Originally Posted by
Peter Lewis
But many of you here are conflating failure to obtain permission with a host of other poor planning and airmanship issues. My point is not that anyone should be able to turn up out of the blue without having done any preparation and without regard for others. I'm saying that a system which requires one to obtain permission in advance just to visit is unnecessarily restrictive (sheep grazing strips excepted!) Of course you consult NOTAMs, weather and other resources to plan your arrival.
What is unnecessarily restrictive about a requirement to phone and chat for 2 minutes about local conditions. We all own mobiles these days, and if we don't there's a landline somewhere. I can only once ever recall being declined PPR (they had an airshow on, which was fair enough), but have routinely been given useful advice.
I come back to this: if other countries with even busier infrastructures don't bother with PPR, why has it taken such hold over here, and with such apparent enthusiasm?
(1) They do - as I said, many US airparks for example do not permit landing without permission. I doubt that the proportion is much different betwee UK and US if you add up all runways.
(2) Anyhow, the UK is a small crowded island with tortuous planning laws. Many airfields are careful to not upset their neighbours, and insisting on a telephone briefing for visiting pilots is a reasonably painless way of minimising upset.
G