Matters are coming to a head, next week, with the CAA & NATs both writing that they have little or no actual clout to get the Home Office lift some of the TWO MONTHS ban on VLA flying, right down to ground level, in the home Counties for two whole months, without let up, Summer 2012 !

The BMAA & LAA are known to be sending their own ideas forward on behalf of the membership. BUT unless many more affected Pilots, Owners and strip Operators affected write in too you may find you are forced to stop flying for months.

Apart from the above two organisations can I ask everyone concerned to drop a short line to both the below addresses. They appear to work in largely disconnected areas, but e-mails will add weight to the plea for some work around scheme.

Individuals can make their own responses by sending an email to [email protected] and [email protected]

Critical meetings take place next week so be quick about it. [Don't gripe if you later on suffer & didn't try harder].

mikehallam.

Olympic Restrictions - Response from the DfT
 

Olympic Airspace
 

Could I suggest that perhaps AOPA UK designate a week in July/Aug this year, when we should all file VFR plans with AFPEX when we fly in the proposed zone.This will show 'the powers that be' the chaos that is likely next year with the number of normal flights that take place.
I have suggested this by E Mail to the .gov site-no reply of course!

AOPA might not wish to rock the boat while talking to MOD/DfT at the moment, but there is no reason why an unofficial PPrune advertised weeks trial could not go ahead.

Talking to an ATC chum recently he commented that the primary facility at the moment in the zone -Fboro LARS, would be completely overwhelmed and that a new dedicated London Mil Cell would have to be created to handle the proposed restrictions if NATS will not pay. (lots of money so unlikely to happen)

Real action not hot air !
 

It takes as long to write a post on pprune as it takes to email your MP and you can guess how much influence on the situation a post on pprune has!

So guys get on to the They work for you website and make your MP do some work.

A friend at Damyns Hall reported they had a visit from the CAA last week ref the Olympics, and they will be over time visiting all the Airfield in the affected area.

====

we had the CAA at Damyns yesterday (3 of them) to discuss (dictate) what will be happening over the olympics. ITS WORSE THAN WE FIRST THOUGHT!!!!!!!!

4 slots per hour (a slot is a take off or landing)

You have to book slots in advance and PAY for them.

Your aplication for a flight plan will not be accepted if it has not got your slot reference on it.

Slots are not transferable, if you book one and then dont need it and you cancel it (there is a time limit before you fly you must cancel it) the slot is not re-issued

If you have a slot booked and for some reason you dont use it (weather, puncture)and you miss the deadline to cancel it you will be fined £1000,00 !!!!!!

so if the flying club take of on a couple of 30 min trial flight, that will be all the slots gone for that hour.

they will not be able to operate under these conditions

I hope that's a wind up, trevs99uk.

One of my suggestions during the Vancouver Airspace misery was that all the affected small airports lock up their fuel tanks for the duration.

The press, security and VIP fights could be most severely inconvenienced:E

However you will likely observe that one or more heli operators with their own fuel supply will be blessed by on high and make bags full of money:mad:

I've never heard such absurd nonsense!!! Is the CAA seriously encouraging pilots to risk flying in dubious weather, rather than incur a £1k fine?!!

Someone's having a giraffe here, either trevs99uk or someone claiming to be from the CAA :=

It's amazing really isn't it? Some idiot, probably an expert in onanistic practices, fully expects that these restrictions will give some level of protection to the London 2012 fiasco. Mathias Rust's exploits show what can be achieved and I fully expect that Risk Assessments, Due Diligence and other such management w@nkspeak, let alone getting permission to shoot down an aircraft over London, will prevent a real threat from being intercepted. But meanwhile, virtually all local private flying will be grounded for "Security Reasons." And can the boys in blue dispatch a slow flying aircraft? I wouldn't like to be driving the target, but doing so would probably be safer than taking a walk in some parts of London after midnight.

PM

Officialdom in action.....
 

A few years back, about 30 gliders flying in a regional competition from Husbands Bosworth, struggling to round a turning point at Atherstone,got low and ended up landing in a nice big pasture. As sometimes happens, this got some locals all excited, and the police were notified, so they sent the emergency services to the site of the "crash".

The Director of the competition was somewhat nonplussed when he had a call from the Atherstone chief of police. Said the lawman, "The next time you intend 30 gliders landing in a field in my jurisdition, we will require 24 hours notice in advance...."

Thats how they think.

I've already mentioned this on the rotorheads forum, but given that none of this nonsense is actually going to stop anyone filing a bogus FP, loading their aircraft to the gunnels with high explosive and then launching same at one of several Government/State buildings (before anyone has the chance to say 'scramble'), what precisely is this restriction supposed to achieve?!

Why not have a programme whereby all pilots who are likely to fly in the Restricted Zone apply to the CAA by June next year for approval to do so. All the individual due dili and security checks can be conducted and once approved, a unique code is posted to the applicant's private address in a similar fashion to an interweb banking PIN.

On taking off, the pilot QSY's to a specific 'Olympic' frequency, when he/she will be asked for the 3rd and 7th letter (or whatever) of the unique identifier, is given a unique approval code (i.e. the CAA 'knows' this pre-vetted pilot is not a risk) which may be quoted and checked by other en-route ATCs and filed in his/her log book for subsequent ignoring.

This would provide a much higher level of security than the FP idea, but with a lot less hassle and a lot more spontaneity. The current proposal is simply preposterous: inpractical and inadequate.

I think you have just given them an additional security measure to introduce as well as (rather than instead of) the existing ones ;)

Maybe!! The problem is, the existing proposal WILL NOT WORK!! The infrastructure just isn't there to support it but, more importantly, it will stop neither a terrorist, nor any other unhinged individual, from driving straight into town. :ugh:

The whole thing is ridiculous and it certainly wouldn't stop an attempt, but I guess the main reason is in the event of a successful attack the agencies involved will all be able to say "well, we did all that we could".

Similar reasoning accounts for the absurd limitations on liquids and checks on shoes at airports.

With all this attention to the Olympics wouldn't this be the perfect time to launch an attack on some other city in the UK?

It was,nt a joke..
This was posted on the group forum for Damyns Hall.

However there has since been a follow up to the Caa,s meeting and it turns out they where taking about IR flights...

So, only four IFR flights per hour per airfield, or what?

That is even more bizzare because normally IFR flights (in CAS) are on a Eurocontrol flight plan anyway so they are totally "known traffic".

Ok so how about some facts rather than I heard from a friend who heard from a friend. This was not a CAA visit, nor was it related to the security restrictions. It was actually a visit by the consultants involved in coordinating the slot control procedures for airports / airfields during the Olympics - primarily for upper end GA / commercial movements e.g. Farnborough etc. The DfT consulted on this.

Hope it rains
 

For the first time I personally we hope that for the entire time of the RA that it pours cats and dogs.

Anyone a rain dance instructor around here?

What a load of horse droppings. Another demostration of "being seen to do something about security" at great expense to the taxpayers. I should be in security, it would save me having to work for a living.

Seeing as my aged Auster has no transponder and indeed, no electrical system with sufficient oomph to power one, I'll stay out of the country during the Olympics fiasco. :mad: