Originally Posted by
peterh337
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
).
I am less convinced of this particular aspect of the argument than I was previously. The workload in getting a GPS approach approved into an existing ATC environment seems to be enormous (in terms of time, money, and uncertainty of approval). This must be a major blocker in even getting started. At quite a lot of airports I would have thought a deal can be done with a nearby ATC unit to provide the approach control service (after all it should be able to be a procedural approach in most cases). Any revenue is money for old rope as the controller was already there and the volume is going to be low (otherwise a local ATC would be feasible/probable).
It is the enormously opaque process which one appears to have to go through to design and approve the approach - which in my mind should, for most cases, be a very objective piece of physical analysis with some standard risk assessments regarding specific local risks and interactions with other airspace uses.