NSL Wins MoD Flight Procedures Contract

[DUNJUMPIN]

If you weren't aware, NSL were recently awarded the contract to convert flying procedures used by aircraft at military airfields from the current NATO standard to the civil ICAO standard, bringing the MoD into line with NATO’s policy to move to the civil standard. Can we therefore presume that the dwindling RAF ATCO population will be eligible to the same ICAO licence that their civil colleagues hold? It's a touchy subject, but if handled correctly could actually stem the outflow of RAF ATCOs leaving the Service. Grateful for anyone's thoughts.

[Lurking123]

I'm not sure this is massive news. Not being an expert, but it looks as if AIDU's (or at least the one Flt Lt and two SNCOs in APATC-1) days are numbered and this will bring the design/format of TAP charts, procedures etc into line with PANS-OPS standards. I don't see that this has much relevance to controller licensing.

It was my understanding that a high percentage (80%?) of the current JATCC meets ESSAR 5 requirements so, from that perspective, the licensing requirements are already converging.

[DUNJUMPIN]

You might be right about it not being massive news, but those leaving the service who are spending upwards of £25k of their gratuity on civil licences might disagree. The issue is, if all the training and operating procedures are ICAO compliant, how much longer can SRG/CAA not recognise the RAF Certificate of Competency as an acceptable equivalent?

[chevvron]

Acksherly AERAD have been designing and producing RAF TAPs for several years now, but they didn't design the actual iap's.