genuinelly wants to know the opinion of GA pilots.

On the matter at hand I'd like to add:

1) Reduce the structure of controlled airspace.
I don't understand why there is so much of it but I trust someone gave this serious though. But more than the coverage it is the complexity that creates the infractions. I fly out of Denham and if you go north you have a bit of London TMA at 2500, then a bit ore at 3500 and it goes up but a little to the side there's some more at 4500 (I'm quoting from memory so I'm sorry if I got the numbers wrong - but the point stands).

2) Add proper GPS technique to the PPL syllabus
Let's face it, most pilots I have flown with will use GPS as their primary means of navigation. So ignoring it during training does
nothing for flight safety or airmanship (or for airspace infractions).

[B]3) Reduce clutter of VFR maps[\B]
This may be a difficult one to implement given the cost that producing GA specific maps would entail. However, given modern production and printing methods I don't see it as a major hurdle. Anyway the point is that GA pilots don't fly at high altitudes so adding high altitude information to the charts makes them more difficult to read.

Very good thread and glad to know the CAA genuinelly wants to know the opinion of GA pilots.

On the matter at hand I'd like to add:

1) Reduce the structure of controlled airspace.
I don't understand why there is so much of it but I trust someone gave this serious though. But more than the coverage it is the complexity that creates the infractions. I fly out of Denham and if you go north you have a bit of London TMA at 2500, then a bit ore at 3500 and it goes up but a little to the side there's some more at 4500 (I'm quoting from memory so I'm sorry if I got the numbers wrong - but the point stands).

2) Add proper GPS technique to the PPL syllabus
Let's face it, most pilots I have flown with will use GPS as their primary means of navigation. So ignoring it during training does
nothing for flight safety or airmanship (or for airspace infractions).

[B]3) Reduce clutter of VFR maps[\\B]
This may be a difficult one to implement given the cost that producing GA specific maps would entail. However, given modern production and printing methods I don't see it as a major hurdle. Anyway the point is that GA pilots don't fly at high altitudes so adding high altitude information to the charts makes them more difficult to read.

On a related matter, since I'm on the subject of maps, on change I'd like to see is new symbols for airfileds. Those light blue circles are too easily missed (in the absence of ATZ). Let's face it, it is easier to spot disused airfields than active ones.
A little rwy icon as seen on US maps also gives additional (useful) information both if you're planning to land or simply want to id the place.

Hope this adds to the discussion.

Mak

sorry for the mess above. Hope it is still readable...

Mak

[chrisN]

I suppose we will never get agreements to everything, but if I make take up some of Mak's points:

This GA pilots, and lots of other glider pilots (we are all GA) do fly quite high and need higher level data as well as low level. I have flown up to FL130 in east Anglia, for instance, and most cross country glider flights use up to FL60 or higher when cloud base is that high.

Some years ago the CAA produce two sets of charts, the low level ones leaving out much data and being less cluttered. They didn't sell well enough to keep going IIRC.

In the 1970's a well meaning and influential individual (GAPAN member) made a plea for reducing airspace complexity at the bottom of the LTMA. In consequence, it was made 2500 feet over a very large area, reducing parts from 3500 feet even where it was no use to airliners etc. - and in doing so, virtually stopped cross country glider flying from North Weald where we had been able to reach the 3500 area and no longer could. It took about 15 years to get that bit back, and was a disaster for my gliding club. We really couldn't see why we had to lose our flying because some GA pilots can't read maps very well. We manage it OK.

The various steps are there to protect combinations of standard instrument departures and arrivals at airports AIUI, and reflect the presumed climb patterns and typically 3 degree descent rates of airliners. I and others have spent years battling to keep as much Class G as possible, so minimising controlled airspace even if it means these steps. The last thing we want is the GA movement, or that part of it that only uses the lower bits, taking flying room off us again.

[rustle]

ChrisN wrote:

"The various steps are there to protect combinations of standard instrument departures and arrivals at airports AIUI, and reflect the presumed climb patterns and typically 3 degree descent rates of airliners...."

The climb profiles of modern airliners don't require the huge amount of airspace to get to altitude that older, less efficient, airliners did...

I wonder if there's any chance of claiming-back some of the lower LTMA as Class G or raising the base ;)

Is anyone bold enough to suggest such a thing?

[Genghis the Engineer]

From memory "Navigating with GPS", by Ann Welch and Bill Scull. I think that you can buy it at £1/copy + postage from either BMAA or BGA; I . It's a slim A5 booklet (after all, make it too thick, and nobody will read it) which (in my opinion) makes it's points simply and well, with the aid of some well-drawn pictures.

On a personal note, I knew both authors and both had made a huge contribution to flight safety before being prematurely taken from us. Both had written a great deal on safety in its widest brush, all of which is worth reading.


Note on charts, surely FL100 is the obvious cut-off for low-level chart information, since nobody should be going above that without either pressurisation or supplementary Oxygen and the paraphenalia that goes with it. OK, para aircraft can legally do so for short periods, but that's a specialist application in a localised geographic area.

G

[breakscrew]

My simplistic, but firmly held view is that there is too much controlled airspace, at too low a level, and there are always more and more proposals to expand it. No one appears to have grasped the nettle and decided on a comprehensive review of lower airspace CAS.
If you take a line across southern England from Cardiff, Bristol, Lyneham, Brize, Luton and Stanstead, and then fill the gaps with Colerne, Fairford & South Cerney, Oxford, Benson and Wattisham, then there is precious little space left to transit through. Sprinkle that with the odd unhelpful controller and the appalling UK weather, then it is pretty unsurprising that there are a few infringements from time to time.
The midlands are not much better with Shawbury, Manchester, Birmingham/Coventry, East Midlands and the Vale of York RAF stations all occupying the only low ground that there is available.
Unfortunately, it is always the poor GA pilot who is castigated as being an unprofessional, poorly trained amateur. Often unfairly....

[Flyontrack]

The airspace issue is clearly near the top of our list, and we know there is another review in the offing.

Certainly there's no suggestion that we need more CAS coming from any of the GA pilots we've heard from, but there is a fairly set stand - off right now on the issue.

We've floated some suggestions already to ease local difficulty - the area around Stapleford is a prime example - it'll be looked at again and we hope to free up more space there.

Lower Airspace maps have been trialled already without much success, or it has to said, enthusiasm. They didn't look much clearer at all, and some pilots couldn't actually spot the difference. (Don't laugh - I had to look closely to see it, as around London there's hardly any difference where it's busy anyway).

The VFR Chart Editor, Howard Dubovie, is very approachable and watches our website to pick up on any good ideas being discussed - when we went to see them they had already produced about 10 different sets of charts for us to look at based on the On Track comments they had seen, without us actually having to ask! So they're definitely on side.

Feel free to contact Howard direct to put any mapping views to him if you wish:

[email protected]

In any event, all your comments to us are very welcome and will be followed up.

Thanks


Dave

[WorkingHard]

Perhaps those who decide on the extent of contralled airspace might like to consider a "RENTAL CHARGE" to be paid by those who claim such airspce as their own. A simple charge based on volume claimed would perhaps see some significant reductions in CAS. Before anyone shouts about the costs then being passed to GA remember GA already pays a huge amount towrads the provision of services and many airports already levy "navigation charges" to us.
The responses will no doubt be read with interest

[Bouncy Landing]

I too saw the prototype map for LTN/STN "corridor" and think it excellent, but thats only havf the point.

Workinghard's suggestion is excellent and similar to mine - at the very least if the commercial operators (airlines or major airfields) want all this CAS to "protect" themselves the very least they shoud do is stump up the cost of giving us some assistance to avoid "their" airspace. Incidentally airspace is, like the ocean, the property of everyone / no-one, no-one has bought it, as you would with land property (ground). What give them the right to effectively "claim"it?

[chrisN]

I have been told that airspace was effectively "nationalised" so the government disposes of it as it wishes, without compensation to those disadvantaged and without cost to those to whom it is given.

[Genghis the Engineer]

One should of-course bear in mind that we are allowed, subject to procedures, to fly in the majority of controlled airspace. The problem really is that whilst this isn't a problem on a planned route, it's a nuisance if you want to "just fly", as lets face it we often do.

The need for notification and communication however does increase both pilot and controller workload, arguably without much real benefit to either.

G

[skua]

I agree with most of what has been said, particularly Genghis' earlier comments. There has to be a "holistic" (urgghhh management speak) approach to this which involves looking at releasing surplus CAS. My particular bugbears are the BIG/LGW corridor, and ditto LUT/STN. The geography and CAS floor/sides, are OK in low traffic/good VMC days (an oxymoron in the South East!) But in marginal VMC they give one precious little leeway for avoiding murk or metal.

Skua

[Genghis the Engineer]

Which raises an interesting question. For such GA corridors, would it be worth having nominal flow arrows on the chart? Effectively, create a one-way system.

G

[slim_slag]

For such GA corridors, would it be worth having nominal flow arrows on the chart? Effectively, create a one-way system.

In all the VFR corridors I know which are 'uncontrolled', the chart will supply an altitude to fly depending on direction. If 'controlled' you will be assigned an altitude by the controller. So separation is maintained vertically and not laterally.

Ha, just woken up thinking of one which is not like that! San Diego has a VFR corridor where you ARE separated laterally and not vertically, and the chart has flow arrows on it. Back to bed.

[topunicyclist]

I think some GA pilots can often be apprehensive about talking to controllers of major airports when transitting near a CTR.......a case in point would be Birmingham where pilots were/are actively encouraged *not* to contact Birmingham ATC if not intending to enter the CTR (I've never flown that way, but have read this on the notams or elsewhere - cannot recall exactly where!).

In summary, provision of better ATS for pilots flying in the vicinity of CTRs would, in my opinion, be a benefit, particularly in instances where a pilot becomes "temporarily uncertain of position".

Hope this doesn't repeat too much of what has already been said.........

[TheFox]

Rustle have you ever heard of a a340 ? :D

The problem with charging large rental for airspace around airports is that the people paying for it are not the ones having to use it.

[Charlie32]

One thing that would improve GA utilisation of limited ATC services in areas like Luton/Stansted is for ATCOs to have the equivalent of CRM training. In other words, they need to understand that they will not get the most efficient RT performance out of GA pilots by telling them in aggressive tones to keep clear of controlled airspace (we are usually trying to despite doing a hundred and one other thing including maintaining a good look out).

Most GA pilots are very sympathetic to the workload of the ATCOs and don't delibarately try and irritate them. But we are not perfect and when we get things less than perfect we need a bit of help rather than a B*****ing.

[BRL]

B.T.T.T.

[bluskis]

Beg your pardon. What does that mean?
Hope I now have enough words to pass the filter.

[BRL]

bluskis It simply means Back To The Top. Its nothing sinister. I done this whilst I stuck the Anne Welch thread up for a while so people can make a note of the memorial service.

Don't really like more than 2 threads stuck to the top although recently there were 4 up there there are now only 2 again. :)