Flight International of 11-17 October 2005 has the following article:
Communication tops ATC risk list - Eurocontrol identifies loss of air-ground link and callsign confusion as most likely to cause conflicts.
The last time I looked, the UK NAS database listed over 900 Flight ID and RT Callsign pairs. An impossible number to learn.
One would have thought that in the modern age there should be no need for the controller to remember information that could easily be supplied by the surveillance or flight data displays. There is not a requirement for the flight plan to specify the RT callsign but it could easily be determined at the point of departure and passed on as part of the coordination data from sector to sector.
Well it could be, if there was electronic coordination. But then the system could also pass information such as an assigned radar heading or any speed restriction which would cut down on the RT. Then there would be no need to specify “call XXX callsign only” as this would be the norm.
Then we could tackle other situations in which knowledge more usually associated with spotters is required. Situations such as “Line up after the A320” followed by “Sorry, unfamiliar with the type.”
No, far better to keep things as they are and remember the glory days of Pan American and the insistence from the flightdeck (cockpit?) of the “Clipper One” that all their clearance requests be granted.
www.sensus-dp.demon.co.uk