To be honest Chevvron this is the whole reason why the UK ATSOCAS falls on its backside all of the time from a pilots point of view. I am sure its a cracking thing for covering the controllers arse.
A brit going other places is pretty well set up.
A none UK trained pilot inside CAS again not really a problem.
None UK trained pilot/ or one that hasn't been home since it came in operating into a Class G field its a mess.
If you then throw in a none native english speaker double the mess.
Then you have all the rules about entering into contracts with the controller and controllers actively controlling aircraft under a basic service.
Then there is people who just say "basic" service then don't realise they have no protection flying in both IMC and VMC.
You get basic service mixing with procedural service going into none radar fields all shooting IFR approaches.
Mutt isn't alone not having the brief, I doud't very much if even 5% of none UK visitors will have even heard of ATSOCAS. Out of that 5% I doudt alot of them even understand what the different services even mean. And even when you do tell them its so alien compared to the way the rest of the world does it, it really doesn't compute.
Doing a briefing my only success has been with.
BAsic = f@ck all service
Traffic = next to F@ck all service.
Deconfliction = be prepared to get vectored all round the shop above FL100 for low level traffic. But if you can get it off an approach controller is useful.
Procedural = OK if everyone is using it and speaks english but if anyone is on a basic or wx is ****e keep an eye on your TCAS and pray to a god of your choice and if you want to pray to more than one thats good airmanship. Better to just go Basic and look out the window if the wx is good.
The standard question is "why is this so complicated? It doesn't make sense"
I still can't think of any decent reply.
Also doesn't help that different Units have different methods of dealing with the different services.
Its also a huge pain that deconfliction service traffic have to be seperated from basic traffic which is visual with them. You wouldn't have to do that if you were flying in CAS.
Last edited by mad_jock; 15th Jul 2012 at 08:29.