Airmanship - a consideration
 

Good afternoon aviators!

I wonder if I might use your forum to highlight what seems to be an ongoing issue with airmanship?

This afternoon, while working an Airshow at Elvington in Yorkshire, and having issued the following NOTAM:

Q) EGTT/QWALW/IV/M/W/000/050/5355N00058W003
B) FROM: 10/07/31 11:30C) TO: 10/08/01 14:00

E) AIR DISPLAY/AEROBATICS ACTIVITY WI 3NM 5355N 00058W
(ELVINGTON AD, YORKSHIRE)
10-07-0747/AS 2

LOWER: SFC
UPPER: 5000FT AMSL
SCHEDULE: 1130-1400

We still had a joker appear in the overhead during the Harvard display and proceed to fly up and down the display line, at a height well below 5000ft and conduct his own aerobatics! Now I know this is class G airspace, but whatever happened to airmanship?!

Do others find that, especially in areas of high traffic density such as the area around York, it is exasperating the amount of GA aviators that either don't read NOTAMs, or blatantly arrive over an event to add their own "act"?

Being a GA pilot myself, as well as holding a DA and being involved in displays on the ground, I am staggered that such attitude to airmanship still exists and that no-one at clubs, or those conducting bi-annual checks are picking up pilots for such blatant poor airmanship. When I learnt to fly, airmanship was an assessed part of the syllabus I seem to remember! I know the Red Arrows have also been blighted with this over the years, and yet pilots still barrel into their RA(T)s!

As a parting shot, if anyone is flying in the Elvington, Breighton, Church Fenton area tomorrow please give us a call on York Radio 119.625 and we can pass traffic information to you. We have a discrete display frequency for the display a/c, so you won't be bothering anyone by calling but we would ask that you respect the 3nm and 5000ft mentioned in the NOTAM and remain clear by at least that. Display a/c may also be holding overhead Acaster Malbis and VFR to the south of Elvington.

Happy and safe flying!

Max

PS The observant amongst you may note that a similar thread has been posted on another forum outside PPRuNe, however I feel this deserves discussion with as wide an audience as possible as the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better!

Many or most UK PPLs don't read notams. Many don't use the internet. Look at the pilot age demographic data (back pages of FTN) - it is obvious.

There is a huge pilot community out there which has never 'got weather' and never 'got notams'. I know a fair few of them myself. They fly out of strips, mostly. No transponders, of course.

And your show was in Class G. Class G is Class G...

Of course pilots should read the notams... the real Q is: do you want to run adult education classes on how to use a PC, and how to get an internet connection when away from home?

What's basically happened is that over the past decade, flying has caught up with the pilot community, and it will take many years to sort out.

IO540
 

Well,how arrogant can you get,well knowing you ,probably a lot more.:rolleyes:

I am 67,have been using the internet for around 14 yrs,using PC's before that.
Many of my pals exceed even my age,and maybe unbelievably for you,can use the internet.
Notams are available and used by many,especially now there are user friendly sites.
You will always get the odd pratt,usually young,cocky and inexperienced in procedures.
But some of the cocky ones are a lot older;)
Lister-OAP and proud of it.:}

Lister, calm down. I am 53 and getting older :) Almost old enough to get a bus pass.

Do you actually dispute my comment on pilots not using the internet, etc? If so, please back it up.

Lister

I am afraid I think you are wrong.

I posted a comment on the darker side about an occasion recently I went to Gloucester. Farnborough had a temp class A which I picked up before going and had at least been published the previous evening. You should have heard the number of pilots who didnt know - it was quite dreadful. I reckon in the 15 minutes I must have heard at least a dozen pilots being told they had infringed. It is not by any means the first time.

Next time there is a temp class A go fly around the area or listen up on the ground and you will be horrified. Of course there are plenty who read the NOTAMs and plenty who dont.

Sorry on reflection I dont mean you are wrong because I think your comment was more directed at oldies being computer illiterate - some clearly are, some cant be bothered and some arent.

IO540, there certainly are lots of pilots just doing their thing, without never consulting neither weather nor notam's nor the holy virgin neither whatever. But I have never observed such behaviour to have any relation to age or internet capacities, to these eyes it seems more related to temperament and education. Not to mention budget.

And both excess of temperament and lack of education are more common among youngsters. Large budgets do seem to come with age, though.

The clown of the opening message seems to have suffered from an excess of temperament. No excuse, certainly, I heartily agree with O/P. But there is NO illustrated relation neither with age nor with internet currency. At the contrary, without internet information said clown might never have known about the event and gone blow his whistle elsewhere.

From pilots I know personally (face to face) there is a very strong correlation between those who do not use the internet, and their age.

They don't need to be much older than me, either. I happen to have been in electronics design since day 1 so I was always "in" this game, but a chap of say 60 who has been insulated from it by doing a job which does not involve email etc communication will not necessarily be up to speed.

This lack of IT literacy is seen in every walk of life and is a real issue for employers, because so many jobs today require the use of email, at least. It is really quite sad sometimes; I had one temp-agency woman of about 60 trying to feed a credit card into a fax machine, to authorise the card. It is unfortunate that working practices (specifically, the use of IT methods) have changed so much faster than many people have been able to cope with.

This incidentally is IMHO who there is so much apparent adult illiteracy around. There has probably not been an actual increase, but a lot of employees who used to do purely manual jobs have been pushed into jobs where they have to do email, etc, and they end up looking ridiculous because they can't write.

And of course about 100% of those who don't use the internet won't be getting notams, because one cannot get notams (practically) otherwise.

Obviously anybody on pprune.org will be on the internet, and some are likely to be offended by this discussion.

IO540, of course I am only a youngster myself, but could you please illustrate how anyone managed to consult notam's before the days of internet? Are those methods still available today?

I think the short answer is they didn't.

In my PPL days (2000/01) the instructor got a local briefing by fax and pinned it on the wall. Of course nobody present flew past the nearest crease on the chart... so this was OK. Those who might have been going places were not around because most schools don't like experienced PPLs hanging around, upsetting the instructors ;)

In 2000/01 a pilot going places probably just got away with it... There used to be phone numbers which you could call for a briefing, but I have never met anybody who used to call them. And realistically there are only about 50-100 TRAs around the UK each year, mostly airshows, and the chance of a random pilot busting one is quite small, and this is probably how it "worked" all those years. Everything which is not an RA is fair game for a bust and nothing will be done about it because no law was broken.

Then a number of things changed.

(1) After 9/11, The French set up the prohibited areas around their power stations. I busted one of those in 2003, but narrowly escaped major hassle a) because I did not land in France and b) because the ais.org.uk database was crap, and c) because the French IGN charts did not show them.

(2) UK ATC set up the ais.org.uk notam database and this became everybody's source for going places. You could do a Narrow Route Briefing which remains to this day, and works fine. This became usable c. 2003.

(3) Because of the notam database, everybody and their dog who was authorised to generate notams (which was, and remains, everybody and their dog, illiterate or otherwise, but always awfully self important, especially if in the military) started generating masses of notams, mostly irrelevant and mostly just a pollution of the database... but you have to read through this garbage when you get the briefing. I bet the notam volume has gone up 10x to100x between 2000 and 2010, while the number of actually meaningful notams has remained the same.

Note to the pilot who thought it would be a good idea to practice aeros at Elvington this afternoon, right in the middle of the Wings and Wheels air display.

Tomorrow, Sunday. August 1st, is day two of the event.
(You were crap, by the way).

Valid points regarding the age demographics of pilot's and actually bothering to do any kind of pre-flight, including checking NOTAMs. What strikes my as shocking about the post is the fact that said 'tool' seemed to be aware of what was going on - and proceeded to act the tit anyway. The issue of checking NOTAMs and their (un)accessibility has been well documented recently but this is a case of non-existent airmanship, a complete lack of respect for the safety of affected aircraft/crew and a lack of consideration to those trying to watch the show (which I assume are families with kids over a summer weekend?) No excuse, this guy needs to have his licence revoked for such idiotic behavior IMHO.

Cheers
Ryan - 26 and getting younger!! :}

@IO540: with all respect, I keep to my point of view: a responsible pilot will do a proper pre-flight and that's all. Point à la ligne.

If tomorrow meteo info is only available through smoke signals, any responsible pilot will learn to read those. I just hope these words will not bring bad inspiration...

I am willing to believe there was less sense of responsability in earlier days, when traffic was much less dense, and those who grew up in that mentality are unlikely to change it overnight. But that has nothing to do with internet litteracy.

BTW every a/d I have visited round here has a PC with internet access available to pilots, and there's generally someone around to help if required. Lack of internet ability is really not a proper excuse!

And I do insist dangerous or inconsiderate airmanship is more often seen from not-so-old people with big budgets and great planes than from humble gaffers. The one time I observed it - an antique biplane showing his acrobatics right through a cloud of descending parajumpers - the pilot was younger than myself, and a manager of a bizjet operation. Not an internet illitterate, I should think, neither unversed in air law, or so one should hope.

But I am really surprised at your point 3: as I read your words, any nitwit of a n___y could post a notam declaring a TRA around his place for next Sunday's family bbq - surely such postings must be validated by any kind of authority before being published? Really the UK must be a very different place!

Somebody that knows will probably answer this, but what is annoying is people that post long NOTAMs (running for many months) warning of very occasional events. For example, launches of meteorlogical balloons, where they're launched once or twice a month, but there's a near-permanent NOTAM just acting as noise in a long list of NOTAMs. People really shouldn't be allowed to do that. If it's not significant enough to create a Danger Area, then the NOTAM should give individual dates and times of activity.

On numerous occasions last week I was called at Scottish Information by various aircraft saying they could not establish comms with Carlisle ATC on 123.6........on every occasion I suggested to these folk that if they read their notams all would have been revealed.........Carlisle ATC last week were short staffed and had been operating revised hours!!!!:cool::cool:

Freda
 

A ray of common sense,there is so much jumble that very few could be expected to unravel official Notams.
Much better to see one of the " unofficial sites".
But no one of my age would know how to do it.

Lister
Old and not so wise;)

Gosh,how am I doing this internet stuff:}?

They arrived at the airport by some magic or other and were put up on the notice board each morning, for you to read before take-off.

So, not easy to consult in advance, you might turn up at the airport to find that you couldn't make the planned flight.

I agree that a lot of NOTAMS should never be accepted. I agree that the official promulgation of NOTAMS leaves much to be desired.

However the reality is everyone has the right to our airspace. This sometimes means that a minority will use our airspace for their special purpose - for example aerobatic competitions. In addition it also means there are occasions (security, hazards etc) when the airspace should be restricted. I think we all recognise those needs.

For me it is wholly irresponsible for us not to pre-flight NOTAMS. Moreover I dont buy that it is difficult. There are numerous sources of graphical NOTAMS that really do provide all you need and numerous ways of accessing these.

It takes me literally a few minutes to self brief before a flight. I am not going to claim I do so before absolutely every flight but I do for the very vast majority.

Quite simply I think those that dont, whatever their age are negligent.

When I started flying, some what before some of the posters so far, things were different, but that is irrelevant. Times gone bye and we could do T and Gs at Gatwick. Sadly, perhaps, the world has moved on.

I think many won't, if it is too hard.

But often it doesn't matter. If you fly for 30nm then you can get a good enough picture by looking out of the window.

This is how I think it used to work. Speaking to some friends of mine confirms this. One 2000hr+ pilot says he cannot read tafs or metars. He flies at low levels mostly. He is a great bloke and I can see how he gets away with it, along with many others. For most short-ish flights you don't need a weather briefing; it is "VFR" after all ;)

The problem is Notams... there is no way to avoid those, and one day it will bite you.

I don't think there was less traffic. (If you go back some decades, there was less controlled airspace, but CAS busts are another issue).

I think that the only notam that is really going to get you into trouble is an RA or temporary Class A (usually the Royal Family going somewhere) but if you go back say 20 years, not many had transponders so were much harder to track afterwards ;)

Not so in the UK. Some airfields have a public PC but most don't - unless you walk into a school and ask them nicely. My own base (a full ATC airfield) has no internet facilities. It has a PC which is hacked to file flight plans etc but you cannot get internet on it. There is not even free/open WIFI so the only way is your own laptop with GPRS/3G.
But those were local area notams. Notams for a reasonable route, say a 100nm flight somewhere, could never be thus presented. People just flew without them, usually, or phoned up for a briefing. In my PPL, I was never taught to get notams myself.

And you, Jan, are being excessively rude and offensive. There is nothing clever about the actions of the perpetrator and having someone whizz past you as you pull up vertically is no fun.
Max, you have my sympathy. The BAeA competition held at Elvington has also been dogged by similar idiots, one of whom, a twit in a Robin from Sherburn in Elmet did exactly the same thing, Unfortunately for him he was tracked by Church Fenton Radar who just happened to be working that Saturday and as we had also got his registration there was no way he could deny it. I'm not sure what happened on his return to Sherburn but I'm pretty sure it was probably along the lines of tea and biccies with the CFI - without the tea and definitely without the biccies. I posted something similar earlier this year - probably around the beginning of May when we had had several intruders in the competition box. What amazes me is the number of people who attempt to defend the perpetrators by complaining that NOTAMs are too difficult to obtain and/or read.
Please note - I am NOT a member of the BAeA, I am simply someone who enjoys going to help out at some of their competitions.

Well, sorry, please put it down to my being shocked at the irresponsible behaviour of one pilot. I certainly did not want to offend anyone. But I do be aware that in this country it has become virtually impossible - except for the military - to organise any aviation event including aerobatics, following an incident where another pilot killed himself AND several spectators through disrespecting given rules.

On re-perusal, this discussion seems to have slipped into flight preparation, the difficulties of properly consulting published notams, and - for myself - the surprising differences between one country and one other.

The original message was about a pilot who most likely knew very well what was happening then and there - but decided to do his own thing nevertheless. Certainly my instructor would have termed that much worse than "seeming to suffer from an excess of temperament" but I'll not cite his vocabulary - it wouldn't bear translation, anyway.

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?