7 March 2011
The UK Government today announced its plans for some olympic sized airspace restrictions to cover the 2012 games. The plans include a prohibited area and a restricted area. There’s a map and a guide online at the the Airspace Safety Initiative website, but the short version for VFR GA flights is that they will be all but impossible in the prohibited area and possible providing certain conditions can be met in the restricted area. Those conditions include filing a flight plan no less than two hours before departure, receiving an authorisation code in return, setting a discrete transponder code and maintaing two-way communication with the relevant ATC unit. If ATC does not have the capacity to handle your flight you will not be given an authorisation number and you must remain outside the restricted area. NATS is currently looking at how it will handle the expected increase in workload. Although the proposals are not set in stone, it is not expected that there will be significant changes. The Home Office, DfT, the Directorate of Airspace Policy and NATS would like to engage with users in order to mitigate disruption, although it is hard to see how the restrictions will not bring a significant drop in revenue for aviation businesses in the affected area. <a href=”http://www.airspacesafety.com”>Click here for more</a>
