Saturday 2 July - Central London Airspace Restrictions - Live8

[Helinut]

If you were planning to fly in Central London on Saturday 2 July, take a close look at the NOTAMs. A new one appeared mid-afternoon today (Friday), advising of a 3 mile TRA around Hyde Park. Virtually no one is allowed in, and part of the heliroute H4 on the Thames is to be closed!!

:mad:

[AlanM]

Unles you are of course 1 of the 25 or so heli's flying in overpaid pop stars!

Do they have a freelane or something?

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY...... my ar$e!

[CRAZYBROADSWORD]

I don't get this lots of helis go into the london heli port on a daily basis and they dont close the heli lanes,they can't be ased about the noise over the music so why close them ?................

[AlanM]

Off routes in the LCTR = SVFR = Standard Separation = 3nm

Invoke some new rule = Freelanes = It all now becomes legal!

A mockery of a sham or a sham of a mockery!?!???

[oldgit]

Having been involved in the planning for yesterdays event perhaps an explanation is in order.
The provision of a helipad in Hyde Park was very much a last minute thing. To enable safe operations it was deemed simplest and safest to instigate a TRA around the area with access restricted to emergency helicopters and those authorised operators who had a legitimate need to be there: ie filming and helis using the heliport. Each operator was required to receive a written clearance from Flight ops to operate. Bearing in mind the rules require full Class a Performance for t/o and Landing in a congested area the helicopter types able to operate were understandably quite limited. The heliport had a total length of 350m.
There was no freelane instigated, rather all traffic within the TRA was controlled by Battersea tower, (rather well I think all participating pilots will agree!
What may seem to many a draconian rule put in place was done prely on safety grounds as the CAA, NATS and DAP were under pressure to come up with a workable plan within a very short period of time. Thursday 30th JUne was the day the planning meeting took place with all permissions in place with the participating operators hands by 1600 Fri 1st.
The only effect on the GA community was the unavailability of H4 for sightsseing trips for the duration of the TRA. Battersea continued business as normal.
For once it would be nice if the efforts of our much (and often warranted) maligned authorities could be appreciated.
A sensible result enabled us to oprate safely in and out of the event in the full glare of world publicity.

[Daifly]

Hello all,

Having been at the heliport yesterday and, as always when it's better to let rumour get in the way of fact, I think I need to clear up a few things.

The use of the helipad was limited to people appearing in the concert who were then going off to do other Live 8 gigs, or to continue their concert tours having given made the effort to come to Hyde Park; it was not a "come on in if you want to avoid the queues" heliport - in fact it was the first ever heliport in a Royal Park (except for Royal transport) so there were a huge number of obstacles to overcome and it was only the teamwork of everyone involved, the Royal Parks, the CAA, Battersea ATC, Thames Radar, the helicopter operators, the fire crew, the helicopter and passenger marshalls and Gama, the heliport operator, that made it possible.

It cost the organisers nothing to have in place as everyone was giving their time either at cost or free and in the majority of cases that was the same for the helicopters themselves.

The TRA wasn't just for the heliport though, the vast majority of the traffic was the two police helicopters and the BBC live link which were in the air for the duration of the event. Indeed they were the first reasons for the TRA, not the heliport.

I agree wholeheartedly with oldgit - the heliport, and indeed the events themselves, were only the result of teamwork and everyone working with the sole aim of providing coverage to the events - and that took having artists being shuttled from gig to gig to get the media exposure that was the root purpose.

I'm proud of what we all achieved yesterday and I hope that the H4 users group can accept that this was a very special one off.

[JerryG]

Just watched the edited highlights down-here-under and wanted to say congrats to the team who shot the aerials. In a world generally full of wobbly hand held news items they looked absolutely fabulous. PM me if you want a job!

Well done also to all the people that Daifly lists. Pragmatic and professional people pulling together to get the job done - goodonyer. Let the Euro Buros (pun intended) take note.

To those Londoners who are squealing like little piggies over the removal of their "rights" to one tiny piece of UK airspace for a couple of hours, you'd better be praying that Paris wins the Olympics on Wednesday. Athens featured a 45nm total VFR lockdown for over four weeks. Get real - get onside - "Lead, follow or **** off.

Cheers
JerryG

[Brilliant Stuff]

Thank you Oldgit and Daifly for this marvelous insight of the real going on's.

It sounds like herculean effort has been exerted into making sure everyone can have their pie and eat.

I am proud of you all!! It's also nice to hear that the official bodies are being painted in a positive light.

[Helinut]

Jerry,

Ian Evans says Hi - he appreciates the complementary remarks. The benefits of a big ball Wescam are not to be sneezed at.... :). He would be happy to fly in Oz for you, so long as you pay the positioning!


When I started this thread, I did it simply to try to draw attention to the promulgation of the TRA etc in the Notams with very little warning for other users. As others have explained there was a reason for this: it was all done at very little notice, and CAA/DAP/NATS and Battersea did a great job in the time frame to be able to put somethng in place at all. :ok:

There were some other operators who had planned to fly in connection with the event who were unable to, but in the circumstances, a good compromise was achieved, in my view.

[newswatcher]

oldgit do you know why it was necessary for the police to overfly throughout the concert? Was there an alert with regard to possible disruption by terrorists? With the exception of some of the VIPs and Pete Docherty, we were all remarkably well-behaved, in our alcohol-free "rest of humanity" zone!.

[AlanM]

Given that a police helicopter is over London for most of the day anyway, and the fact that 200,000 people are crammed in a park, watching a pseudo-political rally, with 2bn people watching a concert aimed at the leaders of world's richest countries, suggests that there may have been a heightened secure level!

Just a guess......:)

[JerryG]

Congratulations to London - let the Games begin!
(Hope you're all in a positive frame of mind?!)
Cheers
JerryG