Originally Posted by
tolosweetpea
If a pilot asks APP or Director at 6 mile final if they should go to tower then that pilot wastes the time of the controller and all the others on the frequency. It is an inane question given that there is probably an aircraft ahead still not landed and others behind. If I'd wanted you to go to TWR then I would have transfered you already. Dealing with unneccessay questions breaks my concentration, interferes with my planned RTF calls, wastes RT time (often in short supply at HK). Please stop asking that particular question. I doubt if my US or European equivalent at a busy APP would be any more polite - it is a silly question.
Staying on APP freq at 6 miles is just as silly as me asking whether we need to be on Tower freq. At 6 miles I am on the LANDING phase not the APPROACH phase. Your US or European equivalent from LAX to JFK to FRA to LHR would have switched me to Tower shortly after being established on the localizer, usually around 12 to 8 miles out, so no need to doubt what their response would have been, because it is not a issue anywhere else but HK. Your primary task as APP. controller is to vector airplanes onto the localizer with the appropriate spacing. How can you possibly control me at 6 miles when I am already established on the ILS and can ONLY give you the approach speed of the airplane. Switching airplanes to Tower freq. that late in the landing phase is a useless practice. If you follow ICAO standards, then switch airplanes to Tower at the appropriate time or distance. I can't ever recall being switched to Tower that late, EVER, ANYWHERE, so if it is it not the norm, which I know it isn't, even in HKG, asking a question for a situation that is not the NORM is perfectly valid and not SILLY. What's next, taxi clearance to the bay issued by App.
