Originally Posted by
nancypants
so the question is, what’s the deal? Does the UK have uncontrolled airspace/uncontrolled fields at all, or are the limits just different or...what’s going on?!
The UK has lots of Uncontrolled Airspace:
- Anything above FL195 (19,500ft) is Class C Controlled Airspace (with a couple of weird exceptions)
- Below 19,500ft, inside Airways and anywhere near major airports it's Class A/D Controlled Airspace, everywhere else it's Uncontrolled
The vast majority of UK airports that have commercial service will be controlled (i.e. staffed by an ATCO), even ones that are outside Controlled Airspace (e.g. Exeter, Newquay, Farnborough, Humberside). At Barra and Benbecula (as with lots of small airfields) they have a tower but the people inside aren't controllers, they're Flight Information Officers. In the US/Australia e.t.c. their uncontrolled airports have no-one at all there, which we have here for really small airfields/airstrips, I don't believe anything commercial here flies into any uncontrolled airfields.
We have far less uncontrolled airspace here than Australia as there's an awful lot of commercial aircraft to fit into not a very big country!!
