Quote:
ATC procedures
An Aerodrome Traffic Zone (ATZ) has the characteristics of the airspace in which it is located. The Shoreham ATZ is located within an area of Class G uncontrolled airspace. Therefore, ATC are not required to provide separation between VFR traffic.
The Manual of Air Traffic Services Part 1 (MATS 1), Section 2 defines the responsibilities of the Aerodrome ATCO as:
‘2.1 Aerodrome Control is responsible for issuing information and instructions to aircraft under its control to achieve a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of air traffic and to assist pilots in preventing collisions between: a) aircraft flying in, and in the vicinity of, the ATZ;’
Responsibility for collision avoidance, therefore, rests with the pilot(s) in command.
Air Traffic Control in Uncontrolled Airspace?
Uk and air traffic services rules are quite hard to follow for those of us not from the UK!
As for radar display in the tower: I worked TWR with radar display for the twr controller from 2002 to 2009. At two airports with a majority of VFR operations, including light aircraft and helos, both MIL and CIV.
One year we did not have radar info available for "twr traffic altitudes" due to failure of one of two sensors. That was a hard year.
Even if you spend 90% of the time head up, looking out, there are situations where a radar display with SSR info is valuable. Traffic blocked by the tower roof, and traffic hidden by surrounding terrain. (
For the not so flat parts of the world)
We did not use civ overhead joins, but often MIL break pattern for light training aircraft. Break turn allways hidden by the tower roof. Radar was nice to have then.