Lakenheath F-15's in Airprox with parachutists.
 

Link from the BBC. Airprox report linked in the text.

Cheers
TO

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...shire-49664560

Looks like a lame excuse...

Apparently report states that the parachutists
 

Could have opened their chutes to slow their decent.
get real air prox

And some US airspace is THE most incredibly complex and most congested on the planet.

I was once underflown by a flight of F16s while I was below 800 feet on finals to Marathon, in the Florida Keys. Air traffic acknowledged their presence only after I had reported them.

As an Vet I have worked with the US Military on many occasions and they are the only people who have ever frightened me.

I could be wrong, but...
 

For full report see: https://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uplo...%202019077.pdf

Not quite as bad as one of our RAFC QFIs who, in his brief time on Buccs, was startled to see an object dropping out of the sky in front of his formation. "F... me, what's that?" he thought - whereupon said object sprouted a parachute and revealed itself to be a Land Rover, shortly followed by various other bits of pongo kit on parachutes!

I applaud the proactive attitude of the folk at Chatteris, informing those other units around them of their activities. Such a shame others do not follow the same procedures.

The "incredibly complex" statement needs to be seen and understood in the context of international airspace regulations and practices. Taking the UK-blinkers off for a moment you have to question the wisdom of what has become routine and why the Board failed to mention some basic fundamentals - and yes, I have been a Board member.

Class G airspace is defined by ICAO. Fundamentally it is uncontrolled airspace, with shared usage, no requirement for ATC or, when flown VFR, no requirement for a radio to even be fitted. The 'see and avoid' principle reigns supreme with encouragement to use an ATC traffic service where available and appropriate. The F-15 crews met or exceeded all requirements.

The "incredibly complex and congested" part of UK airspace is that you can be happily flying at medium level in open airspace and have groups of people ballistically descending through your flightpath. These people-shaped objects are quite heavy, are sometimes strapped together, have no radios, transponder, TCAS, lights or any meaningful ability to alter their flight path.

The Board, correctly in my view, has formally acknowledged that the pilots were unlikely to see ballistic people and take avoiding action. This is quite a change from Boards that I have sat on who often opined that see-and-avoid was possible and that aircraft should therefore give-way to parachutists.

So the big in-your-face question mark is the regulatory wisdom of allowing uncontrolled objects/people to ballistically descend through unprotected airspace. The tone of the Airprox Board is that aircrew should avoid such areas. Well, guess what, aircrew do just that when the activity is surrounded by protected airspace. But this activity was not taking place within protected / restricted airspace.

Buried in the AIP somewhere is a statement to the effect that the mere listing of a drop zone does not imply any right to a parachutist to use that DZ. Military Free Fall parachuting takes the view that NOTAM'ed restricted airspace or operations in dedicated danger areas are more appropriate methods of achieving safe separation. Civilian parachuting cloaks itself in the hope that pilots will avoid bits of otherwise open airspace that may or may not have parachutists zipping through it.

Nothing here is new. Over 20 years ago I was part of a pair recovering to Marham, operating intermittent IMC at around FL110 under Radar Advisory when we nearly hit 2 men, one of which was dressed as a clown. What is new is that there has been a massive growth in sports parachuting in the UK, operating in Class G airspace, yet unable to comply with the rules of the air. Covering the UK charts with an overlapping blanket of advisories and potential aviation activity information provides no meaningful measure of safety.

This soap-box is slippy, so stepping off now.

I'd love to see the video, it must be out there somewhere....

In reply to Justthisonce, active sites GA/parachuting/gliding are marked as such on aviation maps, generally the military avoid them because A) they are aware and logistically it makes no sense for introduce potential conflict and B) A FJ doing 300 knots in non-advisory, Vfr mode is unlikely to visually acquire a thermalling glider as it transitions from head-on to side in the turn in time to take avoiding action.
I've been on both sides of the coin having unwittingly flown through Sibson whilst it was active, my bad, I assumed that the low cloudbase and wind would have precluded parachuting. I got a call from a third party, rang Sibson and apologised, no harm, no foul but my bad.
I've also just come off the winch at 800ft at the Mynd and found myself in albeit brief formation with 4 or 5 hawks, again call to Valley, error acknowledged and very apologetic. Suspect this was a Navex that went slightly astray, all I saw was Hawks suddenly going vertical and disappearing into cloud. Winch operator was more concerned than I as he saw them briefly and thought they were below me, i.e. potential tow cable conflict.

I'm not disagreeing that UK airspace is busy but F-15's have enough autonomous guidance that this should have alerted the pilots (assuming their software is correctly updated). As a GA pilot, I wouldn't dream of pottering down the mach loop because of the potential conflict.
I've got to disagree with the board's decision, yes they couldn't have seen them and be expected to take avoiding action, however prevention is better than cure and they should not have been in that airspace period. IMO, there is enough non-restricted airspace that the FJ's could have avoided this without compromising their mission.
We've had enough mid-air's where it was just wrong place, wrong time without multiplying the factors by flying through known active sites.

Accepted that class G airspace isn't exclusive, however I still believe it would have been prudent to avoid that area.

I accept that operating an FJ at 300kts in relatively congested airspace creates it's own problems, I agree with your last statement entirely, there is a clear risk and I see no easy way of mitigating that without impacting GA.

I would say that Class G airspace is a lottery with no winners, it's ridiculous that I could be thermalling, potentially in cloud with no transponder and sharing the same airspace with a FJ doing 500ft a second. I was constantly on the radio on Mynd frequency advising my (approx.) location and height so that other gliders know it's a stuffed cloud and I always believed that was sufficient, I was reassured listening to other gliders advising that they were in the same thermal albeit at a different height, if I got uncomfortable I advised that I was taking a constant heading at x altitude, got visual again and looked for another opportunity, it wasn't worth the risk.

That doesn't work with FJ's, it isn't worth the risk because as you say it will happen because the odds are lowering as sport aviation is on the increase.

​​​​​​ Not sure how many FJ fly around as slow as 300kts. We certainly didn't, unless we were on the tanker or climbing.

Agree with everything JTO says. Far too many think they can do what and when they like with no care about other users. In the military we practice Airmanship - there are too many out there who seem to be unaware of this concept. Similarly, 100+ gliders flooding an area, on one occasion recently with no notice when they changed their competition route just before launch and didn't bother updating anyone. I'm not sure these sites would be all that impressed with a few dozen aircraft from elsewhere hanging around in their overhead effectively denying them or anyone else access to the airspace.

If you regularly para drop somewhere, why not apply to obtain exclusive airspace rather than it remain open but one is advised not to fly there, which is nonsense to me.

Just not the kind of airmanship that involves not flying through parachute and gliding sites that are clearly marked on the map? Copy.

​​​​​​

I make no excuses for foreign forces.

​​​​​​Copy?!? Where are you from?

Oh, so you mean in the *British* military? No other aviation community in the world knows what airmanship is, or practices it?

Forget about what I sound like or where I'm from.Try listening to yourself for a minute or two.

If everyone tries to apply airmanship there's less likely to be an accident when someone makes a mistake. If you're safety strategy is to rely on someone else's airmanship you've only got one layer of cheese and you don't have any control over it.

All I said was..... The rest is you.

It's like trying to hold a conversation with children.

Of course there have been occasions like the one you quote, but you missed my point completely. Whilst I cannot comment on foreign forces, British military are taught from day 1 to always apply good Airmanship. It does not seen the same applies throughout the civilian world when it's absolutely ok to send 100+ gliders through the overhead of a busy military airfield with no warning or R/T contact. And it keeps on happening.

Indeed - the though of operating in cloud without a procedural clearance or a radar service is abhorrent to professional aviators. Yet some in the glider community think it is fine to gamble with their live and those of others just to have fun.

There are far too many glider pilots who like to hunt through rules, regulations and laws and any time they find the word 'glider' missing they take as approval to do what they like.

If you cannot maintain safe separation from other aircraft then you are operating illegally. There is zero point learning the rules of the air and who has right of way if you cannot see where you are going and not receiving an appropriate radar service.

Indeed m8. Meant to acknowledge your points regarding freefall parachuting but it got left out.

To add to the list; at a local airspace meeting a glider pilot representing one of the local sites acknowledged that many of their pilots will turn OFF their FLARM if they find a good thermal to prevent other glider pilots from using it to find the good thermals. It's utter madness.

In reply to justanotherjockey.

Please advise what the speed limitation is below10,000ft according to EASA ATS AIRSPACE CLASSES – SERVICES PROVIDED AND FLIGHT REQUIREMENTS.
Noted that you stated that you generally flew >300kts and 'practiced good airmanship'

Over to you

Might be that military airmanship is to airmanship, what military music is to music ;-)

I suspect you are more than capable of answering your own questions.

Whilst there is an awful lot of GA traffic <10000ft, there is an awful lot of mil traffic above it. 0-10000ft is usually reserved for visual/radar circuit work (usually working a Traffic or Deconfliction Service), the lower part of ACT (many hours spent at max AoA at base height :{) in protected airspace and descending/climbing. It is usually just the training world that spends a lot of time 0-10000ft and we are all mandated to be in receipt of Traffic Service where possible. It's probably a good job most GA pilots don't ask for Traffic Service as the radar frequencies would be blocked out.

To your last point, indeed I did. You seem to be making the assumption that going fast(er) displays poorer airmanship.

Generally speaking, adhering to the airspace rules is considered an important part of airmanship.

Fair comment in that I do know the answer, as do you. My point is that I was in compliance and flying at >250kts below 10,000 isn't. (Whether the rules are robust enough for Class G is another matter entirely),

Accepted that military and GA work to different standards and yes, I fully accept that you would be better trained and have a greater skillset.

This doesn't alter the fact that we can both be compliant and and in conflict,

I'm not commenting further as I believe we both have genuine concerns about safety albeit from different ends of the spectrum.

Damn, beaten to it.

Somewhat predictably the Professional Pilots Rumour Network has the odd professional pilot / aircrew amongst its numbers. Strangely enough the Mil Aviation bit has a few military dudes dotted about too.

If you remained VFR perhaps you could avoid your repeated foot vs mouth collisions.

Military flying is highly regulated, studiously supervised and rigorously debriefed for each and every tactical sortie, usually with an electronic replay or 2. So yes, military fast jets do indeed operate at fast speeds. Legally and professionally.