Infringements: the first release of causal analysis info

[FlyOnTrack]

Following demand a while back, NATS has spent a fair bit of time and money with an infringement survey, sending out it and collating returns from many infringing pilots. With nearly 400 replies in by the end of 2012, the initial release of some of the data is now public - see either the stats page or hot news on FlyOnTrack http://www.flyontrack.co.uk

[Ian Melville]

One stat that seems to be missing, is if any of the infringers had an Airspace Alerting Device?

[FlyOnTrack]

One stat that seems to be missing, is if any of the infringers had an Airspace Alerting Device?

NATS have that info, and in fact there are plenty more 'factoids' coming in the next few weeks. I'll get the specific answer. I have seen the figures, but I don't trust my memory to tell you how low it is (it is low).

[Ian Melville]

Thanks Irv, Since the figure seems to be above zero it would be interesting to hear why the AAD failed to prevent an incursion. For example not turning it on

[Chris Martyr]

What a great initiative GASCO's Fly-on-Track is. It certainly makes quite interesting reading during this unflyable weather, especially the pdf downloads.
Given that GPS software has been quite advanced for several years now , it would be interesting if Irv could give some sort of indication as to whether CAS infringements have shown any sort of decline over the years . Surely with the forward-march of technology , especially with todays AADs we should be seeing infringements decreasing in inverse proportions to the rather healthy sales of of these SFD's
[spoon feeding devices].
My favourite AAD is the Jeppessen half mil. chart which gives GPS waypoint co-ordinates around all the relevant airspace classes boundaries . Which certainly would have helped the guy in the microlight leaving Duxford to get around Stansted without becoming a statistic.
One of my criticisms of the latest AAD's is that some guys will just use it as an excuse to go right up to that big old invisible glass window .
They work on the premise of , Controlled/Uncontrolled ? Not Too Sure !
Must try and find an acronym for that one :

[FlyOnTrack]

it would be interesting if Irv could give some sort of indication as to whether CAS infringements have shown any sort of decline over the years . Surely with the forward-march of technology , especially with todays AADs we should be seeing infringements decreasing in inverse proportions to the rather healthy sales of of these SFD's

I've put the new graphs up this morning (the regular month-end barcharts) on the stats page of FlyOnTrack http://www.flyontrack.co.uk/content/statistics.asp but this time of course they are 'year end' too. What they don't show though is of course number of actual flights in the UK which didn't infringe NATS airspace. Certainly up to last year, the genuine belief by a NATS controller (who is a GA pilot too) involved in all this stuff was that numbers of flights generally as witnessed on his screen and in his ears were not down (but that there may have been a small swap from spamcan to microlight). I don't know what the feel is for 2012 as a whole, but it would be skewed by Olympics and unusual weather. There is also a much more detailed report produced by the CAA just below the NATS graphs, derived from MOR reports, which goes into a lot of detail and includes ATZs, danger areas, non-NATS airspace etc. One thing you have to remember is that where-as NATS will count an infringement that does not cause chaos (in order to get a handle on what is actually happening, as it might only be 'timing' luck that it didn't cause a major problem), I think it is much more likely that an ATZ report would not be made as an MOR by the airfield unless it had caused a problem, or unless it was suffering a string of infirngements.

[mike newall]

Our infringement started with an old map and ended up with an email that was lower than a snake's belly.........

Seriously,

I sat on a committee at Manchester discussing big and little aeroplane airspace.

We did some good, we analysed some problems and changes were made to the zone around MAN.

The biggest, biggest thing, is if you have or think you have infringed - call someone and talk.

I have 17000 hours and fly A330's for a living - I am more concerned in our RV7 about getting lost and making a t*t of myself than I ever am at work........