Heathrow Director, you THOUGHT you knew where he was going! From some of the dull-witted replies in the foregoing, it seems that there are still quite a few pilots who take it upon themselves to fly whatever THEY think will track the centreline despite a "maintain runway heading" instruction. In Australia, anyway.....Hence, let's pitch the instruction at the lowest common denominator, aka neanderthal pilot, and just give them a number in the hope that they can read a compass or CDI and know how to select either heading or track mode.
Even check captains sometimes have difficulty with this concept. A good friend once failed an initial command check because the ATC instruction was "after takeoff maintain heading 195" but the runway QDM (sorry Buzzy, economy of words) happened to be 197. My friend went into heading select mode and correctly dialled in 195. If it had been me failing a check for this, the checkie would have been sued for potential loss of income, and recommended for anal retentive syndrome counselling.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 19th Sep 2010 at 22:05.