{"id":19420,"date":"2022-08-01T16:36:59","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T20:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=19420"},"modified":"2022-08-11T12:13:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T16:13:51","slug":"nat-conundrums-volume-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/nat-conundrums-volume-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"NAT Conundrums Volume III: To GOTA and beyond!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ah, NAT conundrums! We love them so much, we\u2019re into our third Volume already!<\/p>\n

Volume I<\/a> covered the following three conundrums:<\/b><\/p>\n

1. To SLOP, or not to SLOP?
\n2. What\u2019s the difference between the NAT Region and the NAT HLA?
\n3. Can I fly across the North Atlantic without Datalink?<\/p>\n

Volume II<\/a> covered these additional three:<\/b><\/p>\n

4. Do you need to plot on Blue Spruce Routes?
\n5. Do we still fly Weather Contingency Procedures on Blue Spruce routes?
\n6. When can we disregard an ATC clearance and follow the contingency procedure instead?<\/p>\n

And this post, Volume III, looks at GOTA airspace.<\/b> It\u2019s such a juicy topic, it gets an entire Volume all of its own.<\/p>\n

So here goes\u2026<\/p>\n

Where is GOTA airspace?<\/h4>\n

This section of airspace is found off the coast of North-eastern Canada, FL290 to FL600 inclusive.<\/p>\n

Here it is, outlined in red:<\/p>\n

\"\"

Red = GOTA.<\/p><\/div>\n

Why are we talking about it?<\/h4>\n

Because lots of aircraft transit this area when flying across the North Atlantic. Also because the requirements here were very tricky for us to track down on \u201cpaper\u201d (i.e. the Canada AIP, NAT Doc 007, etc), and were only really made clear after speaking with a real human being at Transport Canada. We like human beings!<\/em><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s what we discovered\u2026<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need datalink in GOTA airspace<\/h4>\n

No, you don\u2019t. We thought you did, but we were wrong.<\/p>\n

When we sat down to update our North Atlantic Plotting chart last year, we wanted to draw nice clear lines on the map to show where datalink was required. But we were bamboozled by GOTA.<\/p>\n

The ICAO NAT Doc 007<\/a> says that you don\u2019t need datalink in:<\/p>\n

\u201cAirspace where an ATS surveillance service is provided by means of radar, \r\nmultilateration and\/or ADS-B, coupled with VHF voice communications as depicted \r\nin State Aeronautical Information Publications (AIP), provided the aircraft is \r\nsuitably equipped (transponder\/ADSB extended squitter transmitter).\u201d<\/i><\/pre>\n
It then says to check in State AIPs to see if any of their airspace fulfils this criteria.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what we did. But checking in Canada\u2019s AIP<\/a> brought up this for GOTA:<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
And this for Data Link Mandate (DLM) Airspace:<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
So none of that really answered our question of whether or not you need datalink in GOTA airspace.<\/strong> The trail went cold…<\/p>\n
\u00a0