Coke611
1st Jun 2002, 15:13
Does anyone here fly around the Essex area? I amk due to start flying from Stapleford (hopefully!) soon for my PPL. Is there anything to watch out for?
What airspace class is the airspace round the stapleford/north wield area? Does anyone fly from stapleford here?
hi coke611
I fly out of North Weald and Stapleford. If your about to start you PPL I wouldn't worry too much about breaking airspace as your instructor will normally keep you on the straight and narrow initially. Having said that, pick any airport round london, and you'll be looking at some restrictive flying. Stapleford and more so for North Weald have Stansted's Control Zone on their doorstep. Most PPL flying from these airports is done over essex, and the altitude's you'll be training at will not impinge any airspace.
If you want to travel north or west from these airports, you need to keep below the airspace and make sure you transit between the luton and stasted's control zone. It's easier to learn this practice from the start rather than coming from an more unrestricted area and start flying in NE london (trust me on this one :p ).
Hope this helps and enjoy your flying.
Everyone talks like the Viz character Cockney Wankah on the radio, so be prepared to make all position reports in rhyming slang, but apart from this there are no snags to flying in Essex. Indeed, East Anglia generally is GA paradise. Hardly any controlled airspace, LARS from Southend, Lakenheath and Marham, flat fields and loads of old runways if you run into difficulties, and several lovely airfields. At present you'll be a bit limited with some of these as few are licensed, but when you get your PPL you can have fun visiting Shipdham, Swanton Morley etc.
One suggestion: when you reach the nav stage of your course, don't choose a disused WW2 field as a waypoint unless it has good confirmatory procedures nearby, because there are so many disused fields in the area and they are easy to confuse. Have fun.
Oh, and though North Weald is only 3 mins flying from Stapleford, and does not have an ATZ, treat it like it does: there may be gliders, fast jets and pisaton warbirds zapping around in the vicinity, so the usual Stapleford thing of tootling past or over North Weald just above the circuit is not ideal (to be fair, it's mostly the twins which do this).