IO540Sometimes you talk sense, but I do take issue with your regular inference that all aged, untransponderised grass strippers are somhow inferior members of the aviatic community. Please be reassured that some of us do know of the existence of Notams, Weather, the internet, airspace restrictions & some of us can actually read & write. I have even been known to carry an aviation chart in the aircraft on the odd occasion!!

Jan, please accept my apologies, I mistakenly thought you were referring to Max.

No problem, DX, I'm glad to see it sorted out. It is easy enough to misunderstand one-another face to face, much easier on these impersonal web pages. Note to self: next time be more precise, i.e. mention "the joker mentioned originally" or words to that effect.

To continue on the original discussion: how hard would it have been for the organisers to have a Temporary Restricted Zone set up? That would not have changed anything for any pilot not consulting notams of course, but it would have made it possible to dissuade him (her?) from repeating the, err, performance.

Setting up such a TRZ seems rather common in France, at least.

As a 71 year old pilot I regularly do self checks to see if it is still safe for me to fly with me. :bored:
I even read NOTAMS, but find myself irritated by their format:
Why reverse the date information?
Why have vast amounts of gobbledegook codes?
There is no longer any reason not to use plain language, and if NOTAMS were more easily readable then it follows that more pilots will read them.

Quite correct, and the same applies to METAR and TAF.

Because the cretins who are in these government positions want it that way.

Yes, the cinical side of me says that in the information age, when incredible amounts of pointless information can be made avaible anywhere, for no good reason whatever..... if the purveyors of NOTAMS, and aviation weather really wanted that information to be quickly and properly accessed, and used, they would provide it in plain, whole word, text, and forget all of the codes.

I used to type Telexes, where every character counted. Those days are long gone!

Where do I sign my whole name to a petition for this?

Eurocontrol is working on some new notam presentation, but it will still require the internet, so it will not be accessible to a large part of the GA community.
I didn't say that. I merely said that there is a correlation between being a member of that community and

- not getting weather
- not getting notams
- not having a transponder

I would have thought that the said members would be proud of being able to fly thus unhindered, while some of us spend an average of 3.7 hours before every flight checking everything including the oxygen :)

Speak to almost any ATCO (they don't want to talk about this openly because it would make them look prejudiced against one section of GA) and they will tell you where the "biggest" CAS busts come from. I was once talking to Lyneham, outside their airspace, and they were pretty nervous about me being close. I phoned them up afterwards and the man said they had just had a bust by about 30 microlights, one by one, and every one, all going to/from some convention. While there are plenty of pra*s in any section of GA, I don't think you would get a 100% score like this out of most of them.

Flying "simply" is fine and it works if you stick to the regular short trips. The airshow locations are well known and if your regular jaunt avoids those, avoids Farnborough etc (Royal flights), then you will probably never do anything illegal by never getting notams. And if you don't carry a transponder, if you did bust somewhere they probably won't be able to track you back home.

It is when you try to do a longer distance version that you expose yourself to potential trouble.

Seriously I do think there is a business opportunity for a "mobile internet for pilots" ground course. One would cover AFPEx and notams and weather, and setting up a little £200 laptop from Ebay to get the internet, all in one go. Throw in a bit on Navbox and Skydemon, too. All the good stuff which should be in the PPL ground school, but never will be. Where is Irv Lee??

Would it be unreasonable as part of the service provided by airfields in return for the landing fee to expect a free wifi connection? (irony)

Couple of remote airports I've flown into don't have even enough GSM signal strength to pay fuel (since transmission to bank is done with terminal that uses GSM) :ugh: But at less remote fields, yes, great idea - I wish anyone from management would read this :ok:

In my opinion, not getting weather isn't so critical as you only screw up your day if you have to divert away from your destination/origin and stay there for couple of days or get into inadvertent IMC. But not having a transponder is simply ignorant to the flight safety as whole, especially when today's transponders fit into ANY kind of flying device, even for UAV you can get a transponder that weighs 500g or less - and even S-mode nowadays. People really think that in 2010 the air traffic density is the same as it was 40 or 50 years ago - time changes, people change, technology changes and so should the mandatory requirements which would have to include at least mode C (if not S) transponder.

Quite reasonable, since they all have a phone line and you can get ADSL on the back of that for next to nothing these days. And the person collecting the money will probably be on pprune anyway :)

One needs to do more. One needs to provide a public PC. The cost of that is absolute peanuts these days.

In the wider context, travelling abroad, all this is wishful thinking and having mobile internet is absolutely the only way to go.

There are bound to be strips out there without a GSM service, and without a phone line, and their residents just need to make other arrangements. But this will be rare. I live and work in the countryside so I see poor signal levels all the time, but one can usually get connectivity, even if most of the countryside will not have 3G. You don't need 3G for any aviation preflight purposes.

Just spotted this on the Flyer forum FLYER Forums • View topic - Airfields with wi-fi access
Surely any airfield worth it's salt would at least have a phone line, and surely they have a broadband connection. All they need to do is allow those pesky pilots access to the signal.
As the technology ramps up and gets cleverer (NATS satnav) then you will surely be looking at much heavier penalties for airspace infringements, and probably rightly. If GA embraces the technology, then it may even be possible to limit the growth of controlled airspace (Norwich?).
I have just started using Skydemon and am running it on an Archos 9 tablet with a bluetooth GPS. Fantastic! Do your preflight planning on it as a regular PC and then one click starts the GPS and it transforms into a moving chart.

Year-month-day is international standard and is unambiguous.

What does 6/7/2010 mean? 6th of July or 7th of June?

You can tell because of the country you're reading the date in? Yeah, right. How exactly are you guaranteeing that no piece of US written software anywhere in the chain from originator to your eyes, even if it's all remained in the UK, has thoughtfully chosen to display the date in US format?

Whereas 2010/6/7 and 2010/7/6 cannot be confused with each other. I much prefer to see people using proper international format, it greatly reduces the chances of me turning up to a meeting a month early, or delivering something a month after the deadline.

The strip I used to fly from didn't have electricity, let alone a phone line, running water, main drainage...

<<Year-month-day is international standard and is unambiguous.>>
Well you may be right, and perhaps it has changed since I retired in 1993. But during 25 years of airline flying, day/month/year was the way we read the date.
Sounds like the Americans would'nt change so everyone else did. :rolleyes:

Agree that the pilot yesterday showed v poor airmanship. But organising the VFR hold 2-2.5 miles on the centreline of the main runway to Church Fenton isn't exactly that sensible either, especially considering the experience levels of some of the student pilots there.
The airmanship problem may be getting worse, but so is the level of consultation with adjacent aerodromes prior to the events; a telephone call to the tower at Fenton 3 days prior doesn't really count as 'consultation' either.

Could argue that posting this thread on the internet itself is quite pointless. The folk who don't go online will never read this.

Well playing devils advocate. :}

As obviously that bit of class G is very busy what about the airmanship of planning an event in that area.

Why don't go somewhere where there is next to no traffic. Norwich airport would proberly do. ;)

Well ladies and gents,

A mixed response and I agree that the original intent of this thread was not to generate a debate on how available, or otherwise, NOTAMs are. As I am sure that you are all aware, private/non commercial air transport pilots are required to comply with the following from the ANO currently in force:

In days gone by before t'internet, AIS would provide a briefing to anyone requiring one, or alternatively one could be provided by telephone or fax from a Flight Briefing Unit at a major airport or Parent ACC. One only had to ask...

The issue I raised was one of airmanship or lack thereof. Class G airspace or not, it may be reasonable to surmise that the fellow in question in the Elvington area yesterday may have been in contravention of Articles 86, 137 and 138 by his behaviour above an active air display site - quite obviously an air display site. Indeed it might reasonably thought by some that the actions shown were intentional with the multiple flypasts of the site, before and after the aerobatics conducted.

Flyingmac
Funnily enough, you were not the only one to note this!

fabs

Either you assume rather a lot or you are not as familiar with Fenton ops as you make out. I can assure you that the process involved in obtaining an Air Display permission under Article 162 of the ANO, and the requirement to co-ordinate such airspace use with the Airspace Utilisation Section of the CAA (jointly with MOD) means that it is not just left to a "phone call to the tower 3 days before".

The briefed hold based on Acaster Malbis disused airfield is, in fact, 4nm from Church Fenton, outside their ATZ and 1nm displaced to the north of their final approach track to Rwy 24. The co-ordination with Church Fenton's controlling authority ensured that the hold at Acaster Malbis was agreed as CF were not flying yesterday and that only 1 aircraft may require the hold today. In the event, CF operations were fully discussed at the aircrew display brief this morning and a final decision as to where aircraft may hold was made on an airmanship basis with the current facts to hand, timings against those notified to us by CF and the requirements of the display aircraft. I do not intend to discuss the reasons behind the choice of Acaster as a hold, as I don't believe that is required on a public forum. Suffice to say, the decision was taken on many airmanship points and in close discussion with relevant authorities.

mad_jock

Sadly, the Buccaneer, Victor and Nimrod are now limited to the paved surface of Elvington for their ground taxy displays, meaning that the "Mountain must come to Mohammed" to allow the event to take place in all it's glory!

Lastly, on behalf of all those involved at Elvington today both in the air and on the ground, may I say thank you to all those pilots who took the time to call York Radio today to ensure that our mutual operations did not conflict. As a result, we did not have any uncomfortable moments today and we were able to provide appropriate traffic information to those enjoying their Sunday aviating around York. If you called when we were temporarily unmanned and got no response, please accept my apologies but a man's bladder can only hold so much! :bored:

Regards,
Max

<Puts on asbestos underpants ready for being flamed>

Ok, but I could I ask what feels like simple question:

Elvington doesn't have a aerodrome ICAO code so the only way to find that NOTAM is to look under EGTT FIR & read through all of the posts? (I'm asking to see if there is a better way)

When I just read this I thought "Don't recall seeing that when I checked the weekend NOTAM on Friday night, but that is because I have set up a list of local aerodromes which I pull up and check

So, is there a better way, or is it that to spot the Elvington NOTAM (or Sleap, or Perth etc etc) that you do have read through the whole EGTT list?