Roffa,
You are of course correct - it is a joke - not a single IFR flight departing Farnborough expects to be refused entry to the ATS structure and not a single one will have planned to hold somewhere outside. At best you are going to have some extra low level traffic over the channel.
Fairoaks is designated by the UK authorities as an IFR airport. It has no IFR facilities - ATC, airspace, approach procedures.
---------
anotherthing,
FL70 is below the minimum level that is accepted in the LTMA for cruise.
Fairoaks is one of the LTMA airports. The
overflight level restriction does not apply.
Of course you may be able to explain why you would prefer a flight from Fairoaks to HAZEL to climb to FL90 rather than FL70 (or any lower level)?
---------
3Miles,
you even here say on one hand that no pilot expects to be refused entry, and then go onto quote the r/t phrase "Remain outside ...." and that works fine? Hmmmm isn't that a refusal to enter controlled airspace?
I have to correct your readback of what I said. Most importantly I included the required Expect Onward Clearance time...
It is not a refusal of entry. It is telling the pilot that they can not enter now but they can "expect" their clearance at the specified time. Therefore the flight holds until the specified time and has a reasonable expectation that they will receive the clearance.
Every pilot when told nothing more than "remain outside" should respone with "request onward clearance time". ATC are required to provide it. Just like an EAT it is not optional and has a number of important consequences for both ATC and the pilot.
Its quite simple....fly inside of controlled airspace, to get the service guaranteed, fly outside...you may get a service, you may get a join, hey it may even be the join you planned for, but then again you may get none, or only part of it.
No problem - provide controlled airspace (Class E is suficient) round Farnborough etc so that IFR flights departing from IFR airports can remain in controlled airspace from the runway. Otherwise, explain how a Farnborough clutch departure can get airborne and remain within controlled airspace.
I think that you should contact the safety people at TC. Ask them about their experience of flights joining controlled airspace who were kept below and who subsequently had an RA. Ask them what their policy is now about getting such flights into controlled airspace ASAP and why they will not put such flights at risk by someone in the real world saying
If the controller chooses to he may not provide him with any service, DS or TS, or even BS if he so wishes, and in fact at 3000ft outside controlled airspace anywhere near GWC towards SAM a BS is about all I would give in the height of the summer, because anything else would be physically impossible to provide with the amount of unknown traffic out there.
My recomendation - IFR-IMC - always ask for DS. Even if it is refused, when the RA happens the report is better to include the phrase "I asked for DS but it was refused". --- It is the pilot's version of "remain outside controlled airspace"
Finally one must wonder why not a single controller who works in the airspace concerned recognised that the answer to the original question is that such flights must route via HAZEL?
Regards,
DFC