VVS Laxman, thanks for the posting. In fact, I was referring to the educational material which makes no reference to a specific code being allocated in any way. My suggestion is that you arrange to have the educational material corrected to make it clear that under some circumstances a specific code will be allocated.
We aren’t changing code management practices,
you’re joking right? An analogy, because you love them: Pretend we are the RTA, we are introducing traffic lights into a small country town. Because we don’t describe what to do at a round-a-bout or at a stop sign, in the education material distributed about traffic lights, the entire training package about traffic lights is no longer valid? Go back and read AIP ENR 8; it describes how to navigate through the difficult area of code management… Which all of a sudden is a problem? I can only conclude that if using a transponder is difficult then flying a plane must be very challenging indeed, perhaps we should all stay on the ground until we’ve mastered that tricky little device called a transponder… really Dick, get over it.
This surely means that if the aircraft has communicated to the controller and remains on the frequency, the controller has a duty of care to prevent it from running into someone.
No, if you have said Radar Service Terminated, it is clear that the service has ended; as has been occurring with RIS for many, many years.
An example of why ‘frequency changed approved’ won’t always stack-up: You are working Desert Group Sectors providing a Flight Following service to a VFR at FL155 on PKL frequency 126.0, it’s early morning and you are the only ATC in the building with the appropriate ratings for the group, which happens often. You have been requested by the sequencing sectors for Sydney to space 3 jets otherwise not involved with the FF service. In order to manage that workload you need to cancel the FF service. Stating “... terminated, Frequency Change Approved” would put a level of confusion in the cockpit of the VFR. The area frequency most appropriate to that aircrafts area of operation is the frequency it currently is on, in this case 126.0; remember in Australia we have ‘Area Frequencies’, unlike the USA…
I’m very happy with the phrase “Radar Service Terminated” as being enough to ensure that everyone knows it means
service finished.
Are you suggesting that the air traffic controller responsibility remains?
Not at all; you are implying it… Scare tactics a classic sceptic tactic, or as the Pirate suggests a “red-herring”. I’m am suggesting that unless you have heard the phrase “radar service terminated” the service is ongoing, after you have heard that phrase, it’s over you’re back on your own flying VFR without a Radar Information Service (or Flight Following).
Flight following does not extend sector to sector via the FDP system as it does with IFR in the USA.
From the information I have, you are wrong; imagine my surprise. Just because pilots don’t always plan to receive Flight Following in the USA, although most do, the ATCs make up ‘system plans’ in the absence of a flight plan. It will be the same here… What’s the issue again?
As a technique and as per the ‘Tip” section in the pilot training, you’re more likely to get a service if you have flight planned as the ATC won’t need to put a plan in for you, it will be sitting there awaiting activation.
Dick, Would it be too hard to admit that you lack expertise in this area and apologise? I guess so.