Lasham Gliding Society (LGS), the world’s largest gliding club, is taking its fight against the newly announced Farnborough controlled airspace to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
In a statement the club said:
“Lasham Gliding Society is strongly opposed to the CAA’s decision. Contrary to the statements made in the CAA decision document, Lasham Gliding Society considers that the decision to introduce new controlled airspace has not been justified by the CAA: it will create a choke point, it does not represent an efficient use of the airspace and it does not properly or reasonably balance the needs of all users.
“The consequence of the implementation of this large volume of controlled airspace, at the request of a small airfield which has around 28,000 annual (non-public) movements, will be to displace many times more transiting flights and to cause significant congestion of General Aviation movements outside controlled airspace.
“Lasham Gliding Society, the world’s largest gliding club with around twice the number of annual movements of Farnborough airport, will be in this bottleneck. This gives rise to obvious safety risks for gliders and other aircraft.”