"Lets say, for the sake of argument, that all of the upper airspace, lets say anything above 300, from 10W to the Danish, Dutch border was procedural at night with direct tracks (RLong helps here). Whats the impact? Descenders into UK airspace and Netherlands. Could this be handled proceduraly, it used to be in yea olde days. Just a thought"
"What if the Ocean had that airspace, say midnight to 0530 ish? What would the savings be in en route high level sectors?"
I can see why this might seem like a plausable method to reduce staffing levels at night to the uninformed. Frankly I'd support anything that meant I had to do less nights so I'd be all for this if it was practical. However.........
You could do as BD suggests and extend the non-radar upper level sectors across the UK (FL300+) and effectively move the Oceanic exit points to our Eastern FIR boundary. We'll ignore the problem of Paris, Brussells and Amsterdam inbounds requiring descent before the FIR boundary for the moment. Below FL300 we continue to provide a radar service for the night flights that arrive and depart the UK. So far so good (other than the Paris, Brussells, Amsterdam inbounds). A major part of the implementation of this scheme will be getting all the surrounding FIRs to agree to descend ALL UK inbounds below FL300 before our FIR boundary rather than hand them over in the cruise. Similarly they will recieve all the outbounds below FL300 and have to climb them. I can just imagine what Pierre and his mates would say when we ask him to work harder so NATS can save money. Actually this is not insurmountable. A night time route structure could be developed to allow climbing and descending in and out of the (non-radar) Upper sectors but it would be very restrictive, no direct routes or delayed descents, so it would certainly cost the airlines more money. I can just imagine what Captain Phil Bovingdon-Stack and his mates would say when we ask him to burn more fuel so NATS can save money. But would NATS save money? The controllers who previously provided the radar services above FL300 are still coming in to do night shifts because they are also providing the services below FL300, at Swanwick at least (Prestwick may be different). We would need more, specially trained, staff (remember, NATS stopped training radar ATCOS in procedural control about 15 years ago) to work the new upper air as well as the infrastructure to support them. And we would still have to get the agreement of the surrounding ATS units to sort out the traffic coming off the oceanic track structure (a job previously done by London) all so NATS can save money. I can just imagine what President de Gaulle and his mates would say to that!
Last edited by Arkady; 16th September 2009 at 14:20.