But expediting the passage of one group of
private operators at the expense of other private groups surely does not fall in the same category. Is the safety case for the whole Farnborough area so strong as to merit such a major proposal ?
Hear hear.
This proposition (and airspace grab is a polite phrase for it) is designed to improve TAG's commercial interests by giving their GA customers priority. It does this at the expense of decreased amenity for and increased risk to other GA users.
The decreased amenity is obvious - people fly around rather than through class D. The increased risk comes from the increased traffic density in the choke points.
At last weekend's BGA conference a very interesting graphic was shown of traffic around Doncaster, pre and post class D. As you may know, a good number of gliders carry loggers and post their results on the web, which is a really good source of actual data about who flies where. The picture before the class D had traffic fairly evenly distributed about the area. Post class D, there were real choke points as everyone flew around the CAS. So clearly, in order to provide a better environment for a couple of flights a day, a significant number of people were subject to increased risk.
TAG is claiming that their proposal is about increased safety. It's not. It's about improving their commercial position at the expense of others' safety. We should resist this encroachment into the public's class G in the same way we'd resist Barrett taking over the village green in order to build some houses.
Paul