Originally Posted by
alex90
It works in many places around the world, including the UK with the likes of Biggin Hill which as you state, the approach goes into "uncontrolled airspace". Thames will generally vector planes for the ILS for runway 21 at Biggin via London City's zone, before returning them to uncontrolled airspace (for around 4nm) until you reach the ATZ. Planes could well fly between the two zones, completely legally without talking to anyone. But with both primary and secondary radar being available to the controller, they can have a "high degree of certainty" that there is no other conflicting traffic.
I don't see how the clearance being given by the controller in the tower is any safer than by the area controller? In some conditions the controller in the tower may not even be able to see the runway in front of him/her, let alone a plane several miles away, and even so, if it isn't being displayed on their radar screen (as would the area controller) how would they know how high the plane is, or even if it is a definite conflict?
Alex, I know EGKB really quite well and carry out ILS approaches there on a regular basis; in the distant past I've been required to self position onto the ILS because there was no radar vectoring available. I've also had to carry out self positioned NDB approaches into Shoreham when there was no ATC cover. There are no great problems doing that on an infrequent basis. But this thread is about the situation where there is no local ATC operator and presumably making a let down commonly available. My point was that there would be no way of the remote radar unit coordinating with local traffic if there was no-one in the tower to phone.