‘Managing Flying Risk’, the BGA publication that captures in one place good practice guidance on all aspects of gliding, has been updated to include specific guidance for pilots of self-sustaining and self-launching sailplanes. The guidance was developed with the help of very experienced pilots. ‘Managing Flying Risk’ can be viewed…

Oxford airport has submitted its airspace change proposal (ACP) to the CAA. The proposal is for a Transponder Mandatory Zone from the surface to 3500′ agl. You can view the Oxford airport ACP detail here. The Oxford airport ACP should be viewed alongside the previously reported Brize Norton ACP for…

RAF Brize Norton has submitted an airspace change proposal (ACP) to the CAA. The BGA has significant safety, proportionality and need concerns about this proposal, not least of which are that the ACP seeks an enormous amount of additional controlled airspace exclusively for Brize Norton’s needs, no safety analysis or…

The BGA COVID19 guidance has been updated to include Government guidance for quarantining on return to the UK from certain listed countries. You can read the quarantine guidance here.

Following the CAA update of their various COVID19 pilot medical certificates and licences exemptions, the BGA has updated its summary document which is available here. It is suggested that licence holders who need to revalidate and are meanwhile using an exemption to keep flying, should arrange to revalidate as soon…

Adrian Emck, who spends many hours successfully flying long cross-countries in his K6e (including a 750km), provided an interesting presentation at the 2020 BGA conference titled ‘Life changing lessons flying the K6e’. The presentation is available here.

We all benefit from incident and accident reporting and the associated just culture. Reporting isn’t about blame – it’s in most part about understanding issues and trends. Trend monitoring allows us to help clubs to address maintenance, flying and other support issues. Regardless of the aircraft type or certification regime…

There is a temporary (filming) parachuting operation taking place on ten to fourteen (primarily mid-week) days up to the end of July located at a site approximately half way between the BGA turning point ‘BIE’ and the village of Grendon Underwood just north of the A41 (image supplied by the…

The CAA has temporarily exempted gliders and self-launching motor gliders (sailplanes inc TMGs) from the carriage of a SSR transponder in specified designated areas in the UK between FL100 and FL195. The exemption is applicable until 18 Mar 2021. You can view the exemption here. The data for each area…

Although there has been helpful co-operation by Air Navigation Service Providers when glider pilots have sought access to relatively quiet volumes of controlled airspace, we have received reports of unreasonable denial of access. Any pilot who believes they have been unreasonably denied access to airspace should complete and submit this…