As many of you will know, North Weald airfield will be hosting the Air Britain Fly-in on the 19th and 20th June.
This is the first major Fly-In held at North Weald since the introduction of the Stansted TMZ and both NATS and the event organisers are committed to minimising the potential of risk and disruption caused by infringements of Stansted CAS and unauthorised penetration of TMZ-2. We understand up to 350 movements can be expected over the course of the two days.
As part of a range of measures to prevent and mitigate the consequences of infringements, NATS Swanwick have worked closely with the organisers of the Fly-In to agree some additional actions for the management of visiting aircraft to this event. These measures include making the event Prior Permission Required (PPR) which means that all visiting pilots should contact the organisers prior to arriving at North Weald for a briefing on the local procedures and a check that they are aware of the Stansted TMZ. For the period of the Fly-In, non-equipped (non transponder or Mode A only) aircraft are encouraged to arrive and depart via the Letter of Agreement delegated airspace rather than request access to TMZ-2 via permission from Farnborough LARS. A chart depicting the LoA delegated airspace is available
here. Additionally pilots arriving and departing VFR from North Weald are encouraged to avail themselves of a LARS from Farnborough or make use of the Luton/Stansted Monitoring Code 0013.
I will be available at North Weald together with a vintage Piper (wx permitting) to help brief pilots with a particular emphasis on identifying any infringing pilot on arrival to try and prevent a repeat occurrence on the outbound flight.
Thanks to the efforts of the GA community we have had a reasonable start to the flying season with regard to infringements. For the first time in a number of years we have seen a small reduction in total numbers and a significant reduction in losses of separation and high risk incidents.
If you are planning to visit North Weald this weekend or indeed flying anywhere your continued help to maintain this great turnaround would be much appreciated and I am looking forward to joining you for another great couple of days flying.