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Old 9th May 2012, 09:29
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peterh337
 
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I have indeed sent an email to the email address shown at the end, explaining that this is almost totally pointless because nothing can change so long as UK requires ATC (which most GA airfields cannot afford to employ) or has privatised ATC (which for the same reason prevents the use of the US-style remotely located approach controller (which in the USA is funded by the FAA, i.e. the US taxpayer, as a part of an integrated transport network ).

The US system can never happen in the UK because nobody will fund the approach controllers, so while I agree with the principle, sending them to the USA to show how it is done will not achieve anything

To bring GPS (or any other) approaches to the bulk of UK's present non-IAP airfields will require a massive sea change in attitudes and despite encouraging noises made by various people attending various meetings with the CAA etc etc (over more years than I can remember) I just cannot see this happening.

One obvious way forward would be to allow an A/G or a FISO to do the approach control, and reportedly some encouraging noises have been heard there, but this will raise hell with ATC pay scales, not to mention ICAO ATCO classifications. Even the move done a few years ago which gave London Information FISOs physical visibility of radar screens (something they are not permitted to mention or in any way indicate on the radio, because they are not radar qualified ATCOs) took years to push through, and it finally happened only because there were (and are) so many serious CAS busts. Providing IAPs (or for that matter any other facilities) to GA is of no interest to the establishment.
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