5milesbaby, and noblues,

Two people intimately involved in ATC safety issues have tried to get in touch with noblues via the pm system here to discuss further off-line.

noblues hasn't replied to my pms, nor, to my knowledge, to my colleague's.

A real shame - as noblues makes a good point, and we wanted to talk it through.

However, the person responsible for writing the CAP on avoiding action has been made aware of the issue and is pondering it for the next edition.

Raising the Transition Altitude
 

On the subject of raising the Transition Altitude, there is currently a Eurocontrol initiative underway to raise the Transition Altitude to a common level throughout the European region. Several values for the Transition Altitude are being discussed.

Apparently the obvious one (18,000ft) doesn't provide adequate clearance for some of the European peaks.

Also, the raising of the TA could result in the loss of an exisiting holding level, and the consequence of this on capacity in busy Terminal Airspace needs to examined.

The UK is being represented on the Eurocontrol Working Group by a member of DAP (CAA). :8

Transition Level
 

Right. here we go, climbing and descending in dense airspace and having to be constantly alert to the fact that there might be a missing level or two due to the pressure, which of course has to be passed time after time after time with all the possibilities of wrong readback or in a low pressure situation the need to stress mB's rather than inches.....and everybody else using hectosomethings. I hope beyond all hope that the CAA will file one of its more sensible differences, especially as the high ground found in Europe and the US etc. is not a UK feature. Trying to achieve vertical separation in a dense traffic area is difficult enough when everybody is on the same datum, I hope that representative trials are carried out on a UK airspace model before this goes any further. Try to imagine the transition across national and international boundaries, and even from one ATC sector to the next. Another factor that only an operational controller or pilot will appreciate is the huge increase in RT traffic on already congested frequencies....also the useful ATC tool for predicting vertical profiles in use at Swanwick will be that much less dependable.

055166k;

Aww come on and try using FL180 as the transitiion altitude. You will come to love it <G>... We use it with no problems at all here in both the low lands and some of the higher ones...

As to the higher peaks in some areas, that isn't an issue either. Your minimum IFR altitude is known and you just can't use an altitude that will be in the rocks... NO PROBLEMS...

regards

Scott