Spodman and Galah
I suspect you just talked 'past' each other on the non-radar issue.
Galah asked:
Off radar, will controllers use flight plan tracks to approve the VFR procedure? If the tracks indicate the aircraft will remain segregated (but without a procedural standard), will there be less reluctance for the procedure?
Spodman said:
Flight Plan Tracks are no more than a graphical representation of what we used to read off strips. We are aware that just because the green boxes have passed, the aircraft may not have.
I think Galah is talking about the
track being the flight planned route (i.e. what the aircraft is tracking – and the normal meaning of the word ‘track’ for aviators over the last millennium), whereas Spodman is using track in the TAAATS sense to describe what - in radar terms - used to be called a 'blip', 'target' or various other terms. (I knew that calling the blips 'tracks' would bite us in the nether regions one day. D'Oh!!)
Short answer to Galah's question seems to be:
1) If the flight planned
routes are segregated (but not procedurally separated, then the procedure should be no problem.
2) If Flight plan
symbols (i.e. the graphical representation of an individual aircraft’s position in a non-radar environment) become segregated (but not separated) then it is not as simple. As Spoddie said, just because the symbols have passed, it does not mean that the aircraft have passed.
If I’m wrong, and each of you was talking about the same thing, then please dismiss this as the ramblings of a pedantic fool.