For Monarch Man
I was interested in your comments about 'The recent introduction of an additional "degrees" comment requirement onto radar heading read backs is another classic case of an additional layer of phraseology that serves no real purpose, after all, radar heading instructions are proceeded by the qualifier "fly heading xxx" or "turn left/right onto heading xxx" where does adding "degrees" improve flight safety or SA?'
Pilots confusing a level and heading instruction i.e climbing or descending to the heading rather than the cleared level used to account for 11% of level busts in the UK. Following the introduction of the adding the word degrees to headings ending in 0 the same error now accounts for less than 1%
Perhaps I'm missing something but it looks to me like the use of this additional phraseology has served a purpose