IDENT
Just out of interest: its almost exclusively used in the UK - is the UKs radar environment so much different from the others ? Never had to squawk ident out of Amsterdam or Frankfurt or other real busy airports. Or is it just one of these things that always had been done ? Should not Mode S give you all the required info ?
Lots of info in Mats part 1 about how to identify via Primary, mode A and mode S.
Mats part 1, chapter 6, section 4 onwards
Mode S ident would rely on the controller correlating the Mode S address from the radar with the Mode S address from the flight plan and that’s not present on the flight progress strip.
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I appreciate what the rules are regarding the use of the squawk ident feature however, as an en route controller on a high workload congested r/t sector, it does actually help when the pilots are patient and if they have not been able to check in for some time, a few pilots hit the ident button as an unwritten rule that they are listening and waiting. It is appreciated as calling on will just either block my readback (which is necessary) or block another pilot also trying to check on. With traffic increasing, I have noticed the r/t discipline of more foreign low cost crews think they are the only ones in the sky and I am afraid they are not.
Anyway, nothing to do with the departure aspect however I can answer that the reason for the request to ident is to do with the correlating the flight plan with the radar track and hence it is identified. For this reason, you should not be asked to change ssr with ident as the lag in the system could actually correlate the flight with another flight plan and we would get the wrong callsign and destination among other things incorrect with radar track.
Hope this helps.
Anyway, nothing to do with the departure aspect however I can answer that the reason for the request to ident is to do with the correlating the flight plan with the radar track and hence it is identified. For this reason, you should not be asked to change ssr with ident as the lag in the system could actually correlate the flight with another flight plan and we would get the wrong callsign and destination among other things incorrect with radar track.
Hope this helps.
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It doesn't bother me at all but I'm used to make fool of them asking if there is any particular reason for squawking ident.
I do usually suggest to call maintenance on arrival to fix their transponder
I do usually suggest to call maintenance on arrival to fix their transponder
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Lots of info in Mats part 1 about how to identify via Primary, mode A and mode S.
Mats part 1, chapter 6, section 4 onwards
Mode S ident would rely on the controller correlating the Mode S address from the radar with the Mode S address from the flight plan and that’s not present on the flight progress strip.
Is it the case that the callsign displayed on NATS systems is derived from mode A by callsign conversion rather than displaying the mode S flight ID? Maybe this is why the ident is needed?