R112: Are you going?
As of midnight tonight (23Z) the R112 and P111 will be active, and will stay active for the next month. Whether these restrictions are necessary and appropriate has been discussed before at many levels, so let's not discuss that again. The NOTAMs are out, the Atlas controllers have been trained, SkyDemon released the new UK maps with the Temporary CAS and other Olympic areas/restrictions yesterday, the procedures (and presumably the Tornadoes and Pumas as well) are in place, and the CAA has spent a lot of effort getting everybody up to speed.
My question: Now what? Will all that effort be wasted and will the Atlas Control frequencies stay eerie quiet, or will GA continue as normal, despite the restrictions? So for all you pilots based around London, or those planning to go near London:
Have you relocated your aircraft to a place far, far away?
Will you simply suspend flying for a month? Or limit yourself to circuits under one of those circuit squawks?
Will you sigh, follow the rules and try to consider the situation "normal"?
Will you see this as a challenge and deliberately plan a flight in/through R112 even though there would be no need?
For me personally, I originally did not think that R112 would affect me. But I have now enrolled in the aeros contest at Peterborough Conington, which runs next week Thu-Sat. If the weather (particularly visibility) is fine, I'll just do an EHRD DCT EGSF but if I have doubts about the visibility over the North Sea (I'm not instrument rated and neither is the plane), I'm going to try and route KOK DCT DVR DCT DET DCT LAM DCT BPK DCT. To be decided at least two hours in advance of course...
Last edited by BackPacker; 13th July 2012 at 20:40.