Low Flight?
 

Hey guys, just after a bit of piece of mind (or not as the case may be)! To cut a long story short...ended up flying over a congested area at 1000-1200 ft on the regional QNH, quite low i know but wanted to stay low due to alot of haze. It wasn't til i got home that i realised where i had been flying over was in a valley and therefore im assuming was raised ground....100metres i think (about 300 feet) http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/censored.gif I was definately within the land clear rule as there were a good number of fields available to me and also THOUGHT i was within the 1000ft provision.......rookie mistake!
Just wondering how strict the CAA may be on cases like this?

Thanks.

Drive to Aviation House at Gatwick, put your licence on the CAA's desk and back slowly away without sobbing, like any man would. :E

Seriously, if you weren't reported you will possibly hear no more about it. Theoretically you are obliged to inform the CAA that you breached the ANO (but I'm not sure that anyone has ever done so for such an incident).

If I were you, I'd put it down to experience and vow to plan more carefully in future, which I'm sure you will.

Or buy a radar altimeter.

Take care. ;)

Thanks for the reply. Who would be likely to file a report? Someone on the ground or ATC?. Heard nothing about it from them. but anyways, much appreciated!

Either might report but if you were in Class G, ATC would really not be interested in "dobbing you in". A lone complainant on the ground would have to have been A) incensed enough to even care B) Have read your registration and some way of verifying your height to have enough credibility for the CAA to begin looking into it.

As you didn't blatantly bust the 1,000 foot rule by much, I would open another beer and stop worrying. Learn your lesson and accept that you have made an honest mistake.

And fronted up to it on this website, which is of course likely to result in you being put into the PPRuNe village stocks and pelted with rotten fruit and ribald insults, any minute now.

Ok, I hurl one rotten tomato whilst projecting insult 'you flew too low you did'.

Was that Ok?

Regards

Cron

Ooh steady on, Cron, not too harsh - it was only his first offence! ;)

haha. Alright...and don't worry....the beer was opened long ago! Thanks again,

Mark.

Mark, whilst doing my PPL(H) the task for the day was to fly my instructor from a secret airbase near Stratford on Avon to Gloucester.

Of course I drew a straight line on the map and neatly pierced the circle around an open prison (no I didn't realise) which of course I proceeded to fly over at the wrong height (or is it altitude?).

Without a change of expression or tone my instructor informed what I had just done and my first words were 'Am I in trouble?'. 'Only if they report you' was all I could get out of him before he instructed me to get Glocs ATIS.

I spent months worrying. Nought happened.

Regards

Cron

Just claim you were on a long final with an ATC clearance to land at xyz. ;)

Can you estimate aircraft height accurately within a couple of hundred feet, from the ground? I thought not. Well, neither can anyone else.

The most dangerous people in aviation are the ones who can't won't admit their failings. You've admitted yours, good move. Now learn the lesson and stop worrying, we've all done it from time to time.

Speaking as a controller who regularly talks to aircraft in class G; it's up to you what altitude you choose to fly; I'll warn you if that reported altitude puts you in close proximity to high ground or tall obstructions like masts or towers, but that's as far as I go as I'm primarily interested in safety.

Don't worry about it Mark. Noone is likely to report you for it. People who get reported for low flying generally remain in an area, causing a nusance; they are not just passing through.

You are VERY unlikely to be reported, and even if you were they will find it very hard to judge the difference between 900ft and 1000ft AGL.

ATC won't report you.

Mark

You said you were using the regional pressure as a datum - so, if anything, you were probably a bit higher than your altimeter indicated, weren't you?!

(By the way, it's an RPS - not a QNH.)

However, how high were the terrain and the structures in the congested area? - several factors to take into account.

2 s