Southend Controlled Airspace

[PROPMAN]

I have just taken delivery of my December 2013 Laa magazine, where I read with a sense of forboding, the proposed changes to Southend's airspace.

I operate out of Nuthampstead (BKY VOR) and my my most flown route over the past ten years has been Nuthampstead - Calais.

After turning the corner at BPK, I can fly above Stapleford's ATZ if the cloudbase is above 2000ft AGL. If the cloudbase is below that, then a jink to the right is called for to avoid Stapleford's ATZ. This usually gets Farnborough radar agitated.The distance from the edge of Stapleford's ATZ and London City's CTR is 2nm. A nice little corridor for opposite direction GA traffic to negotiate. With the Southend proposal we will have a 3nm corridor between the edge of Damyn's Hall ATZ and Southend's new CTR. Another bottleneck. My alternative routing would be under the Stanstead Class D airspace and then a climb to 3000ft with a transit overhead at Southend. My experence of transits at Stanstead is that they are few and far between, therfore my suspicion is that this is what will happen at Southend.

The commercial boys all want the most fuel efficient routings for the sake of the environment etc. The same applies to GA. We don't want to burn more fuel than necessary either. As a suggestion, why can't Southend traffic go directly out to sea to join the TMA?

Should the day ever dawn that there is a Thames Gateway airport or an expansion of commercial activity at Manston, then I can see the southeast of England being a GA no-go area.

I can't see any benefit for GA in this proposal and it does not serve safety.

[John Price]

Hi Propman,

If you have a look at the proposal in the ' Engagement ' part of the LAA website you'll get the whole picture, of why this should be opposed. Make 'your' views known to Southend Airport.

The answer to your question about flying out into the North Sea prior to joining or leaving CAS is that it can. But CAT doesn't like being at low level because that is where their aircraft are the most inefficient.

CAT, as usual, want the best of everything and sod the rest of us.

John.

[ChampChump]

Partly to bring this up to the top, pour encourager les autres, I am posting only to say that time to respond is running out and thank you to LAA for some thorough information, which has helped greatly in concocting my response.

If you live in the SE, or ever intend to visit or pass through, please add you 2d worth.

Thanks
nic

[John Brady]

Dear All,

You will have seen that Southend Airport is consulting on the establishment of a vast area of controlled airspace which the LAA is opposing. The closing date is 19 December. It would help our cause if you were able to send your own response even if it was quite brief. The main points are listed below - please do not copy but write your own words. Make sure you say "I object" (if indeed you do). More information and a copy of the substantial LAA/GAA response is available on the "engagement" page here

The address to send your response to is [email protected]

Access

Problems of access to and through this airspace will arise but are dismissed completely in the consultation. The reason that this is particularly important is that Southend has to deliver a report to the CAA which includes the operational and economic impact of the proposed airspace but in their consultation they say that GA could fly in the Class D airspace but chooses not to (para 8.2.3 in the consultation document refers). This is obviously incorrect but if we do not challenge it, it will be taken as fact.

Airspace Design

The vast area of Class D inserted below the London TMA should not be necessary because CAT aircraft should use the existing LTMA airspace above but NATS will not agree, probably because the airspace there is already busy with Heathrow, Stansted and City traffic. The volume of airspace is totally disproportionate to the volume of CAT movements.

Environment

Southend says that the establishment of this vast area of CAS will not increase environmental impact even though its purpose is to permit 326% more jet aircraft to fly for quite long distances below the existing London TMA.

Business Case

Southend argues that it is expanding and set for further growth but the present easyJet flights have just been moved from Stansted to force a reduction in fees there. These are not new routes and could move back at any time now easyJet has signed a new contract with the new owners of Stansted.

[mikehallam]

Thank you John for the reminder,

E-mail composed & despatched to the stobartair address.

mike hallam.

[John Price]

Don't you two sleep?

John.

[watchboss1]

I think that when recreational pilots and flight training schools are up against the likes of major airlines and companies as huge as Eddie Stobart, ( who now own the airfield ). It's a pobability that those companies will get their own way, by one means or another !

[Alan Kilbride]

I think that when recreational pilots and flight training schools are up against the likes of major airlines and companies as huge as Eddie Stobart, ( who now own the airfield ). It's a pobability that those companies will get their own way, by one means or another !

That doesn't mean that they are right or that we don't make our case.
I am absolutely of the belief that safety is going to be compromised if they get their ridiculous amount of Airspace. It's all very well saying they have consulted with all interested parties(which was a great big fib) and that the airspace is needed to allow not a large number of aircraft into Southend, but why in the name of good sense didn't they get together with the great and good who control LTMA so that they could fit in?
They way I see it is, the bullies in the other playground won't let them play, so they have come into our playground to steal our sweets.
We have seen the debacle of Robbing Hood International and they way they "manipulated" movements by claiming any radio contact as a movement which gave them the numbers to apply for the boil on the backside they had no rights to. Yet the CAA took the spurious claims as gospel. We must as individuals make our case to at least try to stop it. At least in the months to come, we can say "Told you so"

[mikehallam]

Wow, John Brady,

Some treatise you've produced, damning Southend/their Consultant's Application to annexe what free airspace remains east of London.

Thank you for the dedicated and careful analysis, it must have taken a great deal of time & research.

mike hallam

[Alan Kilbride]

Stansted is running at only 50% of capacity, so why should airspace be expanded at the whims of Carriers in the race to pull prices down?
If Stansted drop prices Easyjet will be back like a shot and dump Southend just as quickly.

[Nigelcot]

How about a political campaign to make airports pay at least some of their Government taxes based on the volume of airspace they require? If the costs were based on a formula that left the charges at the existing major UK airports unchanged by offsetting against passenger duty the airspace grabs of Southend and Farnborough would wither on the vine, say £10 less / Sheik and £1,000,000 / cubic mile / year for airspace in excess of a standard ATZ.

After all its the same principal thats being used to force 8.33 frequencies on airports.

[James Chan]

I suspect Southend and others will just pass their costs onto the user, i.e. us, resulting in our landing and navigation fees increasing.

Personally I'd rather not want that.

[John Price]

Hi,

I think that charging for CAS is the wrong way to go. I think that it may be a ' be careful what you wish for' issue. If the airport is having to pay for CAS it will make sure that its customers get the maximum benefit first. GA will come a long way down the list of priorities.

The most logical way would be to levy a tax on CTR/CTA usage i.e. you pay per cubic meter per movement per day. So that highly utilised CAS that is relatively small pays nothing whilst underutilised airspace pays a levy.

I don't think anyone would disagree that if you have a lot of CAT movements into an airport there should be CAS to protect its movements. In that case they pay nothing for example Gatwick.

On the other hand a massive CTR/CTA at Doncaster with little or no movements would pay substantially.

In that case they would welcome GA with big open arms just to get there movements up so as to reduce their CAS levy.

My thoughts feel free to comment.

John.

[ChampChump]

'It appears that it was decided upon before the consultation......The Southend changes are to accommodate 20 movements per day. Wow! The time lower airspace is taken up by scheduled flights will be counted in a few minutes.'

A fairly typical response from one of the residents based at the same place as I am. We put in detailed objections, as did the LAA, of course, but it seems none has been addressed, except as in para 8.4, in which the report states that the LSA has found that no new or unexpected issues have arisen which would materially affect the fundamental case for the re-introduction of controlled airspace in the vicinity of LSA to provide for the safe and efficient conduct of passenger air transport flights in the critical stages of flight and for the safe operation of other aircraft in the vicinity.

As has been pointed out, amd I again am quoting someone else, 'presumably this means all the issues were foreseen but then dismissed? This is despite the objections in the body of the report which were largely belittled in the LSA response yet seem to be very material.'

To say we're not happy is litotes.

[John Price]

Hi Nic,

Me again!

Well if I had spent a shed load of money on consultants to develop a CAS in the vicinity of my airport I wouldn't like them to tell me ' we just had our A*S thoroughly kicked!'

When you have 338 replies of which 319 were objections, that is exactly what has happened.

Send a copy of your response to Andrew Haines and Mark Swan. Rattle their cages a bit!

Tell them in no uncertain terms that the Southend CAS is a dead duck.

They work for us too, or another way, we pay their wages as well.

John.