LARS, Farnborough
 

Just got back from a tour of NATS, LARS operation at Farnborough arranged by Dept CFI at White Waltham.

Fascinating place. New Tower is very impressive and so was the team that explained the increased LARS range , now extending as far north as Cambridge and as Far East as just west of Lydd, soon to be extended all the way to the coast covering Southend and Manston.

Very helpful controllers and a very informative and great tour.

If only they answered the radio when you call them.

I tried a couple of weeks ago to use them for the first time. Actually gave it a few more calls than the prescribed three I should have before I gave up (wanted to give them a chance) and even called Headcorn to check that I'd written the frequency down correctly, which I had.

When I landed, an Instructor and another pilot said that they'd both tried to use them earlier in the week with no success.

I tried.

I'm afraid I had the same experience as Jollyrog - called them three times, then called the old Farnborough freq. to be told 'try Luton'. Not very helpful. (Luton was helpful, but they shouldn't need to be...)

Tim

Check your notams.....
 

...whilst the service is good and very welcome, there have been a number of notams about the issue of service outages at short notice due staffing.

I'm sure once it settles down the service will be crackin!

Top effort.

Only on quiet days..... when the sun is shining and everybody is out then a request for a RIS is often met with FIS due controller workload/radar clutter/poor radar performance or some other random excuse.

Sorry to say that the days you really need it, when the sky is black with PA28s out of EGTB and EGLM, you don't get it.

Sorry to rain on the parade. I'm sure everyone is doing their best, its just it never works out quite how you need it.

On the day in question, I had checked my NOTAMs. Nothing mentioned.

If they're going to be unreliable, I'd much rather stick with the reliable FIS we get from Shoreham, Lydd and Manston.

Jollyrog....

Never used East, just North and Classic and have to say whenever I've wanted them to provide a RIS always been there, sure there are times when they're busy and Sunday afternoon with all the weekend traffic isn't the time to talk to them.

Would have much preferred the '0013' Luton approach where I know they're watching and they know I'm listening. :D

"Only on quiet days..... when the sun is shining and everybody is out then a request for a RIS is often met with FIS due controller workload/radar clutter/poor radar performance or some other random excuse.

Sorry to say that the days you really need it, when the sky is black with PA28s out of EGTB and EGLM, you don't get it...."

Sounds like Brize, Benson and the reason why Luton stopped LARS service. :(

Excellent service when it works, but so far, really unreliable and not necessarily NOTAM'd in time.

Coming round the zone from Biggin-Denham the other day, called Thames Radar who said 'Negative FIS, contact Farnborough Radar on...no, hang on, I've just been told thy're off the air, you have Flight Information Service'
I said 'Flight info thanks, I can't work out when Farnborough are available'
'You and me. both!' he said.

I've tried using the service when instructing. Great when transiting to and fro the training area, but when you're doing stalling & trying to talk to the student etc it just gets in the way. We do most of our upper air work north of Aylesbury, on the edge of their cover anyway. I usually call Halton there so I can find out what glider traffic might be about, difficult to spot visually and tends not to show up on Radar anyway.

TheOddOne

Glad you enjoyed the tour, :ok: the manning is on unit for the full operation of all the LARS sectors but training needs to be done to get all the extra staff, me included, valid on all the sectors before we can open all the time I'm afraid.
As for the comment about wanting to be left alone whilst doing your stalls etc fair comment, my main instructor is making it very clear to me that when you ask for a FIS that's what you want, hopefully the culture will spread out more across the unit.

No complaints here. Had the service each time its been requested and I usually tell them its a training sortie, general handling between Aylesbury and Westcott up to 5,000' so they know I'm going to be going up, down, left, right and inside out and without warning. They've always assigned me a squawk and provided an excellent service so keep up the good work, guys (not heard any gals yet!).

There's at least one I've talked to.

TOO

SH - when will it be fully manned?

A lot of people rightly commented about the no-notice closures that mean that they don't call anymore, already.

Otherwise, keep up the good work. When it is open the resulats speak for themselves, pilots get a better service, TC Approach frequencies are more manageable and airspace infringements are being prevented which helps everyone.

Alan it depends on if the trainees are brilliant or muppets like myself! :E

I diligently checked my NOTAMs on Monday and no mention of Farnborough East being off the air, but it was when I needed it...:suspect:

This is another example of NATS triumph of style over substance. The LARS service is announced with great publicity and fanfare implying the possibility of a RAS or RIS around the London TMA which is certainly a very worthwhile idea. The service as it is at the moment is not good enough. It closes at very short notice sometimes without NOTAM action. If it is open it will only provide FIS as its main rationale is to stop infringements of CAS around the London area not to provide a RIS or RAS as advertised. If you ask for any information (Weather, Danger area activity, etc) you are told to contact London Information who have all that information to hand. I have also been given an instruction to turn or to climb or descend by Farnborough when being provided with a FIS in Class G airspace when returning to Goodwood, How does that work?
I know that this is none of the fault of the staff who are working under the control of accountants and all that that implies.
Given the clear inadequacy and erractic opening hours of the Farnborough LARS the obvious conclusion is that pilots will not bother using it even if it is open which makes me think why did they bother?

In my experience, Farnborough LARS will sometimes ask in a "can you accept?" type of way if you wouldn't mind a temporary heading/level change, if it will help de-conflict you from their many IFR arrivals and departures (some of whom don't have the best English or understanding of the difference between a RIS and RAS, for example!)

Having also visited them and sat with the controllers on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I can well see the challenge of vectoring jet traffic through very busy class G, lots of it not talking to them, not squawking (or even if they are, not verified etc).

Hope the SSR still doesn't drop out fairly regularly like it kept doing on the day I visited as well (just to make life easier ;))

"I can well see the challenge of vectoring jet traffic through very busy class G"

Are you serious? You make it sound like we're all playing in the same big sandpit. I'm sure it would be an issue if Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, Stansted and City didn't have CTA/R protection and NATS deemed it essential to ensure separation, but they do have their own airspace to play in!

It's not as though we currently have jet traffic buzzing around below the London TMA at 2000' mixing it with the Cessna and Piper traffic! :confused: The only stuff I sometimes hear/see is going into Southend.

Mike Hotel, you forget we also have an increase Heli traffic in the SE.

LARS now uses primary amd secondary Radar.

Quite frankly they do a great job with a very small team!!!

MH,

EGLF has annual movements of around 28,000 per annum at the moment, the bulk of which are jets and which have to get in to and out of the airways system to and from EGLF outside controlled airspace... so, err, there is rather a lot of jet traffic up to 737 size buzzing about below the TMA in that neck of the woods.

Oh, and Lasham has quite a few jet movements as well.

What Roffa says :ok:

But I think that EGLF has just had permission to double its movements... so MikeHotel152, keep your eyes open!