matspart3
So if you have a 'competant observer' (sounds dangerously ambiguos to me) why not treat them like any other VFR traffic? If you are essentially providing IFR separation services it's no wonder you have a reduction in approaches per hour.
There is a non-towered airfield round here with an ILS and a procedure turn using a VOR as it's fix, no radar services provided. VFR traffic shooting practice approaches 'self regulates' itself, holding in a stack above the VOR, using a common frequency. We should easily and safely be able to get ten approaches in per hour. Why should that also not be possible in a non-radar environment when you are talking to a controller instead of each other?
I thought I'd just edit this because I'm not being critical of ATC, I think they do a great job and generally do bend over backwards to fit in practice approaches. I just find it interesting that at a towered field I fly out of in the US, which has about 250000 movements per year with two runways and no radar (work that out per hour, tower open for 12 hours per day), they fit in all the practice approaches that gets thrown at them. No booking required.
Last edited by slim_slag; 8th November 2002 at 15:27.