Joe operates from her privately owned strip in the South of England and his friend is based at L2K. They regularly fly cross channel to meet up. Both have just spent 4,000 euros on a mode S box because someone in Brussels said they must. They didn’t realise it cost another 1,500 euros to have it fitted. Joe found nobody wanted her three year old mode C transponder which was perfectly serviceable, and Pierre had to reorganise his panel because he had not had a transponder fitted before, which cost him another 500 euros.
Joe set off in reasonable visibility, but by the time she got to Dungeness visibility had deteriorated. She had an IMC but knew at the FIR boundary her vanilla PPL would be her only license privileges. She thought she would try Manston for a LARS, but was beneath and beyond their cover. London info had her details, but also could not provide a radar service – they were sorry. Pierre was a bit more fortunate because Lille gave him a radar information service – he was pleased he had the box for 10 minutes until he got to the FIR boundary.
Both were now with London info and both were “surrounded” by the L2K day trippers. London info was manfully coping with all the different position reports, and generally pilots were altering altitude to avoid conflict. Unfortunately both Pierre and Joe altered for another aircraft and ended up on reciprocal headings at the same level. Fortunately they missed, but only just.
Joe and Pierre each fly around 100 hours a year. Joe operates occasionally within CAS, but spends most of her time in Northern France or Southern England were it is easy to avoid CAS. Pierre’s bi-plain is a beautiful old girl – his new mode s box is the only new bit of kit he has fitted in the last twenty years. Other than his cross channel sorties he potters around northern France. Most of the time he is lucky to get a flight information service never mind a RAS, but they told him he must fit the box.
They both wonder whether their shiny new box was worth the price.