Widger
Semantics seems to float your boat, so let's do it
The UK Civil AIP is not the instrument I was thinking of when talking about civil requirements for the carraige of SSR. Indeed, the AIP is
not the law of the land. You will have to tell me whether the Mil AIP which you refer to holds a similar status or not, since I am not au fait with how it relates to Queens Regulations and military 'law' and how it is 'legislated' by the military that the military aircraft must have certain equipment in certain airspaces.
The law for the carraige of equipment for aircraft in the UK is the CAP 393 Air Navigation Order. As I am sure you are aware, it is a legally binding document which details the legislation applicable and to whom it is applicable. The Order does
not apply to military aircraft except for 4 articles, none of which are applicable to equipment carriage. This is stated up front, in black and white, in the document itself. Therefore a military aircraft is quite
legally entitled to operate with a transponder above FL100 .... or indeed anywhere else for that matter. That is the 'civil' legality aspect of our debate. You allude that the military follow the same rules as the civilian world. That is a good thing. However, any civilian agency knows that the ANO does not apply to military aircraft and so cannot
assume that they will comply with it. Civilian agencies do not generally have access to the rules by which the military are bound, nor do they need to. So unless they are told then they can't know which rules you are going to comply with in any given situation.
In the incident you refer to, the highly professional mil pilots fully intended to use SSR. They thought they were squawking, but, because they were not talking to an ATC unit, they were unaware of the status of their equipment.
'Highly professional' is a subjective benchmark, which others are 'debating' on this thread and I won't be drawn in to. It is an unfortunate circumstance that the pilot believed he was squawking and was not. Presumably the technical snag on that specific box was identified and fixed on landing
The civil airliner was routeing through Class G, not looking out of the window,
Worryingly common, even although it never guarantees you will spot conflicting traffic.
receiving a RIS from a civil controller (because the unit refuses to provide a RAS) (Another SAFETY NET)
Mmmm, my sources say you are wrong on this one. The unit does provide RAS in specific circumstances such as on Advisory Routes, to specific flights by local agreement with specific operators, and with a blanket approval for controllers to immediately raise the service from RIS to RAS where necessary for flight safety reasons. The procedure even says that the controllers can issue the required Avoiding Action without having to go through the dialogue of changing service with the pilot, on the common sense basis that the 30 or seconds that might take would be better spent avoiding a collision. The service change would be made once the immediate danger has been dealt with. (Please note that civil Avoiding Action is one with a degree of urgency to prevent a collision, whereas the military seem to use it as standard phraseology when issuing any vector to aircraft on RAS [just a personal observation]).
and the controller did nothing about the confliction, because he ASSUMED it was below FL100 (NOT VERY SAFE).
I don't have the benefit of the report in front of me, but agree with you if that's exactly what happened.
In his R/T he stated it was "pop-up" traffic when in fact it was showing on radar all the time (NOT VERY SAFE)
Again, as I understand it from sources, the provision of ATSOCA was not the primary task of the controller involved, it was the provision of a Radar Control service to aircraft also on his frequency within Controlled Airspace. I would interpret that 'pop up' is a poor choice of words on the controllers part and more likely to actually mean that his scan only picked it up at the last moment because he was paying attention to his priority tasks. Not an ideal situation I grant you, but a limitation of the service which NATS can provide. Personally speaking, I would get NATS to junk all en route ATSOCA except on defined routes or within defined Radar Service Areas where dedicated resource can be provided. Give it all to military units, remove such flights from the NATS en route charging system, and let the Mil try and collect any cash they wish to charge
Then we could get our NATS controllers to concentrate on solving the capacity problems we have with our prime customers.
And finally, it was the MILITARY pilots who saw the airliner. The civil crew saw nothing at all. (All of this is published in the public domain)
So 'see and be seen' worked on this occasion then. It doesn't state that both parties need to always be part of the equation anywhere does it ? But in an ideal world would happen all the time.
So as you can see, there were many CIVIL factors in this incident.
I never said there weren't any. The point made by an earlier poster was about SSR and that's the point I was addressing. But your thread creep has been good for raising more issues and debate
So, it is totally unfair to lump all the blame on the military pilots.
Blame ?? Stated where .... and by whom ?
Yes two of the final safety nets (TCAS and STCA) were negated by no SSR but even before that, several of the holes in the cheese were also lined up by a rediculous regulation (No provision of RAS. A regulation imposed just to save the ar*es of the fully paid up union members, that gives NO protection to the travelling public),
With respect, that's bollocks of course. Civil controllers have a duty of care under RIS or RAS regardless. The civil controller involved (putting aside the fact that he didn't spot this specific confliction for a moment) had the 'regulation' available to give avoiding action
even under a RIS if he deemed it was necessary to avoid a collision. To all intents and purposes, the same actions would be taken in spotting a last minute confliction regardless of the actual level of service. You are just trying to muddy the waters. The controller involved appeared not to have spotted the confliction therefore even if he had been giving a RAS then no action would have been undertaken. That was the crux of this incident, not the level of service. But let's beat the emotion drum ... RIS equals NO protection to the travelling public. Not worth anyone providing it then, or pilots asking for it. Let's ask the authorities to scrap it. Mind you ... talking of protection to the public neither does no light, non transponding, non NOTAM'ed mil ops in Class G at night I suppose
(Top marks to HQ Strike though for dealing with that one in 24 hours and getting the 'highly professional' squadrons to do so in future - see, the system of civil/mil co-operation can work !!)
the aircrew not looking out the window and very late TI by the civil controller.
Both points I agree with. Causal factors.
You asked for an example of a civil aircraft not squaking, well it did not involve two airliners what about a certain glider that strayed into CAS SW of Newcastle some time ago. No military involvement at all, but I do not hear you all jumping up and down about that!
Give me the number and I'll go and read up on it before jumping up and down. Of course to be a totally valid rant, I'd need to know that the other aircraft involved was mandated to carry TCAS and the level of ATC service being provided .. as well as the flight level of the encounter
And to be fair, this topic was about military stuff, a glider argument can be seen from time to time on the Private Flying forum.
Have a safe day everyone
Amen !!