Forget about the term Radar Vectoring. It's gone. History.
Yes, it does appear that there have been wording revisions to the AIP in the recent past for the purpose of changing to a term that has a "more general" meaning.
But the concept is alive and well. Look at the radio failure procedures in ERSA/EMERG. Specifically, para 1.5.4 g. (ii), where it specifically mentions "being vectored".
Interestingly, whilst looking over this section, I noticed that the term "ATS surveillance service" has appeared here as well! I would take this as further evidence that, rather than being procedure changes, the term is all about wording changes - brought about, no doubt, by the introduction of ADS-B (as suggested by
Capn Bloggs).
Here is one more bit of evidence I forgot to include in my previous post:
An "ATS surveillance service" is something
you can request. Have a look at Jepps - ATC, page AU-1001, para 1.1. I quote it here:
1.1 Pilots requesting an ATS surveillance service should address their request to the ATS unit with which they are communicating.
Being radar identified in CTA is
not something you can request! So, this "ATS surveillance service" must be something different to that.
The simple reality is that for this "ATS ss" to mean, in the context of night visual approaches, simply being radar identified and in CTA, then this
makes no sense whatsoever. Whereas, meaning "being radar vectored" makes all the sense in the world.
We have found that, sometime between 2005 and now, the wording relating to night visual approaches changed - the term "being radar vectored" was changed to this new term ("in receipt of an ATS ss").
If the posts to this thread are any guide, and I believe they are, then very few pilots in Australia were aware of that change. This would suggest that pilots are still conducting visual approaches the way they were prior to that wording change.
So, almost every night at an Australian capital city aerodrome, there would be numerous visual approaches that, despite the wording change, are conducted they way they used to be.
If that wording change means a procedure change of the magnitude that posters here are insisting on, then we are talking about major breaches of procedure, every night, involving high capacity passenger aircraft.
Capn Bloggs, how did you conduct visual approaches, with regard to assigned altitudes, back in 2005? Has your conduct of them changed with the arrival of this new wording?
And as for that "definition" that somebody posted. I wouldn't put too much store in that - it was very very broad - to the point of being useless! Definitions, if they are published at all, are sometimes misleading, or only serve to add to the confusion. I would suggest that is the case on this occasion.