D and F
No problems
Unfortunately we do and have had problems in the past of aircraft not being able to lose the required altitude in the distance provided. Once we have aircraft in the NE corner of the TMA on rwy24 we are fighting a losing battle and have experienced a few nasty incidents in the past because of it. As previously stated 06 is the main problem because my area brethren prefer to send aircraft direct to a 10 mile final because of the TLA outbounds and once that is set up we literally have nowhere to vector the inbounds.
At the end of the day, and some would argue otherwise, I am the approach expert, not an area controller. The inbounds should be sent to a fix (the hold) and I can use my judgement when to vector downwind/baseleg/direct to final approach to maintain my sequence. Also the majority of times because of the airport infrastructure I need gaps of 6 miles on final but this can decrease to vortex requirements or if we have radar issues(we have had this problem recently) I could need gaps of 10 miles to comply with regulations. I therefore am the better judge of when and where to vector aircraft.
We have an airline base captain attending our next Tech Committeee meeting who wants to put the point across that his company wishes to route to the hold rather than be vectored all over the sky. The point to add here is just because aircraft are heading towards the hold it does not necessarily mean that they will be holding. It works at Manc and London. I fear some at Prestwick can't seem to get a grip of this. Unfortunately for the captain we have tried this in the past and he is going to be preaching to the wrong unit!
Cheers
