Infringements of the Heathrow CTR

[DC10RealMan]

Interesting comments about the London LARS service and the rationale for its introduction. I wondered if its introduction is there to help stop infringements of the London TMA, Heathrow CTZ, London City CTZ, Stansted CTR, Gatwick CTR, Luton CTR as well as providing a RAS or RIS to participating aircraft over a geograpically large area, in which case it will take more than one radar controller to do it properly and safely. If on the other hand its primary function is to provide a kind of "Flight following" to stop infrigements then can it properly called a LARS service with the implications of RAS and RIS that that title implies?

[chevvron]

DC10: the eventual plan is for 3 controllers surrounding the LTMA, all sitting next to each other to ease co-ordination & handovers to the next sector.

[ATCO17]

The introduction of the London Lars will be a useful addition to all parties and may possibly reduce the number of infringements, but ONLY if people out there utilise it by calling the relevant agency. As I said previously, many aircraft bimbling around out there, but not necessarily many bothering to request a service.

Shy Torque....be careful what you wish for!

[ShyTorque]

Yep, I'd better be careful now!

[ATCO17]

Seriously though...we, like most of the military ATC units, have a large training burden. Things tend to get a bit quiet at Northolt from August to mid September due to summer hols, parliament in recess, Royals off to the summer retreat etc...so please guys, if you're bimbling around the northern edge of the Heathrow zone or on a navex, cross country qualifier out of WW, Denham or Elstree, give us a call. We could do with the traffic for training purposes. even if you just want a FIS, it gives our guys and girls the chance to get used to the phraseology. Even better if you request a RIS, or, if IFR, and subject to our workload, we'll give you RAS. A benefit to us all I think!

126.450 for those not in the know!

A17.....15 working days left!

[Kolibear]

I fly out of North Weald and on my forays to the west its never, ever occurred to me to contact Northolt. I'd probably try Luton and once when they were busy, contacted Farnborough, except their radar couldn't see me. So Northolt seems a much better alternative.

[IO540]

I guess Northolt has been a well kept secret because no instructor I have ever met has even remotely suggested it.

On the "London LARS" thingy, what they should do IMHO is to make the point that once you are issued the squawk, you won't be bothered except with traffic reports.

Whereas London Info (who I use for a listening watch only) will ask you for position reports and that is unnecessary work if you are comfortably sitting there tracking the GPS track.

[SQUAWKIDENT]

"126.450 for those not in the know!"
I'm flying from Denham to Royston tomorrow via BNN-BPK-BKY is it worth calling in even though I'll be below controlled airspace? It would be nice to have an F.I.S for at least part of journey.

[chevvron]

Some pilots think London LARS has already started; I picked up traffic for RIS just east of BNN today @ 1500ftand the other day one called over the Dartford Crossing (QE2 Bridge) . Don't get me wrong; I don't mind; it's good practice for when we do it for real.

[WorkingHard]

Whilst NOT making any excuses for infringements by anyone it seems the professional drivers have as many problems as do GA in a slightly different way. It does seem as though GA is so severely castigated for interfering with CAT when CAT are sometimes their own worst enemy. What is being done about the level busts anyone? Is it as "dire" as an infringement and if not why so please? Genuine question and not designed to upset anyone please!
See this http://www.levelbust.com/

[IO540]

WH - this just shows that nobody is perfect, which is more or less what I have always said.

People aren't getting any more clever, the PPL training certainly isn't getting any better, so CAS busts will continue.

Even so-called "professional pilots" get it wrong loads of times. Flying in UK Class G one hears a lot of absolutely appalling radio from pilots who I doubt know what they are doing. Flying airways one hears a lot of very bad radio from pilots who presumably fly the same route very often and get sloppy on the readbacks, often to the point where they are frankly unintelligible, so it is no suprise that mistakes are made.

To a large degree one could say this is the job which ATC are paid to do, and they are well paid too. One wishes there was a solution, but every time I suggest my favourite one, I get jumped on

[Roffa]

There is a great deal of work being done by NATS with the airlines and other operators to mitigate against level busts.

It is a serious issue but at least, in CAS, one and most likely both aircraft should be ACAS equipped so hopefully worst case scenario should be avoided.

Unfortunately the biggest risk with CAS incursions is the fact than non-transponding or non-Mode C aircraft can be inside CAS and adjacent to much larger aircraft and there's no safety net whatsoever.

IO540, how on earth do you manage to bring ATC pay in to a post on level busts?

Use of SFL info from Mode S and ultimately electronic checking of cleared levels possibly via voice recognition and/or datalink if we ever go completely that way are amongst some of the proposed solutions for reducing level bust events (along with airspace and procedure changes).

[chevvron]

London(Farnborough) LARS will be here on 24 Sept, with limited service from 11 Sep. Frequency will be 123.225. A flyer was e-mailed to GA organisations by NATS this am.

[Mr_B]

Did the student pilot have a transponder?

Without reading the whole thread

Did the student pilot have a transponder?
&
Was he using Flight Information Service?

I'm learning to fly at the moment and at least two training aircraft have no transponder, I'm not going use those aircraft for cross country navigation.

[scooter boy]

Mr B, I can't be bothered to read the entire thread again either to answer your questions but I would applaud your stance on avoiding the XPDR deficient aircraft for X-C solo.

V wise IMHO.

I once rented a XPDR-less rustbucket C152 (come to think about it it had no navigational equipment either (No GPS/VOR/ADF)) and got totally bloody lost for several hours while trying to find Badminton in fairly mediocre weather for the princely sum of £350. I never did get there!

I had had my license a while and planned the route out to perfection but the first CB I had to fly around made all the chinagraph planning go right out the window.
I didn't cause any infringements that day and ATC were polite, patient and as helpful as they could be but it was an expensive lesson.

Life is too short to fly poorly equiped aircraft (and pay through the nose for it).

SB

[High Wing Drifter]

Fuji,

I thought I would refresh the discussion we had because I've made some changes recently.

There are many (including me) that believe the use of moving map GPS (with adequate training) would avoid a lot of CAS busts...Why on earth anyone would want to dismiss a genuine initiative to improve safety so that is not going to cost them a single penny defeats me.

Well, I've gone and done it now. Done bought me a 496. To be honest I'm totally bowled over by it's capabilities and I agree, GPS does make decent A to B trips so much more enjoyable, so one nil to you . I've also done a whole heap of hours recently in something with a 430 too, but the 496 is actually much better, IMHO, for most sorties.

Anyway, my point is that I appreciate how much the work load is reduced and on the face of it, it does seem incomprehensible how somebody can bust CAS with one of these units. However, from my new more GPS oriented PoV, I can still see how confusing one of these units can be if you haven't really thought about the flight properly before hand (planning being my original point). With or without GPS and with sufficient planning, it seems equally incomprehensible how somebody can bust CAS. Without sufficient planning and irrespective of GPS, it is inevitable sooner or later.

[ATCO17]

Mr B....it's0 obvious you didn't read the first post properly anyway....who said anything about a student? The original post was about 5 infringements of one piece of airspace in one day. As I have said throughout the thread, you do not need a transponder or any navigation kit to get from A to B without infringing. If you have a radio, give the nearest radar unit a call. They can identify you without too many problems, provide you with a radar service and advise you if you are getting too close to CAS.

I have just retired from controlling. I will miss it greatly, especially being able to provide a service to those pilots who are a little unsure as to their whereabouts or the airspace nearby....the majority have been very grateful, and I thank them for their appreciation.

A17 (Ret'd)

[Fuji Abound]

so one nil to you .

Good on you for giving it a go.

You are correct it is not the perfect panacea. I have seen people putting in incorrect routes for example. The classic situation is on departure where the pilot has a good mental picture of where he thinks he is going (from looking at the map), sets off, but finds the GPS is telling him to go some where else (due to entering a wrong route). If the surrounding airspace is tight, problems can quickly follow.

Of course the other situation is that of pilt overload. Weather gets in the way, and a few zig and zags later problems ensue.

The first is of course avoidable by a simple logic check of the GPS against what you might expect. Never blindly enter a course in the GPS, just zoom out and check the course looks like the course you would expect.

The second is more difficult to avoid. I think the key is to have a good mental picture of the route and to consider along each leg what your options would be if the weather were to get in the way. This is were it can help to have the route penciled out on your chart as a chart will beat the GPS in terms of enabling you to quickly take in a much larger area of airspace.

Most moving map GPS whilst having some way of showing the lower limits of CAS do not provide this information in an intuitive way. Maps are little better in that whislt the information is printed on the map it is often difficult to pick up the information quickly and clearly. I feel this is one area where both the database suppliers and the map makers to do a lot better.

For this reason I am not sure the chartless cockpit really works unless you are driving something with a G1000. In that case the large screens provide a situational awareness every bit as good as a paper chart. Even then there is a danger, as I nearly discovered recently. For reasons only known to Garmin upper airways are not shown. A recent flight at FL85 would have taken me across an airway, shown clearly on my CAA chart but not on the G1000. I was aware of the airway and the controller was happy to give me a clearance, but had I just been relying on the G1000 I would not have asked for a clearance.

[chevvron]

NOTAMs for new Farnborough LARs Sector now published:
B1634 - 10 to 23 Sep 0900-1500 daily for controller familiarisation & training.
B1635 - 24 Sep onwards full service 0700 - 1900 daily exc 25 & 26 Dec (one hour later in winter)