London and its congested skies
ladies and gents, I really think you should come to LTCC for a visit on your next days off... We'd love to show you some of the reasons why you are put on heading in the TMA... Suffice to say, we'd love to leave you on your own navigation, it would be so much easier for us. And if you fly around the TMA at quieter times, you will be left on your own nav... But between 6am and 10pm, headings are our bread and butter... Headings mean expedition... Simple as that! No heading equals step climbs.. And we hate a step climb as much as you...
The main reason is congestion... Name another TMA that has 9 major airfields within 50 miles of each other... Name another TMA that has 15ish major airfields with 100 miles of Heathrow... This equals congestion...
Take one VOR in the london tma... Brookmans Park. All of you regular London flyers know and love the park... But do you realise how many aircraft actually fly around BPK... Here's a short list (forgive me if I've forgotten any, there are quite a few)
EGLL BPK depts
EGGW DVR and CLN depts
EGLC/EGKB BPK and CPT departures
EGMC BPK and CPT departures
On easterlies EGLL Buzad Departures (within 3 miles of BPK)
EGLL arrivals (within 3 miles of BPK)
EGSS/EGGW/EGSC/EGTC Arrivals through lorel
EGLC/EGKB/EGMC Arrivals from the north
EGWU CLN/DVR departures
Leavers from CAS to airfields below the tma
Overflights below fl120 travelling anywhere beyond the london tma
EGKK Lam Departures
So at BPK at any one time, there can be a plane at 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A, Min stack, and any of the levels above...So how we are meant to seperate all of these without radar headings, you tell me. In fact, dont tell me, tell NATS operations, because they can't answer that question, and they are air traffic experts... The way it is handled now isn't perfect, but its tried and tested, and works well! We shift a lot of planes, with very little space to do so, and i think we do it pretty well lol!!
As for luton DVR departures, well they are probably the worst SID in the TMA. Mainly because we cant get you major climb until DET... The lambourne stack for heathrow (the busiest stack in europe) is your main problem... If there is nothing in lambourne, very often we will have you at FL240 by DET, but if lambourne is full, Min stack is the most you can hope for!
Oh and olly, the sids and stars are seperated, all of the departures above are seperated for radio fail procedures... But the minute we climb you above the sid levels, seperation is no longer ensured... So heading make that seperation happen...
I liked someones idea of climbing west from Luton and then going east... But if you wanna know what traffic is west from luton, there is another long long list of sids to miss...