EUROCONTROL - General Aviation Survey 2007

Dear Sir/Madam,

I would like to invite you to participate in the General Aviation
Survey 2007. There are many risks one can face as a pilot or passenger
in the busy European skies. One of those is mid-air collision. Many
factors may cause it. A major one is airspace infringement. The survey
is being carried out by our company COMPASS IS ® on behalf of
EUROCONTROL - the European Organisation for the Safety of Air
navigation. The survey objective is to improve the understanding of
the airspace infringement issue and identify effective prevention
strategies and means. This survey is part of the EUROCONTROL Airspace
Infringement Safety Improvement Initiative, which aims at developing
and implementing effective risk reduction measures across Europe.

The team of the General Aviation Pilots Survey considers your
expertise and experience in the subject extremely valuable and
important. It will be much helpful to the survey in particular, and
largely to the whole General Aviation community, if you share your
observations on the reasons and explanations of airspace infringements
- the way you regard them from your perspective in your own flying
environment. Your suggestions about possible safety measures and risk
mitigation will be of great value as well.

Your opinion is important! It will take you less than 20 minutes to
share your experience at http://www.cis.bg/. It's worth doing it. You
could safe many lives!

Your answers will be kept confidential and will be used solely in
support of the airspace infringement risk analysis and mitigation.
Collected information will not be provided to third parties in any
circumstances.

Yours faithfully,

Vladimir Grigorov

Project Manager
COMPASS IS ®

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:42:58 -0700, CrossPoint
wrote in
. com:

The team of the General Aviation Pilots Survey considers your
expertise and experience in the subject extremely valuable and
important.

One of the required fields in the form is 'country.' Unfortunately,
'United States Of America' is not an option; Americans have to select
'other - north America.'

I don't know if it's a second-language aberration or what, but I got
the feeling from the lengthy questionnaire's focus that they were
fishing for GA pilots to disclose any hazards they may pose to airline
operations.

You can view my responses he
http://www.cis.bg/ga/ga_results.aspx?ID=75565B

More info:
http://www.cis.bg/ga/default.aspx
COMPASS IS ® is a rapidly developing consultancy company focused
on providing up-to-date solutions for aviation industry, in
particular in the area of air traffic management, safety related
issues and airspace design. COMPASS IS ® is one of the most
established specialist aviation consultancy companies in the
Eastern Europe. Its team brings a wealth of industry-specific and
consultancy experience covering an extensive range of project
areas in the airport, airline and air traffic management sectors.

COMPASS IS ® is a new company, however the experience of the
experts working in it – they have been leading managers and
consultants in a number of international and local projects - are
a guarantee for a quick and successful finalisation of many key
projects.

I agree. Their choices to the questions tells us something. For
airspace infringements and deviations, the lowest choice they offer is
once in 20 flights. I have never flown in Europe, but that seems like
an awfully high rate of occurence. One in 3 is their worst case
choice, which seems almost unfathomable. I did not complete the survey
because it seems it is aimed at pilots who fly in Europe.





On Aug 3, 7:49 am, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:42:58 -0700, CrossPoint
wrote in
. com:

The team of the General Aviation Pilots Survey considers your
expertise and experience in the subject extremely valuable and
important.

One of the required fields in the form is 'country.' Unfortunately,
'United States Of America' is not an option; Americans have to select
'other - north America.'

I don't know if it's a second-language aberration or what, but I got
the feeling from the lengthy questionnaire's focus that they were
fishing for GA pilots to disclose any hazards they may pose to airline
operations.

You can view my responses hehttp://www.cis.bg/ga/ga_results.aspx?ID=75565B

More info:
http://www.cis.bg/ga/default.aspx
COMPASS IS ® is a rapidly developing consultancy company focused
on providing up-to-date solutions for aviation industry, in
particular in the area of air traffic management, safety related
issues and airspace design. COMPASS IS ® is one of the most
established specialist aviation consultancy companies in the
Eastern Europe. Its team brings a wealth of industry-specific and
consultancy experience covering an extensive range of project
areas in the airport, airline and air traffic management sectors.

COMPASS IS ® is a new company, however the experience of the
experts working in it - they have been leading managers and
consultants in a number of international and local projects - are
a guarantee for a quick and successful finalisation of many key
projects.

EUROCONTROL

On a scale of 1-10, how trusting does that word make you feel?

--
Dan
T-182T at BFM

Dan,

On a scale of 1-10, how trusting does that word make you feel?


Not sure what you are getting at. Eurocontrol is the European ATC, if
you will. See http://www.eurocontrol.int/

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

CrossPoint,

There are many risks one can face as a pilot or passenger
in the busy European skies.

There are? Care to provide numbers?

One of those is mid-air collision.

It is? Care to provide numbers?

Many
factors may cause it. A major one is airspace infringement.

Is it? I can't think of a single mid-air collision ANYWHERE IN THE
WORLD caused by airspace infringement. Can you?

I'm not convinced you are legit and acting on behalf of Eurocontrol.

bs detector going thru roof

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On 3 Àâã, 17:13, Thomas Borchert wrote:
CrossPoint,

There are many risks one can face as a pilot or passenger
in the busy European skies.

There are? Care to provide numbers?

One of those is mid-air collision.

It is? Care to provide numbers?

Many
factors may cause it. A major one is airspace infringement.

Is it? I can't think of a single mid-air collision ANYWHERE IN THE
WORLD caused by airspace infringement. Can you?

I'm not convinced you are legit and acting on behalf of Eurocontrol.

bs detector going thru roof

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)


Dear All,

I will try to convince you that it is serious and important and to
answer some questions raised here.


First you may read more about the Airspace Infringement Initiative
he
http://www.eurocontrol.int/safety/pu...rigements.html

Second to check that everything is legit:
http://www.eurocontrol.int/safety/pu...GA_survey.html

The on-line questionnaire is part of General Aviation (GA) Survey 2007
project combining series of workshops with GA pilots taking place in
8-9 European countries, extensive consultations with ATM service
providers and Civil Aviation Authorities. I may say that this is just
a small part from the puzzle called Airspace Infringement (AI).

Finally it is not compulsory to participate but we still believe that
the individual pilots' opinion matters and this is why we do this on-
line questionnaire. We know that it might be subjective and therefore
we are going to analyse and integrate the results it very carefully
with the support of our sociology team.

I read some comments about the numbers of some questions. Well there
is an option Other where you may write whatever number you want based
on your professional experience.

As EUROCONTROL is European organisation therefore the main focus is on
European pilots but we will appreciate any other from USA or other
countries worldwide.

Vladimir Grigorov

CrossPoint,

Thanks for answering.

Could I kindly ask you again to back up the basic assumptions you make
about risk flying in Europe (you implicitly state it is higher than
elsewhere), about mid-airs (you implicitly state they are a high risk
compared to others in aviation) and about a causal correlation between
airspace infringement and mid-airs (you say the former is a "major
cause" of the latter)?

I think you are wrong on ALL those points. Can you prove them?

FWIW, the page at Eurocontrol's website about their infringement
initiative doesn't make that last connection at all. They simply see
infringements as a risk per se. They also grade infringements in a
scheme where about 40 percent are deemed a "significant" or higher
risk."Major" and "serious" incidents, however, are still very rare. I
couldn't find the Eurocontrol definitions of these classifications with
a quick search. Nowhere on that page are mid-airs even mentioned, only
"potential risks" and other rathervague descriptions.

To be clear, I think there might indeed be too many infringements.
Although, we're talking about slightly over 4 per day on average in all
of "the busy European skies" - hmm! I also agree they can be a risk.
However, to portrait them as "a major cause" for mid-airs is travesty -
especially in the light of the fact that a much more "major cause" of
mid-airs might at least partly be the group your employer belongs to.
I'm talking about controller error. While most mid-airs are probably
caused by pilot error, airspace infringement has nothing to do with it
- again, feel free to prove me wrong.

So please understand that the whole "infringement initiative" seems a
little dubious. If you say that "the overall survey is developed based
on the requirements that we have", after looking at it, I have to say I
find that easy to believe - in a very ironic way.

After all, what magic "solution" to this "problem" might an ATC
organisation like Eurocontrol possibly come up with? Could it be fewer
controlled and restricted airspace? Well, if you think so, I've got a
bridge to sell you...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:30:14 +0200, Thomas Borchert
wrote in
:

After all, what magic "solution" to this "problem" might an ATC
organisation like Eurocontrol possibly come up with?

Converting all European airspace to Class A? :-(

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
CrossPoint,

Thanks for answering.


So please understand that the whole "infringement initiative" seems a
little dubious. If you say that "the overall survey is developed based
on the requirements that we have", after looking at it, I have to say I
find that easy to believe - in a very ironic way.

After all, what magic "solution" to this "problem" might an ATC
organisation like Eurocontrol possibly come up with? Could it be fewer
controlled and restricted airspace? Well, if you think so, I've got a
bridge to sell you...

Airspace infringement might be a risk but the biggest risk is loss of
separation which is nearly always an issue with CAT and not GA.

What is an issue is the lack of consistency with airspace designations, an
example, widespread us of say class E in France and none in the UK. So
leaving French airspace you go from class E to either class G or class A
depending on altitude. In this case we are talking about 5500ft before
hitting class A.