Controlled Airspace....Basic Service or FIS?
At the NATS ATSOCAS briefing I attended I had understood that the new services (BS, TS, DS etc) were to be available outside controlled airspace and would replace FIS, RIS, RAS etc. Pretty clear and no issues there.
The question was asked of the presenter at the seminar as to whether the existing provision of services would in any way change inside controlled airspace and the answer received was that the review related solely to provision of ATS outside controlled airspace and that nothing would change as regards controlled airspace. The presentation was some 4 months ago.
I have since VFR transitted Class D on 5 occasions since 12th March when, and been offered a BS three times and a FIS twice. I'm not clear on what should be asked for and what should be provided inside controlled airspace. I'm not particularly bothered as to which is correct but it seems that the controllers weren't too sure either (although the FIS's were in the 2 weeks post implementation and the BS's were the more recent transits).
It also seems odd that NATS marketed the alterations as changes to ATS outside controlled airspace (look at the title of the presentation and the CD that we all received) although it certainly now appears to be being applied consistently both inside and outside CAS.
My own view is that it is better just to have one set of services applied within and outside CAS simply to avoid total confusion (and this is what appears to be happening in practice) but was this the original intention and was it properly briefed and is it being applied consistently across the country in all CAS?