Originally Posted by KingAir77
Hi Charly,
as said before, the term "heavy" is related to your wake turbulence, not your performance. The US saw a few accidents with Citations and similar planes being flipped over and crashing on the ILS, so they came up with using "heavy" in the callsign. It's actually not just for the controller, but also for the guy behind you. If you were sitting in a Citation, you might want to know who is 2 miles in front... One of these accidents involved a 757 and a CJ, and actually triggered that the 757 now qualifies as "heavy", even though it is below the weight for the "heavy" category. This also explains why a canadian area controller up north could not care less, since you don't fly around slow and dirty just before going oceanic...
Hi KingAir77,
it absolutly makes sence in the Approach phase of a flight. Often you hear the Tower controller advising you that the "preceeding is a heavy one", and it helps!
But why do I have to tell for example Salt Lake Centre (Upper airspace) every single transmission in cruise flght(!) that i'm heavy?