8.33 Radio Update

In September IAOPA reported that, just three months away from the official deadline for equipping with an 8.33 kHz radio, a number of states are now officially confirming that they will exempt certain airspace users from the requirement.

- Philip Whiteman

In its newlsetter, the association stated that ‘according to Eurocontrol the following states have notified exemptions: Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Malta, Estonia, Poland, UK, Norway, France, Spain and Denmark.’

In Finland the European Commission has approved a ten-year transitional period. In Denmark there will be exemptions for VFR traffic below FL 195 outside Copenhagen TMA. In Ireland IFR and VFR traffic in class G, and VFR traffic in class C is exempted until 2024. In Portugal any individual pilot or operator may request exemption before 1 December 2017. Where granted, this exemption will be valid only in Portuguese territory for uncontrolled airspace and uncontrolled aerodromes, except those operating 8.33 ground radio equipment.

Feedback from AOPA members suggests that in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands the avionics shops will clearly not be able to do all the conversions in time−Pilot is hearing the same thing in the UK, where one source estimates that only half the mandated 25 to 8.33kHz conversions had been completed by the end of September.

“We are aware of a backlog in the availability of avionics engineers to fit new radios to the aircraft, which was partly the reasoning behind a number of exemptions that we submitted to the European Commission at the end of 2016,” says CAA Airworthiness Surveyor Paul Farrell in response to concerns raised by aircraft maintenance organisations. “We are conscious that many radio users within UK airspace are not required to carry a radio but choose to remain safe and able to communicate where necessary. The intention of our proposed exemptions is to spread the impact of a number of users upgrading across a greater period of time.