Retrieving radar traces - Essex/Herts(UK)

[hegemon88]

Dear All,

A question previously asked on Private Flying forum but perhaps better suited here

I have a purely academic question - suppose a friend of mine, a PPL, made a navigation error on his Saturday p.m. local bimble and wanted to ascertain how seriously off-track he was. Will he be able to go somewhere and see the radar image(s) of his local flight? (the most likely radars would be Essex and Luton I think) There is no question of controlled airspace incursion, he would just like to learn from his little mistake. Of course he can show it was him flying the aircraft at the time so he would be requesting data about himself and nobody else.

I will be, I mean my friend will be very grateful for any advice.



/h88

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Essex and Luton radars are located at Swanwick, on the south coast, in the ATC Centre. So far as I am aware there is no provision for radar replays except for internal use, training, incidents, etc. The only way to get a definitive answer would be to contact the Centre at Swanwick but I wouldn't hold out much hope.

[Glamdring]

Doubtful that NATS would release that sort of data. But a good solution for the future would be a GPS that could log your trip and display it on Google Maps or Memory Map afterwards. Even a GPS enabled smartphone would do the trick.

[hegemon88]

Thank you for your replies. Yes, he normally uses an Android tablet with SkyDemon (which also logs the track) and had it been switched on on the day, this thread woundn't have existed...


/h88

[chevvron]

The radar head at Luton has been out of use for several years. Luton Approach would have access to several radar heads eg Stansted 10cm, Debden 23 cm, Heathrow 10cm, I understand the Heathrow 23cm has been withdrawn too; Essex Radar would have access to the same ones.

[ZOOKER]

NATS have always been pretty hot on the desire to reduce Controlled Airspace Infringements.
I read recently about the importance attached to this initiative.
Suggest you contact Jonathan Smith at NATS who is a 'key player' in this arena.

[DaveReidUK]

NATS have always been pretty hot on the desire to reduce Controlled Airspace Infringements.True, but irrelevant:

There is no question of controlled airspace incursion, he would just like to learn from his little mistake.

[ZOOKER]

"Tuned Into Our customers".
Wasn't that a NATS initiative, part of 'Vision 2000'
or something?
What if the next Saturday p m "local bimble" goes wrong, and our hero ends up over Copthorne at 1500Z, heading north?

[eastern wiseguy]

It might be worth giving John Smith a call. He might be able to access the relevant flight from the veristore....and use it as a teaching point at a pilot/ATCO forum. I agree the next time might be right through the xxxxx zone.

It can't hurt to ask.

[cleartouchandgo]

We keep the last 200 days of radar recordings and regularly retrieve these for engineering reasons, analysis etc. If he was flying around Essex/Herts I guess he would be detected by Stansted, Debden, possibly Bovingdon and Heathrow 10 radars. It depends if he was transponding or not as there'll be dozens of tracks around and while NATS would have that data, digging it out and creating a plot etc is reliant on identifying the right returns. Even if he was squawking it'd take a bit of effort to find the right 7000 and that's where I think the radar section wouldn't be able to help, as they're pretty maxed out on routine stuff, but possibly the Infringement/PR people might be more willing.

I think on this occasion it's unlikely the data can be retrieved, but for £50 you can indeed get these GPS loggers which run off an AA battery and last more than 24h recording every second. If I ever get flying again, I'll definitely add switching one of these on to my checklist as they create a KML file which you then just open with Google Earth and can see exactly what you've been up to!

CTG

[chevvron]

Last time I looked there was no radar head at Bovingdon, just a VOR. The closest one is at Martins Top, Chenies, about 3 nm south east of Bovingdon but it's only a 5cm primary for weather detection, not for ATC use.

[ZOOKER]

chevvron,
I think there is a Raytheon(?) PSR/SSR installation there now, on a lattice tower with a 'golf-ball' on the top. I believe it replaced the Heathrow installation. The locals were not happy bunnies when it was built.

[DaveReidUK]

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/03/38/93/3389301_00832524.jpg

[chevvron]

See what you mean, that's a new one on me. Haven't been past there since my mother died (she lived in Chesham , about 3 miles away) about 7 years ago!! I vaguely remember reading about the 23cm at Heathrow (on T1a car park) being replaced by a new installation at Bovingdon now.
I was the first ATC cadet to get a 'Soaring' certificate there back in '66. (Sedburgh VX275, 18 minutes)

[tu154]

Yup, the new one at bovingdon went in just before the Olympics.

[NQWhy]

Or Cambridge or Farnborough (north), or Wattisham

[Chris1012]

Webtrak provides this near places that support it; These are radar returns not from Mode S...


Stansted's is available here:
WebTrak: Stansted (http://webtrak.bksv.com/stn)

[chevvron]

Farnborough North uses the same radar heads as Luton/Essex. Only the Farnborough 10 cm is recorded at Farnborough and then only by TAG (not NATS) for investigating noise complaints.

[LEGAL TENDER]

I like it how a retired ATCO, possibly several years out of the loop thinks he knows better about radar locations than a current Nats engineer :)

Says it all about this forum, really. (And yes I know I've just made it all worse by adding my useless and poisonous comment;))