Bronx: Wind your neck in. Can we keep this intelligent and interesting ? Or are we sliding down the slippery path again ?
TC: I know of at least one police force where the ASU has input to the drawing-up of TRAs. In fact I know one UK force who put officers into civilian ATC for an event last year - clearing every aircraft, not just ones that wanted access to the TRA.
NLJ: The only one setting off your TCAS was you. The other aircraft was operating all the time around Salmesbury at 1500-1700 ft QNH - it couldn't go lower because it was transmitting a continuous live signal to a truck buried the other side of the hill in Blackburn (inside the TRA) and the signal would only hold together at 1500 or higher. You were the one doing the formate - it's entirely up to you how close you want to come. All I know is that at one point you came close enough on our starboard side that we could see you very clearly. You also popped up on our port and you sneeked up behind us at one point - but fortunately we have the world's best rear mirror. Our tail camera saw you. And most of it is on tape.
At no point did we hear any communication from you to Warton that may have been intended for us - if you were worried about your TCAS a simple call to ATC would have got our attention. Your PAOM allows you to operate much lower than any other civilian aircraft - and most times we come across ASU helis they are taking advantage of that freedom.
And for other readers of this thread (who are most likely beginning to nod off) let me just reaffirm - the airspace around Salmesbury was uncontrolled with no TRA and was a very uncongested area. If NLJ was getting TCAS alerts, he knew exactly where they were getting their hits because we were the only other aircraft around.
You know - it is possible for us all to get on. In other areas (like the Met) we enjoy a good relationship with the ASUs. We are even freely given some of their freqs so we can exchange air-to-air information. We are not the bad lads - we have a camera, lens, live link and 3+ hrs endurance that could be extremely useful in any security situation - I know this because we have had 2 approaches from security services whilst on tasks.
We are simply doing our freelance job legally in free airspace.
Although if you look back to the start of this thread you would wonder if I am being naive........
NLJ - if you want to talk please PM me with a number.