Infringements of the Heathrow CTR

[mm_flynn]

Originally Posted by Roffa

What significant use a 500ft shelf, or a 1100ft, 1200ft or 1500ft one over a built up area is in an average GA single is debatable but I suppose they can at least say it is there.

If you look closely, those shelves are generally there to facilitate access to Linden, the seaplane landing areas and low level flight above water (particularly the Hudson VFR corridor).

Glide clear is a less rigourous concept in the US (only needs to prevent undue risk to people on the ground - so a river counts as 'clear') and wouldn't prevent flight in the 1500 foot areas.


But the US is a different place with different rules and isn't relevant to the point of 'why are the UK CTRs 'punched through' by people who have no idea where they are or the existence of the airspace they are in', as compared to being nicked because of its size.

[Bravo73]

Originally Posted by mm_flynn

Maybe commercial pilots should be made to use DR

They are. During their test.

So that in the case of all of their electronic aids failing (such as a moving map GPS losing coverage - hence 'No Fix Possible') and they are VMC, they can still navigate home.

A pilot who is only taught to 'navigate' using a GPS will come unstuck very, very quickly in a similar situation.

[dublinpilot]

I just had to mention that gross navigational errors are as old as aviation!

Anyone heard of "Wrong-way Corrigan"?


Quote:
Douglas Corrigan became a legendary aviator, not because of his accomplishments as a pilot but rather because of a supposed navigational error. In 1938, Corrigan "mistakenly" flew from New York to Ireland--when he was supposed to be flying from New York to California--because he seemingly misread his compass. For Americans, who were caught in the midst of the Great Depression, Corrigan's antic provided a great deal of humor and uplift and he became a national folk hero. To this day, Corrigan's nickname, "'Wrong Way' Corrigan," remains a stock colloquial phrase in popular culture. People use it to describe anyone who blunders and goes the wrong way, particularly in sporting events. Nevertheless, as much fun as Corrigan's incident provides, many people do not understand all the complexities of his story, nor do they appreciate the fact that he was a sound and accomplished pilot.

Now that's one gross navigational error

SD

SD,

That's only half the story.....and the gross navigational error should probably be in inverta commas

Apparently he wasnted to fly from the UK to Ireland, but he needed permission from the US authorities to do it. They refused permission a number of times, saying that it was too dangerous, and nothing would be achieved by it, as it had already been done a number of times.

So he decided to do NY to LA "instead". Fueled up in NY and took off. He claimed to have "entered fog shortly after take off, got disorientated and made the most basic of navigational errors, and flew a heading of E instead of W.

No one believed him. The US authorities took away his licence, but gave it back once he was back in the US. Apparently they were afraid that he was going to try flying back across the Atlantic

fff

One particularly interesting one, though:

Quote:
nobody would plan to fly a 72 mile leg on dead reckoning

Why not? I'm shocked to read a comment like this from two experienced pilots (although it doesn't surprise me to read this from IO540!) I've done so, many times, and I teach my students to do it regularly.

Depends on what you mean by a 72 mile leg I suppose. I've no problem with a student flying 72 miles on the one heading, if that's what you think. But I think it should be split up into 3 legs. This give them a formal check every 12 minutes or so, where they must make a positive fix (on something obvious that they planned already). They are forced to do this, as they must fill in the ATA on their plog.

A 72 mile staight leg, just making casual fixes along the way is likely to leave a student making what he sees match up to where they think they are. One feature is a little to early, the next is a little too late. Now they start to worry are they exactly where they thought they were. Then they start to get paniced, the work load goes up, and it make be 20 minutes before they reach somewhere that they have a proper ETA for.

Sorter legs, with more frequent ETA's and positive position fixes are much better in my experience. I wouldn't have been allowed to use a 72 mile leg as a student, and I certainly wouldn't use it today. That doesn't mean that I wouldn't fly hundreds of nm in the one direction (if I could get through the airspace), but my ETA's wouldn't be 72 nm appart.

If you are teaching students to have eta's and positive fixes for shorter distances, then perhaps we are talking about the same thing.

In any case, the students you are teaching today not more experienced, and are being thought radio navigation along side DR?

dp

[Roffa]

slim, we'll probably have to agree to disagree over the size of the London Zone but if the thrust of the argument is that people are infringing it because one thinks it is too big, that's not really a particularly valid argument for making it smaller.

London LARS is coming soon(ish), so a better radar service is on the way and if the Zone ever gets reclassified, which is quite possible, to C then it's also easier access for the light aircraft as well.

Enjoy your hols.

[IO540]

Will Class C for LHR make any practical difference (serious question)?

Currently, UK Class D is being operated like US Class B.

Most European Class D is operated like US Class C but some (the busy bits) is operated like UK Class A.

In the US you can enter C with just a 2-way radio contact (and a Mode C transponder) so - short of some emergency taking place - you cannot be refused entry. In Europe, VFR traffic can always be refused entry.

Of course none of this is relevant to a nav error and a bust.

Re the 72 mile leg, yes, no problem if you are taking fixes along the way. However, it's not easy to find a 72 mile straight line which has unambiguous ground features all the way, say every 10nm.

[Roffa]

Will Class C for LHR make any practical difference (serious question)?

It should for light aircraft (and I'd argue we already operate D like C, not B if we're going to make any such comparisons). I don't think anyone will argue that the Thames and SVFR controllers who look after low level traffic in the Zone are not helpful, however their hands are tied at times due to the airspace being Class A.

One light a/c going ASC-BUR and it's difficult to have another one going the other way on the same route because they need IFR separation.

With Class C the light a/c will still need to be separated from the IFR traffic, but not from other VFR traffic so the airspace will become less restrictive for the lighter end of the spectrum. The fact that there are also deadicated low level controllers also eases the access issues.

On a different note, I'd be interested to see the IFR departure/arrival routes at LAX with regards the VFR corridor.

An interesting exercise for someone might be to take a look at all the SIDs and arrival routes from the major airfields in the London area and how they interact and then come up with a feasible corridor that would get you from, say, south of Gatwick to north of Luton. Try and do it without modifying any of the current structure as environmental and noise concerns makes that extremely difficult to accomplish...

[IO540]

Two Cirruses.

How many serious CAS busts this year so far?

[Roffa]

To end of June for NATS units 19 involving a loss of separation of which 4 were of the most severe category.

270 other infringements which may or may not have caused disruption to normal ops but not graded as a safety significant event.

[High Wing Drifter]

Mariner9,

Thanks for your explanation. Although your description is really about the execution of the flight rather than the planning (where I think the problems probably root). In essence, you are saying that so long as the pilot is trained, so long as they follow the correct procedure and so long as the database is up to date, they won't have any problems.

My contention is exactly the same without GPS. I must admit to getting a little frustrated when the blame is placed on visual rather than magenta navigation. DR is not a high workload procedure and so long as you are properly trained, follow the correct procedure and are up to date with ais.org.uk you will not have any problems.

GPS or not, situational awareness is everything.

[Fuji Abound]

I wonder how many of you that promote DR have entered a precision flying competition?

Scrub the spot landing (for the purpose of this discussion), but how accurately can you navigate the course.

The reason it is a competition is that it is an "art". Some are no where near good enough (or indeed as good as they thought they were), and some are amazingly accurate.

There are no precision flying competitions using GPS.

It wouldn’t make for much of a competition because they are accurate 99.9% of the time.

So if you want to route around, but close to zones, negotiate VRF routes, or perhaps make journeys half way across Europe and still leave yourself with plenty of capacity to attend to other tasks and enjoy the flying you had better get yourself a GPS with a moving map and make sure you know how to use it. If you do (with the emphasis on knowing how to use it) I can guarantee you will never infringe a zone or get lost.

If you enjoy map reading and dead reckoning promote it because it is a skill that should be enjoyed and appreciated, but do not make out it is as consistently reliable and accurate as GPS in a wide range of pilot hand's of different skill levels.

Not much is asked of pilot’s in terms of their interaction with what’s around them - in fact it boils down to don’t make a nuisance of yourself by flying too low and don’t zone infringe. That is why I feel if you doubt your DR skills it is irresponsible not to have a GPS in the cockpit with you (by all means just leave it switched on, and don’t look at it) but at least when you are not quite sure if that spread of houses is Reading or some other place you can use the GPS to over come your doubts and save yourself from upsetting those nice fellas at Heathrow.

[High Wing Drifter]

Hello! You missed my point. I don't believe I promoted DR. I believe I wrote that if you don't have the wherewhithall to maintain SA neither a GPS nor DR are going to be much good to you in the long run.

One may not feel comfortable flying DR, perhaps that is because said person is experienced with the proper kit to fly navaids and GPS and knows how to maintain their SA, I'm not that kind of person but people like IO540 do seem to know their stuff and I'm not going to say my way is better than theirs! On the other hand if said person is inexperienced, then a GPS is probably not going to be a solution their problem.

[eyeinthesky]

Roffa:

I think the point about the LL CTR might not be its size but its shape. If its boundaries or the corners of it were aligned to ground features which were easily indentifiable from the air rather than a generic CTR shape as it is now, then it might be easier for pilots, GPS equipped or not, to find those points.

Ever tried spotting the NE corner from the air? I used to fly in there regularly on traffic spotting flights and even then it was challenging to spot the exact corner if you were awaiting clearance in.

[mm_flynn]

I think if the type of infringement that NATS/CAA/ etc are really concerned about was edge nicking at corners and underlying airports, then there would be merit in smaller size/ better alignment to ground features. But most of the high risk ones are people blundering straight through controlled airspace. Lets get that one right and then look if we have a problem worth solving on the edges. (Yes I do know that traffic could have been at the edge, and yes it still does close 5 mile radius, ground to altitude + 5000 ft, but we have to start somewhere)

[chevvron]

Visual cues wouldn't necessarily help. I had one recently where the pilot had just flown past Denham heading south and was over the M25, and still didn't realise he was in the Heathrow CTR!!

[IO540]

The whole area is built-up in a largely random manner which makes map reading very ambiguous. So, the whole business of visual cues stands and falls completely according to the pilot's local knowledge.

If you know your way around then it's all "obvious", of course.

I would not even dream of flying around there without radio navigation for primary guidance, on a carefully pre-planned route. For a random bimble, a moving map GPS is the only way. It's not just controlled airspace; there are various ATZs there. Plus one has to be conscious of the glide clear rule, being as one must below 2500ft.

Still on the subject of busts, how many serious level busts were done last year by CAT (that's two "professional" pilots in the cockpit) ?

[scooter boy]

GPS training should be mandatory for PPL

Excellent non evidence based anti-GPS rants chaps!

GPS remains my primary source of Nav data both in my helicopter and fixed wing aircraft (although I have the VORs/ILS tuned during IFR F/W flights). In fact I have no VOR/ADF equipment in the helo (just more dead metal to carry around for little benefit). Yes I have seen NO FIX POSSIBLE but only for a few seconds out of 1400hrs+. I am never IMC in the helo and worst case scenario would put it down in a field if necessary.

I do carry a current chart, sometimes with a line drawn on it if I am in unfamiliar territory and I plan as carefully as possible. I also look out of the window both to confirm position and look out for other aircraft.

Airspace infringements in my limited flying career = ZERO.

But having GPS is not enough, knowing how to use it is the real answer. So whether the infringeing aircraft were Cirri or not is irrelevant.

The problem with studes doing ded reckoning is that every group of houses looks the bloody same when you are on a solo X-C in an old bag of bolts ****ting yourself about having a midair or the engine stopping and trying to fly straight and level to boot.

GPS should be taught as part of any PPL syllabus IMHO.

SB

[Fuji Abound]

Excellent non evidence based anti-GPS rants chaps!

Yes, in this GPS, anti GPS debate, come why do we have so many "busts", I really dont understand how the anti lobby support their position.

It leaves me wondering how many of the anti GPS lobby have used a moving map GPS.

Strangely, the map shows you exactly where you are in real time. It shows you the important ground features and it shows you the controlled airspace. It is dead simple.

Now I appreciate there are some who struggle to read a paper map and who have no situational awareness what so ever. Whether these people should be pilots is debatable, but the fact of the matter is they are likely to struggle more with DR if they struggle in this way.

If you take the time to make sure you are familiar with your GPS and adopt some basic practices to ensure that if you use it for route planning the route you have entered corresponds with the route you intended to enter it is almost impossible to become lost or "bust CAS".

Those that say it is not reliable simply do not have the evidence to support their argument. You will read on here time and time ago pilots with 1,000, 1,200, 2,000 hours of time and have never seen a loss of signal for more than a few minutes. Of course you should have a plan if the GPS fails and as long as you have a realistic plan even if you have become very dependant on your GPS it will still get you out of trouble with "busting CAS" in the very unlikely event the GPS fails.

[Roffa]

IO540...

Still on the subject of busts, how many serious level busts were done last year by CAT (that's two "professional" pilots in the cockpit) ?

Getting a bit off topic but you'll probably find what you're looking for at the Level Best site.

You won't find me arguing against GPS though it is always useful if folk do know how it works, some of the gotchas and also databases are kept up to date.

[Roffa]

Incidentaly level busts, infringements and runway incursions are the three biggest safety issues concerning NATS.

For anyone interested the new NATS Strategic Plan for Safety can be viewed on-line.

[ATCO17]

Roffa, I echo your thoughts - nothing against GPS at all, as long as it is used correctly. However, many have associated these infringements with student PPLs on Cross Country exercises. In fact, very few are attributable to students. The majority of the guilty are qualified and occasionally high time pilots. The gist of the thread was why does this happen and how can we prevent it, not a pro/anti GPS topic.

A17