First step to European Single Sky - What are the consequences for VFR flight?

[jkveenstra]

Today i read an article about FABEC (Functional Airspace Block Europe Central).


The six States of Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and
the Netherlands will sign the treaty relating to the establishment of the
Functional Airspace Block Europe Central FABEC to set up a common
airspace at the heart of Europe and to organise air traffic management
irrespective of national borders.


The treaty is signed on the 2nd of december. See also their website (http://www.fab-europe-central.eu/).

Would there be any (positive or negative) consequenches for VFR flight in future? Anybody familiar with this topic?

I did a search, but could only find the consequences for IFR flight.

[IO540]

My guess is that there will be no practical difference to today's ATC practices, where some controlled airspace is OK for VFR and some isn't.

The agreement may eliminate some letters of agreement between ATC units and may make it possible to get transits which ATC won't presently give you because they have no easy way to coordinate them e.g. a shortcut across a piece of another country.

VFR OCAS, I can't see any difference. In these countries, nobody cares what you do OCAS so long as you keep outside prohibited areas etc.

[Jim59]

Huge negative impact. Because FABs cross national boundaries, and it is deemed necessary for the rules of the air to be consistent within the whole of a FAB so a single controller only has to work with one set of rules, Europe assigned to Eurocontrol the job of creating a single set of Standardised European Rules of the Air (SERA). These rules removed all of the national differences filed with the ICAO to be replaced with a very small set of common European differences. SERA also reverted to the 1948 ICAO Rules of the Air as much as possible. The end result is a huge loss of freedom for GA and sporting pilots. This has been debated at length elsewhere and no doubt within PPRUNE.

Examples?

Flight plans mandatory for IFR flight in class G airspace.
Light aircraft to have lights on at night when parked on the apron.
Anybody marshalling an aircraft to be trained and wear special clothing and use wands or special gloves.
Gliders no longer allowed to hill soar below 500'.
ATC permission required to tow gliders and drop parachutists - even outside controlled airspace (class G)
Low flying rule changed to prohibit any flight within 500' of surface except to take-off or land - current UK allows flight below this height as long as >500' from people, vessels, vehicles etc. EFTO practice no longer permitted.
VRF flights REQUIRED to fly according to semicircular rule at/above 3000' (quadrant rule in UK to be abolished.)
Radio licences required by glider pilots using dedicated glider-only frequencies.
Overtaking rule exemptions for gliders removed.
IFR traffic to be 2000' above obstacles in many circumstances (today 1000')
ATC permission required to perform aerobatics outside controlled airspace.
Not permitted to cross a hold without ATC clearance - a bit of a problem at airfields that permit out-of-hours operation without a controller on duty.
Right hand circuits no longer permitted
Flight plans required for all night flights
Flights to aerodromes without ATC in the UK will have to be formally closed - as was the case until a few years ago when the CAA adopted the responsible person approach.
Many PPL privileges removes.And I could go on, and on and on....

[LH2]

may make it possible to get transits which ATC won't presently give you because they have no easy way to coordinate them e.g. a shortcut across a piece of another country.

Are we still talking VFR? Do you have an example of the above in those countries? Just asking because I "cut corners" all the time, and so far has never been a problem to start with.

As you say, this is unlikely to have any operational impact, as far as GA/private pilots are concerned.

Examples?

References?

[cats_five]

I remember lots of the items in Jim59's post from an EASA consultation. I don't know where that consultation has got to now.

[TWR]

Well, fortunately the UK isn't in the FABEC.
So it's not really an answer to the poster's question.

[Jim59]

Well, fortunately the UK isn't in the FABEC.
So it's not really an answer to the poster's question.


True, but the UK will be in the UK & Ireland FAB which will operate to the same rules as all other FABs so the same issues will arise.

I'll dig out comprehensive references when I've a bit more time.

References?


Workshop presentation at end of consultation
EUROCONTROL - SES Mandate to EUROCONTROL for Support on Development of Standardised European Rules of the Air (SERA) ONGOING (http://www.eurocontrol.int/ses/public/standard_page/sk_sera.html)

Consultation Materials
EUROCONTROL - SINGLE EUROPEAN SKY MANDATE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF STANDARDISED EUROPEAN RULES OF THE AIR (SERA) (http://www.eurocontrol.int/enprm/public/standard_page/enprm10002.html)

Proposed rules after consultation completed
http://www.eurocontrol.int/enprm/gallery/content/public/docs/ses_sera_rul_v2_0_30062010.pdf

[LH2]

Proposed rules after consultation completed
http://www.eurocontrol.int/enprm/gallery/content/public/docs/ses_sera_rul_v2_0_30062010.pdf

Yup, cheers.

Now, I had misread your post last night (sleep deprivation) but from what I am seeing now, the contents of that draft are essentially a copy of the air laws of any continental EU member. The national laws I've familiarised myself with are largely a copy of each other already so this directive's main intent to me appears to be to harmonise things in law rather than in practice.

I realise that the ANO may have in its present form a few singularities respect to continental legislation, but in practice if you have flown in France, Spain, etc., you are already abiding by those rules, largely.

I'm not going to go picking through your list, but as I said most of it I thought was current practice, e.g.:

* Flight plans are mandatory for every IFR flight in Europe already. The curious interpretation in the UK of what does and does not constitute IFR notwithstanding.

* I thought it was already the law to make left-hand circuits unless otherwise stated or instructed.

* The so-called low flying rule has not been changed. That is the current rule in France, Spain, and Italy. I suspect the spirit of the rule in the ANO might have been the same, until somebody with a good lawyer nitpicked over it to get out of trouble. :)

* Glider overtaking is a new ICAO exemption (3.2.3.3.3.1). What is the current rule like?

* "ATC permission required to tow gliders and drop parachutists". I can't find anything to that effect--the closer it gets is 3.1.5.1 and 3.1.6.1 respectively, and that does not require any clearance (unless national legislation says otherwise), it merely states that if you receive any "advice and/or clearance" from an ATC unit, you must comply with it (straight from the Department of the Obvious kind of thing :bored:)

From a cursory reading of the draft, there is a positive addition or two. Most notably, I welcome the fact that this draft prohibits the downing of civil aircraft (3.8.2.b). Unfortunately, although not in your list, there appears to be some extra restrictions as well--I particularly resent 4.4 :E

What I'm trying to get at is that everytime there is a moderate change in legislation (even if nothing actually changes), an army of self-declared "experts" seem to pop up out of nowhere on a mission to "educate" us all about the new rules even when, as is often the case, they are written in a way which is well understandable by those with sufficient technical knowledge of the subject area (such as pilots in the case of aviation laws). What I have found is that 101% of the time those people have an axe to grind or two and/or are on a profit-making mission taking advantage of the public's ignorance. [ And I'm not referring to anyone on this thread btw, or even to this discussion in particular. Sadly you see the same thing happen in every other field of activity. ]

[TWR]

I can't speak for the UK, but these rules are pretty
much the same as the ones already in use in the FABEC-countries.
The double terrain clearance @ night is new to me.

[David Roberts]

Several of the issues in the original SERA proposals have been addressed through lobbying etc and the latest version (not in the public domain yet) takes into account some of the particular needs of GA and air sports. The Commission kicked the proposals back to Eurocontrol about 6 weeks ago for a re-think.

Whilst the game is not yet over, there are signs that the vanilla EU will not be imposed entirely.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Jim59. Unfortunately, your profile reveals nothing of your aviation experience. I seriously doubt many of those "problems" you have listed so I would be grateful for references to the official documentation detailing them. Some are patently absurd but I await your response before commenting further.

[chrisN]

HD, the draft rules (SERA) were issued for comment, and are probably still available in their original first draft form somewhere on the web.

Many organisations from all over Europe, including several from the UK, of which I was involved with two, responded.

After the closing date for comments, the proposers issued their comments on the comments received. That is also probably available somewhere on the web.

I then produced my own comments on their comments on the comments. I have quoted their comments on the comments, which in several cases encapsulate a quotation of the proposed rule itself.

If you are still following this (please keep up), and you wish to read my comments on their comments on the received comments on thedraft rules, I am willing to send them to you, if you send me an e-mail to which I can respond with a Word document, provided you treat my comments as my own personal views as a glider pilot, and keep hem confidential.

If you still believe after this that some of the rules as written have been misquoted or invented by Jim59, I can only suggest you do your own research to satisfy yourself that your beliefs are justified.


Jim59, if you too wish to see a copy of my Word document, feel free to e-mail me to which I can respond. Same condition, please keep my comments confidential.

My comments were drawn up without knowledge of deliberations referred to by David Roberts – I am gratified to learn that the draft rules are being made more reasonable.

Chris N

[Jim59]

Jim59. Unfortunately, your profile reveals nothing of your aviation experience. I seriously doubt many of those "problems" you have listed so I would be grateful for references to the official documentation detailing them. Some are patently absurd but I await your response before commenting further.


I've put a bit of info in my profile.

I submitted a personal response to the Eurocontrol consultation on SERA which details all of the issues I mentioned plus a few more. I'll be happy to send you a PDF of it. I've sent you an e-mail to that effect.

I accept that since then there has been some movement on some of the issues as indicated by a couple of other posters, and I may not have kept up with all the comments on the comments on the comments, however, my view is that Eurocontrol have not been very welcoming of the feedback they received, and as it happens, my personal response was ignored by them (as were all other personal responses to their consultation). They only processed responses from 'organisations' which were a small percentage of the 813 responses received.

[jkveenstra]

Thanks for the discussion.

As far as I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong), the rules have to be uniform for all the countries involved, before any airspace changes can be made.

Could it eventually mean that the following could be changed?:


One common transition level?
Less FIR's (The Netherlands has 4, which is a lot for a small country).

[LH2]

Could it eventually mean that the following could be changed?:


One common transition level?

Don't think so, as the transition level/altitude is a function of airfield altitude. Not sure what's the highest IFR airfield in Europe, but we have VFR runways between 0ft (possibly less in NL?) to 8000ft

Less FIR's (The Netherlands has 4, which is a lot for a small country).

That I believe is part of the idea.

[Whopity]

as the transition level/altitude is a function of airfield altitude.Historically, the transition level a function of the highest terrain within the Country where it is located.

[172driver]

Historically, the transition level a function of the highest terrain within the Country where it is located.

That is indeed the case in the US. However, quite obviously not in Europe. Just one example: TA is 7000 ft in southern Spain, however the highest peak there is a bit over 11.000 ft (Mulhacen in the Sierra Nevada).

This document (www.eurocontrol.int/airspace/gallery/.../CTA_ATC_Perspective.pdf) (Eurocontrol) uses an example in Austria to illustrate a TA well below the local cumulugranitus.