Originally Posted by flower
Many airlines do not allow their aircraft to accept anything less than a RAS outside CAS
I've heard this many times but never heard who these airlines are. What if no RAS is available? There are plenty circumstances when the best you can get is a Limited RAS, or a RIS, due to, for example, high traffic density.
Without knowing which airport A and C is talking about it's difficult to address the specifics. There are plenty growing airports in Class G which don't offer a LARS but have a LARS provider nearby. In those cases A and C's light aircraft would be doing the correct thing in speaking to the LARS provider and not A&C's airport. If this was a regular problem then A&C's airport ought to have an LoA with the LARS provider to ensure that any aircraft working LARS which are getting close to the commercial airport are told to change frequency.
There's another side to this. I regularly instruct in Class G airspace where the occasional CAT flight passes through. The LARS provider will invariably ask me to cap my altitude, or worse, ask me to maintain a particular heading, to co-ordinate against the IFR, so he doesn't have to vector him. I always say yes even though I am under no obligation to do so and it can add several minutes to a sortie at the student's expense.
A&C, if you were in good VMC then you also had the option of still having a RAS but telling the controller you were happy to not take those particular vectors - or you could take a RIS. It sounds like the real problem was the fact that although squawking Mode C your traffic was unidentified therefore 3000ft vertical sep required if vectors not possible. What does your ops manual say about required separations from VFR traffic in Class G? I'll take a guess that it says nothing. Maybe it should.
NS