Come now Navigator .... you need to do a little more Air Law revision
Obviously, they are not low flying (which is technically 500 feet or below agl)
Technically it has nothing to do with agl. Aircraft are not permitted to fly closer than 500' to any person, vehicle or structure. It is a minimum distance
NOT a minimum height and applies horizontally as well as vertically. Therefore, away from a congested area, and in the abscence of any person, vehicle or structure, I could quite happily fly at 1 foot agl and be totally legal. In fact, I could fly at 1 foot agl near any of those things as long as they were 500' horizontally away from me.
I am sure they also respect the 1500 feet clearance over built up areas (if you consider that Edinburgh's highest point is at 600 feet)
I have pulled out the charts to investigate the background to this thread and there seems to be a hill rising to 824' quite near the city centre. Bear that in mind when navigating
(by the way, all aircraft should be at 3000 feet until above the Firth of Forth, so here, we are a bit far from 2100 feet....)
The 3000' figure is applicable to Instrument Approaches, that is, those where the pilot positions himself for the approach using Precision or Non Precision navigation aids. I am sure that for the vast majority of approaches made at Edinburgh, in common with other large airports, that the controllers will provide radar vectoring as a more efficient and expeditious method of handling arrivals. Which would bring the Radar Vectoring Area chart in to play initially. This gives a minimum level of 3000' until approximately abeam the aforesaid hill (824 feet), then 2300', with a further reduction to 1700' on final approach (or on the 40 degree leg to final approach).
Of course these RVA heights are for safety when the ground can't be seen. When making a visual approach, the terrain clearance is the responsibility of the pilot and the 1500' above the highest fixed obstacle within 600M of the aircraft comes in to play. I can't judge from the scale of the map but presumably flights over the City Centre are more than 600M from the said hill. The other highest fixed obstacle then becomes 505' (might be that castle thingy they have up there). ATC would probably round that up to 600', add in the 1500' rule and voila ... you have the minimum level of 2100' over the City Centre which the people who work there are quoting !!!
I suspect controllers in general (not particularly at EGPH) are pressured by pilots
I would concur with my professional colleagues. Controllers will
never be pressured by pilots into cutting corners or allwoing them to do anything which is unsafe. It is just not the way that we are trained to operate. It is more likely that any pilot who whinges and moans and badgers us for something will actually be given less freedom than they might otherwise have expected
(Speed control, holding, and vectoring are all legitimate things which we have at our disposal .... for traffic reasons only you understand
)
it is not rare to see Ryanair pilots at Prestwick, for example, taking off or landing with a tailwind
That is not illegal. It will be in the Pilot Operating Handbook as to what limits the pilot can accept. ATC do not have the knowledge to know what can and can't be accepted and it is the pilots decision. All ATC will do is decide whether the pilots request can be accomdated within the existing traffic scenario.
cutting you on the radio
Happens at every unit in the country, with every conceivable airline.
If you vector planes DIRECT (I forgot to say direct) from Talla VOR to a point 5 miles on the ILS, you vector them right above the city... I can visualize vectors, thanks!
Looking at the chart again, the Standard Terminal Arrival Route (STAR) actually goes to waypoint called TARTN, then one called TWEED. No route goes through TLA VOR. Again, no scale, but I would estimate the track is 5 to 10 miles
East of TLA VOR ... so you may need to rethink the visualisation
Quite amazing the stuff you can pull together when looking at the ANO and the AIP
