Farnborough Airspace Proposal
 

Farnborough's proposal for a chunk of airspace so that the rich and famous can arrive and depart in controlled airspace has been published here.....

TAG Farnborough - Airspace Change Proposal | Consultation

More Class D in that already cramped area is just what we needed. On the plus side it will spare some jet pilots from having to look up slightly when arriving/departing Farnborough.

It would be less annoying if one could actually use Farnborough in anything smaller than a bizjet.

One of the justifications is environmental - that it would avoid slight increases in flight time/distance whilst navigating around traffic, and therefore reduce CO2.

How about not flying small numbers of people in jets in the first place? :)

Surely, the introduction of CAS in that particular choke point would simply mean holding outside for any number of "non Farnborough" transit aircraft, which would largely offset any perceived gain for business aircraft. It's bad enough trying to get through Southampton's airspace, let alone this proposal.

I hate even thinking about the impact on the largest gliding club in the UK, between Farnborough and Southampton. As a safety improvement I would give this proposal, on a scale of 1 to 10, minus 10.

The environmental benefits kept being mentioned in the proposal but they make it clear they would actually use longer routings to avoid overflying noise sensitive areas. They make a big deal about noise over the environment which could simply be because if the locals complain that'll be their lot!

The gliding community need not worry, they will still be ALLOWED to fly on a "limited" number of days!

All of us must oppose this most draconian attempt to muscle in on UK airspace - the biggest attempted grab in decades. The potential effect on GA and gliding in the south of England is horrendous.

The LAA/BGA/BMAA et al will be coordinating an appropriate response; please monitor one, or all, of their websites and, when the time is right, but in your three penn'orth.

No-one else is going to fight this on our behalf, so it is vital we all get involved.

Well after the Norwich grab I suspect its going to happen what ever people say or campaign against.

The person that decides these things stated that he has to approve anything that increases safety and controlled airspace is safer than uncontrolled.

Farnborough Airspace Proposal
 

I can just about understand when controlled airspace replaces Class G for the protection of commercial Air Transport (CAT) movements but Farnborough doesn't have any. So if their plans are approved by the CAA this would be a ground-breaking and very unwelcome development in airspace management.
I would ask whether one class of private aircraft user (i.e wealthy Russians, Middle East potentates who like to come to London for their shopping and to escape the heat of the desert, international company CEO's, and bankers) should have more "protection" in their flashy aeroplanes than we mortals who are lower down the aeronautical food chain?
Farnborough is the birth place of British aviation and we have already been denied access to an airfield that was originally paid for and developed by the British taxpayer in the interest of it's current operator's profit. To then deny us free access to large chunks of valuable airspace would be morally indefensible yet alone illogical.

I wonder what the logical conclusion of that argument might be.

And what about the effect on the surrounding airspace...Increased traffic squeezed into choke points and "Mig Alleys"

Will that be safer because of this proposal ?

Makiing one area " safer " to the detriment of surrounding areas does not make any sense

I did wonder myself flybymike.

Marchettiman alot of those aircraft are AOC aircraft and are counted as CAT.

As far as I can see they are mainly trying to sort out the G5's etc coming in from the North. Which from personal experience can be pretty hairy on a good wx day in a crappy TP doing 160-240knts clean.

The actual SFC up area is relatively small and I think they have set it up to stop people going round the corner of the TMA not speaking to anyone. Is this a known infringement point trying to get past the TMA and the airport?

The other bits are feeding into the airways system which can also be a huge pain in the bum if you get a remain outside instruction.

It could have been a hellva lot worse to be honest.

I suspect they will get it as well. And to be honest I can see more of an argument requiring it than either Doncaster or Norwich.

If there is an argument that it will help with infringements to the TMA your pretty well stuffed.

To be honest now with this ATCOCAS pish you might as well be in class D at least the controller can let you visually separate yourself from traffic.

TMA? Shirley you are referring to the Heathrow CTR, shortly to become class D airspace also.

Aye chevron

Never really flown VFR round there apart from a couple of dodgy positioning flights due to slots.

Is there much infringements around that corner?

I should imagine that arrivals get quite close to it low enough to start bums twitching if someone is shaving the corner.

Although there boundarys as usual are almost set up to screw VFR flyers up.

Why couldn't hey make the line along the A3100 and A283 to the east and a line Weybridge Bracknell reading to the north.

Nothing groundbreaking. In the USA, airports with enough IFR movements qualify for an upgrade in their airspace.

Yes but in USA one can almost always get clearance through said airspace. Not always the case in these parts.

I used to transit the atz fairly often and generally found them helpful. But also had a radio failure over Guildford trying to get to Blackbushe... Aircraft with no transponder. Eventually sorted it but more airspace could have made doing something sensible close to dusk trickier.

I suppose the corollary should be that airports with insufficient ifr movements get a downgrade?

Farnborough have been nice to me in the past but we don't want to depend on them being reasonable for ever more.

There are other zones who are rather less helpful.