About the CompanygCAP Ltd was formed in 2003 in specific response to an obvious lack of instrument approach plates designed with helicopter pilots in mind although, as a by-product, Cat A aeroplanes are also catered for. Helicopters have an extra control to hang on to which often can't be left to flap around on its own, so both hands are generally occupied during flight. Instrument flight is often demanding at the most inconvenient of times, such as when your 4-axis autopilot has dropped off-line and the weather's at minima, which is the very last time that you want to look down at your plate and realise that it's been written with Cat C/D aircraft in mind and needs interpretation for helicopter use. You struggle to join the hold only to miss the abeam position because you've not been able to work out what the bearing should be, then you take the wrong outbound because you're following the Cat C/D track by mistake. Realising your mistake, you stare intently at the minima to work out which one applies to you, only to look up and see that you've drifted off heading and have just passed the Cat A turning point for the inbound turn. You fly the ILS okay but have to go around at the bottom and find that the instructions are difficult to understand in the heat of the moment. Oh, and while you're in the climb, the DME fails. Is it clear on the plate what you should do? Yeah, right.Instead gCAP Ltd offers you a new breed of plate - (arguably) the clearest and most user-friendly on the market, designed specifically with helicopters and light aeroplanes in mind. We're not planning on replicating the VFR guides, just producing instrument approach plates designed by pilots for pilots, showing only what you need to know, how to set the navaids up, what to do if the DME or glidepath should fail, giving easy-to-read go-around instructions etc. None of the non-essential information is shown, leaving an uncluttered diagram which is easy to follow, even when everything all around you is turning to a can of worms. At the moment we don't intend producing plans of vectoring areas, nor taxyways or other ground information. The latter are already covered more than adeqautely by Pooleys Flight Guides, at least as far as helicopters and light aeroplanes are concerned, and some are so very rarely used that they are not a high priority for the company right now. What we are trying to do is to produce ILS, NDB and VOR plates for all the IFR airfields in the UK, save London, then we might expand to SRAs, depending on demand. The reason for this should be obvious, but if you have a training requirement for a particular approach at a particular airfield then we'd be glad to help. gCAP welcomes feedback because we are continually trying to improve the product. Please send an email to feedback@gcap.co.uk. If you don't like the plates, please tell us. If you do, please tell your friends.
Differences from ICAOICAO Annex 4 states the standards required of, amongst other things, Instrument Approach Plates. The specification has been written with National Authorities in mind so that all ICAO countries produce AIPs which are essentially similar. In order to simplify the plates for gCAP it has been necessary to make some changes from the ICAO standard. This is acceptable practice, in fact neither Aerad, Jeppeson nor the AIP itself conform completely to ICAO. The differences are as follows:
Mr D Gribble (company secretary): is a retired publisher. Several independent auditors, both highly experienced in IFR,
fixed and rotary wing. gCAP works in conjunction with Tony Buckley Aviation Services Ltd. |