As they say, “Back in the day”, venturing into controlled airspace and landing at major capital city airports was once a commonplace aspect of flight training. It was not a lone cross-country flight designed with the specific purpose of experiencing the world of Air Traffic Control, rather each navigation exercise would frequently arrive or depart via controlled airspace – if not make a landing at a major airport.
The sight of a Royal Aero Club Piper Tomahawk dwarfed between a Boeing 727 and a 737 at the holding point at Sydney Airport was not uncommon. However, as they also say, times change.
Today, operating in the airspace surrounding major airports is less commonplace for light aircraft, with landings all but extinct. The pandemic did open a rare window for such flights, albeit with a cost. Consequently, flights into controlled airspace are sometimes met with a degree of trepidation, if not given a wide berth altogether.
Fortunately, operating in controlled airspace simply requires attention to the same principles that we apply to all of our flying: good preparation, a sound understanding of procedures, airmanship and safety first.
Cake tins in the sky
The different categories of airspace have designators in the form of letters from the alphabet. For those of us flying outside of controlled airspace, we are familiar with the term, Class G airspace. The varied forms of controlled airspace below
