I would love to come to ATC and I also agree that this should be mandatory in training for any license.
I might have had gaps in my understanding having revalidated an old Swedish PPL in England (I think newer PPLers get a better grip of it). But for me the words Basic Service would imply that there is some kind of service given. You must agree that it's a bit strange having a service that is given...maybe. Or sometimes. Or when we're not too busy.
Now, of course I'm going to continue calling up my LARS service because they've been very helpful in the past. But I was wrongly relaxing a bit before I fully knew what BS entailed. I thought they were looking out for me. I will not relax anymore. In fact, crossing over in the corridor to the north of LCY I will from now on try to upgrade that service to TS as I know it can become mad busy there.
I still don't understand why BS is provided in a non-radar ATZ/CTZ. There they can't even tell you about a conflict even if they wanted to because they don't know. It's just confusing to use the same name as a completely different sometimes-provided one in a radar service.
Last edited by AdamFrisch; 5th Jan 2010 at 21:20.