Airspace grab in Donegal.

[jonkil]

Quite a swathe of airspace proposed to go from class G to class C, has implications for the traffic and particularly for the Letterkenny Club.

See HERE

[RV BLUE]

Call IAOPA see if they are on top of it....??

[hum]

Will the corresponding UK airspace also be Class 'C' ? I believe that Eglinton is curently one of the many UK IFR approaches established outside controlled airspace... If no change is planned to the UK airspace involved it looks like a very strange airspace profile for an approach

[jonkil]

Will the corresponding UK airspace also be Class 'C' ? I believe that Eglinton is curently one of the many UK IFR approaches established outside controlled airspace... If no change is planned to the UK airspace involved it looks like a very strange airspace profile for an approach

Gerry,
The UK will replicate it on the UK side of the FIR too, so all in all it is a bit of a pain, we can stay under it but it is yet more encroachment of class C. I talked to the Guy in the IAA, and to be fair the airspace will only be active during operating hours of Eglington. The L'Kenny club meets tonight and will formulate our proposals to the IAA.

[hum]

If they are putting class 'C' in place in the UK FIR side of the approach then fair enough... The fact that we only have A C or G in Ireland makes life fairly simple, but it is also a bit of a pain if it creates new restrictions as in this situation.

The UK 'IFR procedure established outside controlled airspace' is not ideal however... I had an airmiss with a VERY BIG Tiger Moth just as I broke cloud on an ILS to Cambridge last year... He was perfectly entitled to be there (1200' amsl 4 miles on the extended centreline of the active ILS runway on a marginal VFR wx day), but not very sensible IMHO.... - especially as he was not talking to cambridge ATC - The UK Airpprox board agreed with me....

I'm sure no-one wants to meet a 737 (or its wake) in a microlight... You'll probably find Shannon (presumably the controlling authority - or is it going to be Derry ATC?) will be good about letting local VFR traffic in if there is no IFR traffic about.

[jonkil]

Talking to Shannon from Letterkenny will be a problem, it will need a repeater based in the county to work us, I can talk to them when about 7 mile south of EILT and at 3K'ish and close my flight plans early or by phone when I land. Things like that need to be looked at, the extended ILS for 26 Eglington will have the heavy boys coming directly over the Letterkenny airfield at 4K, so will impose a service ceeling on us. We will be drafting our proposals and recommendations and getting it off to the IAA tomorrow, I have to say that they are very open to any suggestions we can make and stated that they will attempt to accommodate us if possible, so that in itself is promising.

[hibby]

Talking to Shannon from Letterkenny will be a problem

Sorry to hijack the thread, but how does this work in general? Say I'm flying to Sligo at 2000' and talking to Shannon control, they tell me to call when I'm approaching Sligo's controlled airspace. I call, they can hear me and tell me to switch to Sligo tower. Is that direct line-of-sight VHF communication between my aircraft and Shannon, or do they have "repeaters" strategically placed? Are many parts of the country out of VHF range of Shannon at 2000'? If I fly out of VHF range of the station I'm talking to, without them approving a frequency change, have I just "disappeared" as far as they are concerned?

[hum]

They have repeaters around the country so coverage is fairly good, but there are often gaps at low level. I agree this is a factor you should raise if there is a local issue around donegal... The IAA might be able to do something to improve coverage for you.

I find I can sometimes raise 124.7 if 127.5, the ususal freq, does not work.

Just because you are talking to a 'Shannon ' callsign does not mean the controller is necessarily in Shannon - for example I believe that the Shannon Approach controller in 121.4 is now in Dublin...

[jonkil]

Shannon coverage is not at all good in Donegal, with a bit of height we can work them, but this isn't always an option, less of an option if this proposal is adopted. A repeater up in the North west is needed so that will be one of our proposals. We tend to work Eglington/City of Derry when up here and they close our flight plans or use the mobile phone on landing and call Shannon low level. This raises certain safety issues and particularly so if we fly west of the county as terrain can be hostile. It also raises the issue why all strips are not on the 1/4 and 1/2 mil charts, after all they are well known, in the case of Letterkenny it was a licensed aerodrome until the 1990's and has been in existence since the 60's and probably one of the biggest and most active clubs in the country, so this should have been a factor when this proposal was raised. The Letterkenny club never at any time received any correspondence from anyone regarding this, I received this proposal from a 3rd party yesterday and with a close date for proposals on the 15th of January it does not leave much time. After all our governing bodies should have been made aware of this, the NMAI/AOPA/ILAS e.t.c and not left to an individual to find this out, this could have easily been adopted and probably passed without us knowing, this in itself is un-satisfactory.
I talked to a man in the IAA yesterday and he was more than helpful and actually stated that he needs contact details for all parties for future correspondence on such matters, I will put together a list of contacts for governing bodies and individual clubs and pass them on to the IAA for future reference. It is important that the GA community in Ireland is made aware of such proposals as it has implications for all of us.

Jon

[captain slow]

As far as im aware this change proposal is to protect the instrument procedure into rwy08 into derry. As Hum said having an IAP oustside controlled airspace probably isnt the best thing in the world even tho' the UK has a fair few of them. As we dont do them the IAA didnt have much choice but to change the airspace.

Leaving aside how this wasnt a problem until now, and the base of the 3 stubs being quite low at 1500ft,2000ft,and 3000ft but it shouldnt cause your club too much hassle? By looking at the map you are not directly under the stubs , the stubs are only active when derry is and shannon wont have anything in it except for derry arrivals to rwy08. The problem does arise with trying to contact shannon to get permission to go into class c as the coverage up there is crap. But as there will be a co-ordination procedure between derry and shannon and you have good comms with derry i would suggest you use them all of the time. You may have to loiter around waiting for the phone call to be made tho but shouldnt take more than a minute.

There are a good few airfields that are either directly under class c or very close and its never been a problem. You either avoid it laterally and vertically or you ask permission, its never been much of a problem asking!!

[holyflyer]

Lovely place Letterkenny - took a C172 in there in 2008.

I fly out of EGLM (White Waltham) where half the ATZ is technically inside the London TMA and Class A airspace begins above at 2500'. A common practice is to establish an agreed procedure in writing with the respective ATC units - it could be for example a 'listening squawk', etc. Might also be good to get the ATC chaps from Derry over for tea, cake and a chat about practicalities.

You might like to raise awareness with the UK Flyer forum too . . they have experience of attempted airspace grabs at various places.

Now I've just seen a photo of Carrigart - just how legal is that road? Looks long enough for a 172..........

[Jim]

Call IAOPA see if they are on top of it....??

AOPA Ireland already has a lodgement placed with the IAA about this proposal.
Representation is ongoing between us on this issue.

Rather surprizing to note that we only had 1 person contacting us about it.

[tu154]

Denham and Redhill are also examples of busy airfields co existing within controlled airspace (although you do have to make the effort not to infringe).
Be interesting to see how the rules would apply for flight plans. Not required in any of the UK FIRs for class C, but required in the Shannon FIR for class C...

I wonder how the 'friendly' controller in Derry is looking foward to having to work with all of this.

Wouldn't it be Eglington Radar/Approach that would handle entry? On a quiet day it would probably even be the same guy on different frequencies...

[willo]

My thoughts are similar to Tu154.

Think the use of the word grab is probably over-dramatic, but good to get conversation going.

However, the biggest issues I see are:

Contact with EINN is appalling north of Cavan Town, whenever I;ve been to either Donegal or Enniskillen, have had to transmit blind to Shannon before switching to local. Never an issue with Enniskillen or Donegal, as friendly ATC & will advise Shannon by landline.

However, there have been reports, (dont know if true or not) of antipathy within Derry's ATC. This will probably not be an issue when the stub is active as they will be anxious to tell you to Foxtrot Oscar, but when not active, and Shannon not contactable, I hope they will advise of its non-use.
Failure to do so may leave a pilot wondering shat the status is.

With an introduction of May or June, hopefully the IAA will consider improved coverage, as stated in a previous post.

Hopefully, the IAA will take the representations on board.

Cheers

Willo

[jonkil]

Eglington Radar (they don't have) / approach / tower / ground is all the one guy in the one tower doing all the dancing !.. I never had any issues with Eglington on the radio and I do call in quite frequently to them, always courteous and welcoming.
The Letterkenny club has made its representations to the IAA regarding this, to look at the IAA proposal it looks like it is going to be a large 20NM class C veil with stubs as I have depicted in the picture below,(This is how I envisage it looking like, no one else's!) that is of course if the CAA will be asked for a re-categorized G to C on the Northern side of the FIR.
If this goes ahead I believe it will be essential that the IAA install and maintain a repeater dedicated to proper communications with Shannon in the North West, it is abysmal as it is, I can talk to Shannon from Letterkenny above 5000 Feet and then it is quite poor.... so a repeater is essential.
Other than that it wont affect us that much in Letterkenny, but there is other parties that I know for a fact that it will seriously affect and if it is proposed to continue with this it would be vehemently opposed by them.

Jon