Originally Posted by
Peter Lewis
I agree proper preparation is essential, indeed it's a legal requirement. But there are plenty of ways of ensuring you are properly briefed on the essentials without having to contact the airfield directly. It's the concept of needing permission to visit an airfield that I find baffling. The onus for proper preparation is on the pilot, and if it turns out that the airfield is closed that day, or there is no fuel, well that's our own look out isn't it? GA in this country is all about enforcement and the requesting and granting of permission rather than pilot responsibility. As I said earlier, it works well in the US and I've yet to see anything this country does better than the Americans when it comes to GA.
Okay, here's one.
I fly from a strip which is on the site of a wartime airfield. We're non radio, PPR only. On one day per year, we DO NOT FLY, because there is a service of remembrance there for many who died from there in a particular WW2 operation.
You don't phone, you don't know - you cause unnecessary offence by landing in the middle of the service. Not on.
(I have actually been on the strip there on a flying day to see a microlight land, pilot get out, pee in full sight of everybody by the side of the runway, then get back in and fly off without any courtesies at-all. That wasn't on either.)
It is reasonable to ask a landowner / airfield operator for permission to land on their runway if they want you to - it's not public land. This is about pilot responsibility.
Anyhow, there are certainly PPR only airfields in the US, many of them - a lot of the residential airparks for example. So far as I know, the locals respect this, as should we here.
And in both countries, PPR is for a minority, not majority of airfields - if the requirement offends you, fly somewhere else!
G