"Booking Out" and the AIP
 

Hi there,

I've always been told by instructors that if I need to book out by phone rather than over the radio at an aerodrome, this information would always be found in the AIP. I've just taken a look for a few (Aberdeen, Wellesbourne, Gloucestershire, Coventry) and can't find anything specific. Section 2.20 "Airport Regulation" sort of covers it (e.g. for Coventry) but it is not consistent.

Am I reading the AIP wrongly? How is it supposed to work?

Z

it's an airport rule, not CAA.
If it's important the airport website will explain.

Ah OK; Many thanks. Think I've just figured out how/why the "Pilots' Guide"-type publishers make their money. :)
I suppose a bit of a hint would be if an aerodrome was PPR coming in (on the AIP) they might be more likely to want you to book out by phone prior to departure?

I ask because I've heard quite a few pilots trying to book out over the radio at a busy tower, assuming that it works like "at home" - and I don't want to be that guy.

I presume from your 'handle' you are aware there is a difference to the meaning of 'booking out' when operating from an RAF airfield.

Only a few UK aerodromes are in the IAIP. The majority, not being licensed, rely on the privately published 'Pilot Guides'. It's always a good idea to call these before arriving to get the latest information. Not all of them publish NOTAM for short-term changes. One of the major problems with the Pilot Guides is that people cling on to old copies. If you find a Guide that is not current, PLEASE PUT IT IN THE RECYCLING NOW. The publishers do their best to keep the data current, but there is no official verification of its accuracy, like there is from a CAA or MAA aerodromes inspector, at re-licensing time.

TOO

Actually, no; The username is a hobby thing - P94 was an iconic aircraft. Second guessing military humour, I'd take a guess that it's a personal pre-flight anti-g preparation?

Good advice TOO. I spend some of last evening looking for airport websites to see if there was any consistency about how this sort of information was presented and found that on a small sample from the aerodrome list in IAIP, surprisingly many have no website of their own at all and booking out procedures weren't covered in the few with "information for pilots" sections. I'll give a few a call today if I get time and see if I can educate myself on what is "normal"...

That would be good advice but for the fact that ANY printed document is outdated the moment it enters the mailbox - perhaps even before. When using printed documents one must always be aware they may be outdated, even if they are the most recent edition. That is for me the biggest advantage of using electronic, from a reliable supplier.

As for the "booking out": that must be another UK peculiarity; but of course every individual aerodrome has every right to create its own habits and even rules. I do have known aerodromes on the continent, though, where the "field commander" (a term not defined in the AIP) must give permission for every take-off, by local regulation.

Don't mourn too much. In a country like Germany - where most fields, or rather the clubs that operate them - do have a website with certain operational details, these are very badly reputed to be out of date. Indeed it is much easier to set up a web site than to keep it up. Never trust any aerodrome website blindly, nor consider it as "sufficiently recent information".

Hi Jan. It's not so much a UK peculiarity as a busy aerodrome peculiarity. Interesting to note that it is seemingly not used where you fly.

Booking out is really just Prior Permission Required in that it creates a flight progress strip for the appropriate controller to save them having to do so on your initial contact. If you are the only aircraft departing in a 30 minute period, booking out over the radio makes great sense if only to keep the poor controller from falling asleep. At the other end of the spectrum, with half a dozen aircraft in the circuit and combined tower and approach duties the controller won't thank you for letting them know that you "are Piper Tomahawk G-ABCD at the tower apron, have 2 POB, would like to do a local flight followed by some circuits and a fan stop, have fuel endurance for 3 hours, have had a large breakfast including soft scrambled eggs and a sausage and would like to request taxi".

But I digress. I didn't really want to know if booking out by phone was a good thing - more to find out if there was a consistent way to know if it is required at a particular aerodrome and if so using which contact details having assumed that this would be found in the AIP. Thanks for your comments regarding websites though too - very true.

Indeed Jan. An airfield I called for PPR and a few details recently appeared to have a website of pilot information and I mentioned it when on the phone. The airfield quite vociferously told me that the website was nothing to do with them and operated by a small group of local aviators and they did not accept responsibility for anything on it.

Contrast that with my home field Redhill with an excellent website maintained by the airfield operator and which with respect to anything approaching booking out says :

"It greatly assists ATC if pilots adopt the following, modified' RTF procedures:

"First call outbound: Redhill Tower (callsign) outbound information …. QNH …."

This is the only information required.

Thanks, Dave. I much like the phrasing "It much helps...", emphasising how much depends on good will and common sense, and how little on published officialdom. I am less happy about the "ATC" bit - Redhill being a non-controlled field, there cannot be any "C"ontrol ... The Brits keep on stunning me with their contradictory language.

Jan: "The Brits keep on stunning me with their contradictory language."

While I wholeheartedly agree with this sweeping statement, it applies to most peoples.

I think you should give the Brits a break on this occasion as Redhill is controlled by licenced ATCOs so ATC and control are (unusually) appropriate.

Sorry, Dan. I have no reason to doubt the ability or appropriateness of the people operating the radio at Redhill - or anywhere else in the UK, for that matter. It doesn't alter the fact that Redhill is not a controlled aerodrome, so that anyone operating their radio cannot ever be called a controller - there being nothing to "control". This is the kind of confusion that I so loathe in UK radio usage, and in UK aviation language in general.

Redhill (EGKR) *is* a controlled airport, it has an aerodrome control ATC service (Redhill Tower), and thus the people on the end of the radios are licensed air traffic controllers...

What gives you the idea that Redhill is not a controlled aerodrome? Eurocontrol defines a controlled aerodrome as "An aerodrome at which an air traffic control service is provided to aerodrome traffic" and, according to the UK AIP, Redhill provides an ATC service (Redhill Tower) between the hours of 0845 and 0715. Where, pray, is the misuse of aviation language?

Alex just beat me to it.

Ah, hm, sorry, sincere apologies, then. It is unexpected to see an aerodrome with no hard runways to be controlled; so that I had assumed... but of course assumption is the mother of all f____ps. My bad! Part of my confusion may follow from the absence of a "Redhill CTR" (unless I missed even more) - the UK is, as far as I understand, one of few FIR's to actually implement controlled aerodromes as an ATZ, with no associated CTR.

...and long may it last. 2 busy aerodromes in the South-West are bereft of a CTR. Exeter did try a couple of years ago, but failed. Newquay say it's the very last thing they want. They cope much better by engaging with the local pilot community to let the radar controller know what they're doing and will keep the commercial traffic out of their way, very effectively. Even the sub-450kg microlights all call up, even if they haven't got transponders. Great!

TOO

Hi Z,

As you have already discovered there are a variety of ways to notify an aerodrome that you want to go flying (book out).

You might wonder why we have to book out. Talking to the airfield operator, atc, flight information centre or air/ground communication service means that you will, at least in part, be complying with Rule 11 Flight within aerodrome traffic zones and/or Rule 12 Movement of aircraft on uncontrolled aerodromes of the Rules of the Air Regulations 2015. (Which can be found in Section 2 of CAP 393.)

If I am departing from a unfamiliar airfield then in the absence of an easy to find booking out instruction I just phone the ATC or Operations number in the aerodromes AD entry in the eAIS Package UK, or Pooleys or AFE flight guide. Same if I’m booking in. Also it is often much quicker to use the phone than some of the aerodrome website PPR forms. On many occasions it has been a phone call or text to the mobile number of the aerodrome operator. Most recently, for example, the charming and helpful Peter Robinson at Sutton Meadows.

Anyway, I wouldn’t worry too much about the method as long as you have obtained the permission and information that you must have to comply with Rules 11 or 12.

JP

Jonathan, that's really helpful and makes perfect sense in line with simple need for preparing a Flight Progress Strip in advance to save time and avoid confusion. Thank you.

Licenced aerodromes are required to keep a record of movements (T.O. and landings) and these records are audited by the CAA. Dependant on the number of movements and the complexity of them the CAA may require a minimum level of service: A/G, FIS or ATC etc. A civil licenced aerodrome (i.e. airports) must be available to all and on equal terms and this is subject to audit. A private licenced aerodrome is not required to be open to all and may if it wishes have its own conditions of use, and as it sees fit (PPR etc), including booking in and out. It is particularly important to have a pilot booking in/out system where there is not a dedicated radio operator as may be in the case of a/g. The police may apply pressure on the owner when they wish to exploit the informal customs/immigration procedures. This is particularly true for movements subject to the anti terrorism act: to and from the I.O.M., Channel Islands, Eire and N. Ireland. The aerodrome may of course be limited (licenced or not) to a maximum number of movements at different times, subject to its planning permission. I don't know of any aerodromes that are required to have a booking in/out system subject only to a planning requirement but they may exist.

So there is a wide range of reasons for booking in and out.

And at Redhill, you even get to appear on the arrivals / departures board on the website. Albeit pretty briefly

https://www.redhillaerodrome.com/arrivals-departures

It is only the Continentals that find it contradictory. Nothing unusual in that. :)

Not true. Whilst Jan's assumption about grass airfields not being controlled was a mistake (for which he apologised), he's not wrong to criticise the language used in the legislative and regulatory documents that litter aviation. If you want an example (to take us even further from the question in my original post), explain the value of "OUT" in CAP 413's "Standard Words and Phrases".

Booking out - how quaint. So 1950's.

Indeed. What do you do in Oz out of interest?

So what happens between 0715 and 0845? Tower closed for breakfast?

He meant 1715 not 0715!

As I mentioned above, 'booking' out' at a military airfield has a different result from that at a civil airfield.
At a civil airfield, your details are used by the ATSU or A/G operator.
At a military airfield, your details are additionally passed to your destination airfield and they are informed when you are airborne to enable overdue action to be taken if required..

Notification to the destination of the flight details is the case only if a 'flight plan' has been filed and that is the same for everywhere. Otherwise it is not done even from an MOD airfield.

So you have also read CAP 413. Good for you.

Nothing whatever to do with the UK, this is ICAO phraseology and is not, as CAP413 makes clear, normally used in V/UHF communications. Not surprisingly, therefore, it has little or no value to private pilots who seldom if ever have to cope with the vagaries of HF propagation.

Thanks, Chevvron, for correcting my earlier typo.

Thanks Chevvron and Fl1ingfrog for contributing to the subject under discussion.
"Overdue action" sounds very much like an alerting service. Civil ATC does this too ;).

Booking Out
 

CAP 493 Section 1 Chapter 2 para 14
14. Booking-Out
Pilots who do not file a flight plan, either full or abbreviated, are required to inform the ATSU at the aerodrome of their departure. This is referred to as booking-out. The ATSU is to record the departure. No further action is required.

for the sake of completeness

10. Filing of Flight Plans
10.1 Flight plans fall into two categories:
(1) (2)
Full flight plans; the information required on Form CA48/RAF2919.
Abbreviated flight plans; the limited information required to obtain a clearance for a portion of flight, e.g. flying in a control zone, crossing an airway etc. filed either on the RTF or by telephone prior to take-off.

and

10.3 The destination aerodrome will be advised of the flight only if the flight plan information covers the whole route of the flight.

Busy ATSUs I would suggest prefer a booking out over the phone to alleviate RT workload and naturally be forewarned about potential movements.

You won't get much joy if you try calling for start at many UK airports without booking out in advance.

Absolutely - and hence my original question.
In my (limited) experience, the controller at such an airport will do their best not to sound too tetchy when they say "G-ABCD, Anytown Tower. Have you booked out? I don't have a strip for you." This is responded to with anything from apologetically (the pilot shuts down and toddles off to book out over the phone) to with a great deal of bluster and indignance ("Do you know who I am? Can't you just take my booking now?!"). The latter sometimes results in very long waits at holding points...

Anyway, my query was: what is the best way to find out whether or not booking out over the phone is customary at aerodrome x and if so, what's the process? I think Jonathan's response was the most reliable for my purposes - phone the ops number published on the AIP and ask.

I'm still interested in what happens in other countries. It seems that the norm in many places is to book out over the radio, which must either be quite an overhead for the controller or mean that less information is recorded than the "PYM" type (plus fuel endurance) stuff asked at my local.
Thanks for all your input.

At 99% of airports in North America, there is no such thing as booking out. The nearest equivalent at fewer than 1% of airports would be the requirement to telephone for a transponder code before walking out to your plane. I am aware of this requirement at a few of the biggest, busiest airports in Canada. Otherwise, as long as you conform to radio procedures, and traffic flow, you come and go as you wish with no other fuss. Flights beyond 25 miles require a flight plan or the alternative, notification to a responsible person. Happily, my wife is a very responsible person!

There must be many more reasons for 'booking' routines.

During ab inition PPL training at Mascot (Sydney) in 1969, we were required - at least when leaving the circuit - to book out where we were going to fly, to comply with "SAR Watch".
[Search & Rescue].

Nowadays as a UK "airfield" operator - i.e. a grass field - in common with many others we keep a 'C' book for pilots to log their flights after arrival.
The Police seem to find its availability helpful & the accumulated movements, particularly over the first 10 or 12 years from starting the strip, are evidence of my Common Law rights for the land's 'change of use': all without submitting a Planning Application.

Yes, isn't that the exact same reason for which we are supposed to file a flight plan?

and before taking off, too, I should expect? That is what we do here in BE, it is in fact a legal obligation; though it is not in France, AFAIK. In Germany, the "Flugleiter" (= mandatory radio operator at any aerodrome) will do it for us. Both the arrival and the departure, I mean, in all countries I know about.

Wow! It's zero business of the police how I come and go - in my plane, in my car, in my life.... unless they suspect a crime. I would not tolerate that imposition on my privacy!

Pilot DAR.

You make it sound as if the UK was a police state. :) We enjoy the privilege of being able to fly abroad from and return from abroad to any small airfield or farm strip in the UK. It is only right that we play by the rules and that the Border Force are able to check that we do. Airfield operators and users do not object to visits by the Border Force and, to the contrary, welcome them. Why would anybody object to them looking at the arrival and departures log of an airfield, normally only filled in by visiting pilots?