In fact have changed my mind.
My previous post was because I couldn’t be bothered to say what I felt - which seems a shame.
It is far easy to say well done, and I apologise .. .. ..
When actually I feel there is a growing tendency for people to want praise and thanks for the most extraordinary things.
Elsewhere someone wants thanks for creating an easier PPL IR when the utterly ridiculous system we have should never have come into existence in the first place had the relevant organisations and regulatory authorities been doing there job properly. The only person that should get any thanks is the new fella on the block that decided to do something about it.
Now we are expected to thank NATS (or however they have re-branded themselves) for providing a London LARS.
Lest we forget, the reason a London LARS is needed is because of the minimal amount of open FIR around London. As I said before there are significant areas where traffic is corridored into 1,000 feet of airspace with numerous bottlenecks. CAT causes these bottlenecks. NATS claims their mission is to protect commercial traffic and they don’t have the funding to provide a reliable service outside CAS. However, since commercial carriers require protected airspace, it does not seem unreasonable they should pay for the airspace they use. After all telecommunication providers pay the government a very large sum for their privileged use of certain frequencies.
I have taken many people flying who have never been in a light aircraft before. Without exception they are horrified when told to keep their eyes peeled for traffic - “but surely you are on radar”. God forbid there is ever a mid air over one of the “nice” London suburbs, but certain newspapers are going to make hay out of all these aircraft flying overhead without any form of separation from other traffic. NATS are going to protest that its not part of their brief, and the government will say they are a “private” organisation. Someone is going to spot that the Government own a golden share, mention that the CAA is responsible for safety and that really it is a misnomer that NATS provide a “national” air traffic service. No one will come out of it well, never mind that it might have been one of the small commercial flights operating form a London satellite airport that had twenty or so people on board.
Fact is in such congested airspace the service should always have existed. When I started flying Dunsfold did a very good job and Manston covered the whole of the south east corner. Both have ceased to offer a service and whilst even then it wasn’t perfect my guess is the airspace was less congested and the traffic slower moving.
So forgive me if I sound ungrateful, but I cant bring myself to say “well done” or “I apologise” for the parties involved only now providing a service that they should have felt compelled to provide for the last 15 years. I cant forgive them wanting to charge others, who could well have provided the service in the past, £100K for a radar feed, when the real cost was a fractional part of the proposed charge. Finally, no apology will be forthcoming form me to those involved in the Chinese whispers that say just wait and see, you will get what you want, but we are not going to tell you what it is or when it will come, but when it does, aren’t we clever because we knew something everyone else didn’t. Good luck to you if that is what rows your boat.
Now it aint rocket science you lot, provide the service you know you should. If you doubt it is possible take a trip to the States and see how it should be done. I know, our airspace is sooo much busier, we couldn’t possibly do that .. .. .. , b&88"3** !