Airports in Overseas Territories

[aeroniemi]

The UK has quite a few airports that are not within "Britain" as such, like LXGB Gibraltar, LCRA Akrotiri, EGYP Mount Pleasant, FHSH St Helena etc. What would the intended status be of these sites from a controlling perspective; would they fall under a UK division, or the local one, such as Cyprus for LCRA?

Additionally, one of the complaints i've been informed of from VATSIM is that controllers from the area around one of these fields, such as cypriot or Spanish controllers find it difficult to get approved on these positions, in part due to a different system, although I can assume other factors are present.

[SebW01]

On 1/16/2018 at 8:20 AM, aeroniemi said:

The UK has quite a few airports that are not within "Britain" as such, like LXGB Gibraltar, LCRA Akrotiri, EGYP Mount Pleasant, FHSH St Helena etc. What would the intended status be of these sites from a controlling perspective; would they fall under a UK division, or the local one, such as Cyprus for LCRA?

Additionally, one of the complaints i've been informed of from VATSIM is that controllers from the area around one of these fields, such as cypriot or Spanish controllers find it difficult to get approved on these positions, in part due to a different system, although I can assume other factors are present.

My assumption would be that like VATUK, you can control them, but also like VATUK, there has to be a catch, most likely a military course, with some 1-1 just to make sure it has been learnt.

[Andrew Heath]

So on VATSIM, if you are part of VATUK, you can control these fields?

[SebW01]

16 hours ago, Andrew said:

So on VATSIM, if you are part of VATUK, you can control these fields?

On VATSIM, if you are part of VATUK, you are required to hold an S2 (Tower rating) and because of the military control complexities, you are required to complete a moodle course to learn the correct procedures.

[Andrew Heath]

For military airports, we were exploring the idea of having the Military Division control military airports. So, lets take the USA for example. A place like Edwards AFB in California would fall under the jurisdiction of the Military Division, not Los Angeles ARTCC. That doesn't mean ZLA cannot control it, just means the controller has to have been properly trained by the Military Division on their ATC procedures. This would also apply to a place like Guantanamo Bay.

For the UK, this will probably work the same way. Are any of the fields you are referring to NOT military related?

[aeroniemi]

Gibraltar is a strange one, as far as i'm aware, the airport is owned by the MoD, but serves primerally civilian traffic, and has civilian controllers on contract through the standard civil UK atc authority, NATS

[Matt Kingscott]

Akrotiri and Mount Pleasant are RAF stations, therefore would be military controlled.

Gibraltar is an joint RAF station/civilian used airfield,  but has no based RAF aircraft there. Mainly used for transport flights, pit stop for refuelling and hosting RAF/British Military exercises. Not sure how the ATC work there mind. 

 

[Andrew Heath]

Seems like we can tackle these issues in turn... I believe having a Military Division is definitely going to help facilitate a solution to most of these questions.

[Lenny Colton (1015584)]

However, you should remember that some territories, such as the Falklands (Las Malvinas), have British-employed local aerodrome and approach controllers, but fall under the en-route control sector of a different nation. In the case of the Falklands, the tower and radar controllers are locals, but it falls under FIR Comodoro Rivadavia (SAVF), owned by Argentina. To complicate things, the primary international airport is an RAF base (with a British EG ICAO code) - RAF Mount Pleasant (EGYP) , though there is also a small paved civilian airport for local flights only (with a local SF ICAO code) - Port Stanley Airport (SFAL). Gibraltar (LXGB) has a similar issue, technically being an RAF base (though the passenger terminal is not part of the base) with local tower and approach controllers, but falling under FIR Madrid (LECM), owned by Spain.

[Andrew Heath]

@Lenny Colton

I believe these are edge cases and we can deal with them on a case by case basis as we progress forward.

[Lenny Colton (1015584)]

1 hour ago, Andrew said:

@Lenny Colton

I believe these are edge cases and we can deal with them on a case by case basis as we progress forward.

I'd say they are, but most overseas territories which are not in the middle of the sea have similar arrangements.

[Tom D]

I know some people who may be interested in creating a channel islands sub division, basically covering anything within Jersey radar's area (EGJJ, EGJA and EGJB)