Originally Posted by
SoCal App
Not really.
We are fortunate in having a system that accommodates everybody on an equal footing. The airspace around LA is some of the busiest in the country with numerous airports all within just a few miles of each other.
I fly through the Class B on a regular basis. It all works fine and without any trouble. When you get within 30 miles of the Class B airport (LAX) you require Mode C , whether you are talking to SoCal or not. However, it is generally better to talk to them for traffic advisories.
However, if you wish, you can fly from the north into the Mode C veil over the top of Santa Monica and into the LAX Special Flight Rules Area directly over LAX at 3500 and pop out on the south side WITHOUT talking to a sole.
Try that over LHR.
If the arrival and departure routes out of LAX allow that then great, unfortunately the interaction of various routes from LHR and the other airports around it wouldn't make such a corridor an easy proposition here without a total re-design.
That said though I very rarely hear of anyone saying they're refused permission to transit the London Zone (bearing in mind its airspace classification and that much of it is a very built up area and the issues these bring with them) so it's not as if you can say that the airspace around LHR is some sort of total no-go area to GA.
Originally Posted by englishal
Use government employed ATCOs then....i.e. military, seeing as our tax pounds go towards their salaries. You would only need 10 or so to cover the entire UK, and it would probably be a cushy posting for them for a few years, so I doub't they'd complain too much
Nice idea if you can find any spare but unfortunately civil and military in the UK work to different rule books. I can't do their job and they can't do mine. A military atco with years of experience who wants to go civil pretty much has to do the full civil training course. Daft, but there you go.
Originally Posted by mm_flynn
I had a quick look at the Budgets for European ATC and FAA land and the FAA cost about 1/2 the amount per IFR flight or per IFR flight mile as Europe (and the UK costs on the high end of Europe). Within that cost FAA land provides the 'free' flight following service.
No doubt there are economies of scale in the States.
The UK appears expensive in European terms but factor things such as airspace complexity in and even the airlines are starting to accept that just looking at the basic charge doesn't actually reveal the whole picture.