A quick look on the chart shows me that Plaistows, and Big Rob's strip at London Colney are 2nm+ outside of the Elstree ATZ. I've also flown from Rob's strip, and am quite sure that Elstree is not even readily visible from it's circuit.
It does beg the question of what any piston engined aircraft is doing that far outside of it's own ATZ in the circuit. One of-course has to sympathise with the need for noise abatement, but not when it takes aircraft into another aerodrome's traffic pattern - however little used. Particularly if tihis takes them opposite to the direction of traffic (which, as Rob ways, is inevitable if he's taking off into wind, and they are downwind).
As for radio calls - it's a microlight strip, which means that they will have single radios (if at-all). The onus should surely be the other way - for Elstree traffic, outside of the Elstree ATZ (and thus, in my book at-least, outside the circuit) to change to 129.825 microlight general use frequency and notify Colney of it's intentions as well as keeping a good lookout and taking avoiding action if required.
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 20th Sep 2004 at 21:47.