Farnborough Airspace
Let’s look at the situation in the London area which I think puts Farnborough’s grandiose claims for airspace protection into perspective.
There are 11 airports which offer executive jet facilities in the London area, they are: Northolt, Luton, Stansted, Southend, Biggin Hill, Blackbushe, Cranfield, Farnborough, Oxford, Lydd and Manston.
The first three are all within Class A (currently) and D airspace and Southend may soon be. Oxford and Cranfield certainly have more IFR movements than the rest but operate successfully in Class G as do the others. What is so special about Farnborough?
If we look at the map of airspace from Ground Level to the base of the London TMA around the London CTR there are blocks of Class A and D at Gatwick, Stansted, Brize Norton and Southampton which necessarily funnel VFR traffic into the area of Class G around the London CTR and increase the density of traffic there beyond what is normally found in the rest of the UK. This traffic density is also a function of the large number of smaller GA airfields that exist with a 60nm radius of the City and comprises local training and pleasure traffic as well as all the transit traffic that is squeezed into it by the layout of the existing CTR’s. If Farnborough deserves class D protection then so may Biggin Hill, Blackbushe, Cranfield, and Oxford and where does that leave us, with a ring of controlled airspace around London that squeezes all the smaller GA aircraft into even more densely populated airspace than ever before?
Let’s also look at the real reason behind TAG Aviation’s proposals. I suggest they are simply to gain a competitive advantage over their competitor airfields around London. If Mr Russian Oligarch’s wife is really concerned about flying into an airfield protected by controlled airspace when she comes to London to do her shopping then she can elect to use Northolt, Luton, Stansted and maybe soon, Southend. I don’t think that her protection or convenience is any more important than my own, or that of many aviation companies in the area, when going about our business using or transiting an area which then becomes even more congested than it already is.
I think it is also time for Farnborough’s operator to realise they chose to establish and grow their business from an airfield they knew was in a congested piece of free airspace near London. To then demand protection with controlled airspace, however large or small, is the same mindset as those who buy houses near established airfields and then complain about the noise.
I hope the GA community and our representative organisations will fight these proposals like never before and not succumb to the archetypal form of compromise we British seem so fond of.