Flight Strips and Speed; LATCC

[DubTrub]

Within the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of visiting both West Drayton and Swanwick on PPRuNe Private Flying visits, (here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=201934)and here (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=208087)) and I thank all the ATCO's for their patience, professionalism and good humour during those visits.

If I may seek the answers to a few questions, I would be grateful.

1. Why is the large type on printed strips the flight number, and not the call sign? I had a devil of a time while in the Swanwick TDU reconciling the radio callsign with the information on the strip. Admittedly, the call sign is on the strip, but in much smaller type, and often partially hidden by the plastic border of the holder. I guess practice?

2. Further to this: without a pen, how will you scribble on strips the important, immediate details when the strips become computerised? (this was demonstrated to me inadvertently by the supervising ATCO relieving me of the pen!)

3. Even though I fully understand the difference, I found it very confusing that the ground speed displayed on RADAR bore no resemblance to the IAS used by the aircraft pilots...asking for a reduction/increase in speed needed me to enquire of the IAS from the aircraft. So would there not be scope for example the transponder to transmit the IAS seen by the pilots and for this to be displayed on the controllers screen? Or something less expensive to incorporate? Or is it again practice?

4. Should I have been calling myself "Swanwick" instead of "London"?

Hope these are not as silly questions as they seem to me.
Rob L

[Scuzi]

Hi Rob,
I'm a trainee at LTCC but I'll have a crack at answering your questions. You'll probably get a better answer from an experienced controller though.

1.
I'm not sure about everyone else but I personally don't read the spelt out callsign unless I don't know it. For example if I see BAW123, from experience I know that BAW = Speedbird and therefore don't even look at the full version printed above the actual callsign. However if I got one which I wasn't familiar with, it's nice to have it on the strip.

2.
I have no experience with EFPS so can't comment.

3.
A standard Mode A readout will provide a groundspeed which in most cases is more relevant than IAS, especially when judging a 'catch up' between aircraft which are climbing and descending. An Enhanced Mode S readout can show the selected IAS which is more relevant to aircraft in the approach phase or even in the cruise.

4.
'London Control' is the callsign used by all LACC and LTCC TMA sectors.

[Lon More]

Further to this: without a pen, how will you scribble on strips the important, immediate details when the strips become computerised

You'll always have a pen, even though in a stripless system you have no strips to scribble on. How else can you make up the coffee list?
When we were designing the stripless ODS for Maastricht one of the first mods. to the design was to incorporate a groove to stop the pens rolling on the floor

[flower]

"Why is the large type on printed strips the flight number, and not the call sign? I had a devil of a time while in the Swanwick TDU reconciling the radio callsign with the information on the strip."

The Flight number reconciles with the information displayed on the radar display, ie BAW123 will be displayed on the radar screen not Speedbird123

[DubTrub]

Flower, you are right, but when my first knowledge of a flight on my sector is that a strip arrived on my desk, then a call on the radio...but blip did not yet show on the screen?
Scuzi from experience I know that BAW = Speedbird That was my problem...Experience, perhaps...but why not use "SPB0508" instead of "BAW0508" as the big letters on the strip?
Harks back to the silly Airport designators in this country too...I was trying to remember that NX is East Midlands and BB is Birmingham...but wtf is Luton GW and Gatwick not GW?:rolleyes:
At least Stansted is SS.:ouch:
All the above written as a vanilla PPL...

[DubTrub]

Further to your answer to my point 3, Scuzi, ...what I meant to say was:
How can I ask a flight to "reduce speed 215 knots" when I don't know what the IAS on the flight deck is reading?
I do understand that g/s is more relevant to a Controller, it's more of a communication thing.
Rob

[Lon More]

why not use "SPB0508" instead of "BAW0508"
It's an ICAO thing. The three letter code is used internationally.
e.g. BAW is Speedbird, DLH is Lufthansa
You get used to it and after a while it's automatic

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<How can I ask a flight to "reduce speed 215 knots" when I don't know what the IAS on the flight deck is reading?>>

It's called "experience". Radar controllers have a very good idea of what speeds aircraft are flying in the same way that they can interpret wind effect when issuing headings. On some occasions the speed which is being requested is a "standard" speed and it may not then be necessary to know exactly what speed the aircraft is flying.

Regarding your other questions on codes.... they're done that way because that's the system ATC uses. It's worked perfectly OK since Pontius was a pilot so why change it? For controllers it's a kind of shorthand.

Glad you enjoyed your visits. Probably one of the most amusing things (to me) I ever did was during a visit of PPLs to West Drayton..... I took one of the ladies to one side and whispered: "I suppose you know that the majority of people working in this room are mentally deranged?"

[2 sheds]

Harks back to the silly Airport designators in this country too...I was trying to remember that NX is East Midlands and BB is Birmingham...but wtf is Luton GW and Gatwick not GW?:rolleyes:
At least Stansted is SS.:ouch:
All the above written as a vanilla PPL...

The Location Indicators in the UK were originally very logical. After the EG to indicate the UK region, a double letter (SS, LL, CC etc) would indicate a Communications Centre (ComCen) located at a major airport. Smaller aereodromes in the same general vicinity would have the same third letter and a unique fourth letter. Therefore, in ATC, even if you did not immediately know the name, you would have an indication of roughly where it was located. Many of these still survive, but with others the system has gone to pot, particularly with the EGT series which are scattered everywhere. Many other States have more user friendly systems, particularly the US which has the luxury of having the second, third and fourth letters available to represent the location in abbreviated form.

[songbird29]

2sheds, the T in EGTx is for (former) military airfields if my memory serves me right?

The first letter K may stand for the whole of mainland USA, the first letter E stands for northern Europe, southern Europe having the L. So, seeing it on the broader scale, there is not so much difference. It is in both cases that the second letter narrows down from the larger entity.
I didn't know the third letter was meaningful as well in the UK, at least for people with a little more geographical knowledge of the country than I used to have. Thank you for this.

By the way, isn't it great that the second letter for Britain is a G ?

[TATC]

2sheds, the T in EGTx is for (former) military airfields if my memory serves me right?
The first letter K may stand for the whole of mainland USA, the first letter E stands for northern Europe, southern Europe having the L. So, seeing it on the broader scale, there is not so much difference. It is in both cases that the second letter narrows down from the larger entity.
I didn't know the third letter was meaningful as well in the UK, at least for people with a little more geographical knowledge of the country than I used to have. Thank you for this.
By the way, isn't it great that the second letter for Britain is a G ?

G for Great Britain - makes sens to me

[Lon More]

ICAO regions use 4 letter identifier codes. the first letter is the region - E Northern Europe; second is the country - G for UK, H for Netherlands, D for Germany, and so on. The third and fourth are allocated by the state.
In the UK LATCC and its predecessors (back to Uxbridge?) is EGTT and the fourth letter indicates an airfield linked to that, at least that's what I learned many years ago.
The airlines have their own system as their ops. tend to be less global and use only three letters.
Similarly nav. aids. Back in nineteen canteen there were still things called fan-markers which had a very small range (still in use on ILS as markers BTW). They were identified by two letters corresponding to the Morse Identifier. Then came NDBs, and later VORs identified by three letters and an attempt made to relate this to a geographical position, DVR is Dover for example.
Now with sat. nav. systems intersections (so called because they were initially defined by radials from two VORs) are increasingly used and they are allocated five letter designators. Whilst these often reflect a geographical position often they refer to a person's name or physical attributes, sometimes with comical effects eg GAFFA in central Australia. Whilst involved in plans to restructure the N.Sea Airspace some years ago a sequence of BETTY BITES BIGGA BALOX was used initially. Unfortunately it did not make it through.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

<<Then came NDBs, and later VORs identified by three letters and an attempt made to relate this to a geographical position, DVR is Dover for example.>>

Can I be the only one who remembers the old 3-letter identifiers such as MYW for Watford, MYE for Epsom, MYD for Dunsfold (radio range), etc? The M indicated UK as the international radio prefixes for the UK include G, M and several others.

Back to my Ivalek Crystal set, rubber ring and Horlicks...

[Talkdownman]

No! You ain't!
And MWN for Bushmills (I was at ScATCC at the time....)
And wot about in the fifties and early sixties when the location indicators for the UK were 4 letters beginning with G eg. Heathrow was GALA. You had G-ALAN ( a Viscount ISTR) inbound to GALA etc. ISTR Gatwick was GAKA or something. And as for Croydon...........I forget.
HD, may I borrow your rubber ring, Old Boy?
Nurse.......nurse........I say, what was the four letter word for Croydon, miss, if you wouldn't mind old girl?.............medicine......what medicine? Oh.......medicine....what now?.......aaaaaaahhhhh

[Lon More]

Bren, I'd forgotten that. I think most of them had changed by the mid-sixties, aroun=d the time that people started to realise that you wouldn't fall off the edge of the world if you left the UK.:}
Talkdownman, I'm old but not pre-historic although I can vaguely remember old, even then, books with GALA etc. in And yes I remember G-ALAN ... and G-APOX and .... Back in the days when we had proper pilots (who looked like James Robertson Justice or Jimmy Edwards)

[PPRuNe Radar]

Lon More

Captain Danny always shows his Mods this clip when he thinks we are getting ideas above our station ... those were the days I suppose ;)

http://www.pprune.org/images/OutOfTheClouds2.avi

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Fantastic clip... Cockney Robbie would have sorted 'im out.. like he sorted OPJ!!!

[Talkdownman]

.... Back in the days when we had proper pilots (who looked like James Robertson Justice or Jimmy Edwards)
You mean the ubiquitous Captain Welford!
Bren, I remember old Cockney Robbie's sector transit coordination - '' Clear ta blow froo at firty free".....
.............and "three cheers Alpha" (F-BBBA, a regular which I recall was a Dak)
Last saw Robbie in me local wiv an slightly older woman, abaht ninety. This is me girlfriend, he said.............

[22/04]

Two comments

When I first read the debate over flightstrips I thought that flight numbers and alpha numerics were the issue.

So is EZY2CR on the flight strip as that both for flight number and callsign or is the four figure flight number (as advertised to pax) displayed for example. The latter would be very complicated.

As an aside, are controllers of Cowley/Wellin (e.g. 130.92) at Swanick or LTCC.

Thanks in advance for your answers

[chiglet]

22/04
The "Flight Plan".....eg SHT3N A320 EGCC.N615.EGLL...is Shuttle 3N filed Manchester via Airway N615 to Heathrow. Your ticket will be BAxxxx. BMI wil be WW on the ticket.
The "Callsign" that the company file is the callsign that is used from A to B...by ATC eg, EZE83VM......is an Eastern Airways flight.The Airline code is 3wxxxx

[BDiONU]

As an aside, are controllers of Cowley/Wellin (e.g. 130.92) at Swanick or LTCC.

Up in that there London (LTCC).

BD

[22/04]

Thanks Chiglet and BDiONU

[Ronaldsway Radar]

Chiglet,

You mean T3 are Eastern....right? :}

3W of course being EuroManx!

RR

(Could just be me interpreting the wording incorrectly - apologies if so)

[chiglet]

RR,
Sorry,fingist tribble [again] T3 is should have been :{
watp,iktch

[Georgeablelovehowindia]

I learned to fly in 1966. I'd just got the business of filing ATC flight plans sorted out - PLN or TRU/PLN if you wanted to be clever and file through an intermediate stop - when they went and changed it all to the one we know today! :uhoh:

Wasn't there a fan-marker at Chertsey?

[P|_azbot]

Where I work as an ATC we have electronic strips. As soon as you hear anything non standard, the pen comes out stat. We have had electronic strips for 6 years or so. Still nothing like the tactile reinforcement of paper though.

[Talkdownman]

Wasn't there a fan-marker at Chertsey?
Yes. 75 M/cs. Part of the delineation of Amber One. Daventry NDB - Beacon Hill MKR - Burnham MKR - Chertsey MKR - Dunsfold Radio Range DUN 357 k/cs etc

[chevvron]

TDM - that was the SID out of Luton for deps via A1/A34 :
'Beacon Hill, Burnham, Chertsey, Dunsfold at 4000ft, climb when instructed by London Radar to FLXXX' (when Heathrow was on westerlies). I remember writing that down many times in the old 'Mediator Stage 1/2' room as 'D.O.' read it out (ie before radar moved from Heathrow to WD).
With Heathrow on easterlies the clearance was 'Brookmans Park, Kilburn, Epsom, Dunsfold at 4000' etc

[Lon More]

Chevvron We probably worked together back then. The worst was, I think, Southend departures to the South West, something like 12 strips.
Memories; taking the flight plan details from Luton on one line whilst at the same time they were requesting clearance from DO on another and him shouting over the board, "Give me the strips!" Very nearly decked him, John Reynolds, he used to come to work on an old moped. Was not the most popular guy in the Ops. Room

[Talkdownman]

Chevvron We probably worked together back then.
You two and me both, stage half A-side and AO. BUR +2 BEA 4 etc Funny how the old clearances remain in your head! I have some photos of SATCC 1959, AO and DO in particular, if you gents are interested, or is that too far back? Features PDSM amongst others, I don't think 'Happy Jack' is in them. Perhaps something for the nostalgia forum?

[chevvron]

Ah yes, John Reynolds. I was warned when I first joined the watch if I did anything even slightly wrong, he would go straight to the supervisor rather than have a quiet word with you. He always refused to talk to El Al flights; always let the radar man talk to them. Word was the other D controllers always tried to put him on DO so they didn't have to talk to him!

[wiccan]

IF it's the John Reynolds that I know, he's a decent chap, but cr@p at golf :E
bb

[Lon More]

Wiccan, I doubt it,this was back in 1968, he was not in the first flush of youth then.
Chevvron; I remember there was quite a competition amongst some of the team to see who could get him to fall off his NSU Quickly. Can't remember if anyone actually succeeded, but I did give him a good soaking one day:\

[chevvron]

Last I heard of John he was in Frimley Park having had a heart attack; that must have been about '75 or '76.

[chevvron]

TDM: Your pictures don't show Rayne Giffen by any chance do they?

[Talkdownman]

Who's she? Chevvy, email me at base ops ie. christian name dot surname at btinternet dot com and I'll send 'em to you. I think Happy Jack would've been thrown out of FPH by now for moaning to matron. ooooh matron.

[22/04]

Chevvron

Hate to be pedantic but I think it was Brookman's Park at 3000', Kilburn Epsom and Dunsfold at 4000' on 08 departures.

Anyone remember the Easterlies which became "cross the Bovingdon 039 Radial not above 3000' etc?

And the nightly Autair Herald to Blackpool cleared via Woburn?

[Lon More]

What's the story about the Herald?

[chevvron]

Probably like the Air France Deux Ponts and BEA Argosy's only northbound.(for the uniniated, the nightly AF and BE freight flights were cleared to Paris at FL60 to be level by the FIR boundary, and often they weren't!!)

[funfly]

After a couple of visits to ATC I have been impressed by the (paper slip) system and understand fully the merits of a 'standard' system.
Then I visit a military ATC and find that they use 'their own' system that they prefer.
As a GA pilot I use Military ATC as much as civilian ATC.I was most surprised to fing that there was no harmonisation between the two.
Another example of military arrogance or is there a reasonable explanation?

[Lon More]

Chevvron; I thought it must have been something like that, though I don't remember Autair having that problem. Remember the Deux Ponts well, doing a run up outside the old hostel on North Sire it was like November 5 with all the sound and light effects.;)
We used to get USAF C130s from EDAF to the States enter at RYW FL200 climbing to FL220 and just make COA at FL220 (30 minutes later)

[chevvron]

Funfly: Some military units do use their own type of FPS, which (if they're the Brize style ones) are double the width of NATS ones, but the same length.)
TDM : Rayne was the senior ATCA on the outbound suite on B watch. Very attractive, always smartly dressed, no sense of humour, temper to match!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Funfly.. I'll start mentioning some really old names in a minute - that'll get them going! CAM Kyrke-Smith. There, that's a start!!!

I think one just gets used to the system employed in various ATC units and any other is rubbish! I was brought up on Flight Progress Strips (metal ones in those days which took take the top of an ear off at ten feet) and when I did a spell at Oxford Airport I was horrified to find that the Aerodrome Controller used a military-style pin-board to run the circuit. It frightened me to death! However, those who had been brought up with it were able to use it very effectively and for an aerodrome where there is a great deal of circuit-bashing it's probably the best system. In an IFR environment FPS are a necessity because of the amount of info which is needed.