As both a glider and commercial pilot often operating outside of controlled airspace, this is something that I've thought about often. I don't panic or lose sleep over it, but the growing trend of CAT outside of CAS does leave with a increasing sense of inevitable conflicts in the future.
I don't fly airline equipment and the five-ton aircraft I do operate is probably the limit of what I'd personally deem comfortable operating OCAS on a lovely summer weekend such as this one.
Two things;
Originally Posted by chevvron
Easyjet (and other airlines) frequently operate crew-only positioning flights into Lasham airfield for maintenance, this being the busiest gliding site in the country..if the operators and their insurance companies are happy with this, then [others] should accept it's not an unusual or dangerous situation.
Good catch, but does this make the best example of your case under scrutiny? Precisely because Lasham
is one of the busiest gliding sites in the country, crews flying larger aircraft surely brief in detail the surrounding lack of controlled airspace and the nature of flying activities in the vicinity. Furthermore, the gliding clubs based at Lasham also do brief
their guys when large aircraft movements are expected and the glider-types understand the directions that approaching and departing big iron will take. And they avoid it. And it all works well, just as you say; but it works well because both teams know what to expect.
Compare that with, say, an Air EasyRyan Jet re-positioner flying VFR OCAS. If the route is, say, East Mids to Luton then perhaps there is no need to brief an arrival into a GA field. Only the route. A friend of mine works for one such company synonymous with a particular colour of the rainbow. He once told me a story of how (just as mad jock suggested) he and his captain were invited to ferry an aircraft outside of controlled airspace only to find no VFR charts in the aircraft, only airways charts. Great. They show all the controlled airspace, but they handily don't show where the gliding sites are. Useful that... Naturally, commercial pressure won the day. Not quite the same 'joined-up thinking' and team play of Lasham, I suspect.
Originally Posted by TALLOWAY
If you really want to improve safety for all, then I'd lobby them to make Mode S mandatory in gliders, as well as all other aircraft.
That's all well and good but as previously mentioned on the thread, weight and the lack of a suitable electrical supply on board some types either puts paid to it, or mandates such aircraft out of the airspace. To give you a context; the Ka-6 I used to fly was so weight limited that the pilot had to be more than 9 stone (ish) and less than 12.5 (ish). Otherwise, the aircraft was out of c-of-g limits. Strapping a Mode S and corresponding 12-volt battery into the aircraft would be just lovely, if it wasn't impractical.
The gliding community have been waiting patiently for the much-touted 'lightweight, low-power Mode S' unit that they were confidently told by the powers-that-be "would be developed" by
someone along with the rollout of Mode S. Only it never came. So what next? Rule out that sector of aviation from Class G?
Airliners should not be excluded either, far from it. Open FIR for a reason.
But all aircraft should be operated in a way which is commensurate with 'see and avoid', if necessary. That means relative airspeed, maneouverability and lookout as required. If certain CAT movements, even positioning ones, cannot be flown slowly enough, or the a/c flightpath altered quickly enough, or if the windows are too small or the cockpit workload too high to maintain adequate lookout, it is encumbant upon
them not to go, or to go inside CAS and with the protection it affords them.
Sadly, I fear that at the moment, many large/heavy/fast aircraft operated OCAS may not be adhering to such basic tenets of airmanship. And the "ban/Mode S/geographically limit the gliders" brigade are just pandering to that.
p.s. I think the low-level mil thing is something of a red herring in terms of airprox with gliders. Most fast-and-pointy mil stuff, in my experience, has generally (but not entirely) been well below 'gliding altitudes' or well above it. The most frequent military traffic experienced at soaring levels tends to be rotary. Caveat: in my experience.