Well, I know I had hear APC guys doing Special during the day sometimes. Didn't realise they were still training.

Would any LL APC ATCOs want to do Thames? :E

Does ANYBODY want to do Thames? :E

Oooh you bitch.
The point I think I was trying to make is that just because HI is a band one unit, does not mean that they would not consider incorporating the solent approach function into TC as it happened with Luton and they are also band one.
Do the Luton guys still get paid over the odds ?
(CAN of WORMS....)

Gonzo, Jericho

Two Heathrow Approach Controllers per Watch will cross train onto daytime SVFR to allow staffing flexibility, although the SVFR position will still remain part of the TC Thames "Group". The first EGLL APC Controller has a board on 24th January. There are no plans to cross train EGLL APC Controllers onto Thames.

Thames will be part of the airports group and will be linked to Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Thames Controllers (now we are approaching full numbers) will be expected to cross train onto at least one other airport sector. Some of us will even retrain onto Heathrow Approach.

Thanks for the update ATCO 2.

I hope you have made that lazy so-and-so Hammy do it ;)

Lots of college instructors who have never worked at a busy airfield too! Perhaps they should do part time Instructing and part time controlling in the TMA/Approach!?!

:O

Lots, as in how many ?????????????

Well as you are there tell me how many HAVE then....

You're up late B-L. You wet the bed? ;)

Not late where I am fella!!!

"Pass the Pimm's dear boy....."

lovely Jubbly

I am where ???
I think perhaps you are confusing me with somebody else.....

Solent TRACON
 

Combining Southampton and Bournemouth approaches has a certain logic. Bournemouth radar "sees" much further south than Southampton radar if the antiquated 40-mile rule still applies.....is it 40 miles from the "head" or the "unit"?.......anyhow it would allow a low sector delegated to operate directly with Jersey Zone, taking Swanwick out of the loop completely.
All it needs is the will to make it work and a feed from the Radar...but from which unit to which.....bids on a post-card please.
Precedents:-
Cardiff......brilliant success.....NATS now in a rabid frenzy to take over Bristol ATC.

OOPPS!

Scan reading to quickly and missed the point about NATS airfields in the south.

Anyway - Solent are without SSR until later this year (Did I read something about it being extended till September?) because the Peas is Kaput.

Why can't they get a feed from EGHH until then? It's probably all very complicated but since the Red Baron keeps telling us that NATS has the greatest pool of intellectuals he has ever seen, it must be possible (microwave link?).

Morning Vlad.

Sorry for the mis-ident if there was one.

request confirmation....
 

...do they have people at TC that do Thames only?

And is that because they are due to Xtrain soon, or because that's that?

PS "SARF" isnt cockney rhyming, it's how savverners say south

eager to hear an answer to my question

muchas gracias

Free Love Freeway,
Once upon a time in a land far, far away there were a brave band of guys and gals who used to live in the bowels of Heathrow tower and provide Thames Radar & Heathrow SVFR.
Then one day during the great autumn of 2003 a mysterious flood occured and drowned the buggers. Those that survived were swiftly rehoused at TC down the end on the left hand side next to their heathrow approach buddies. Many of these tortured souls were also tower controllers but eventually a staff split was devised that allowed the two to function separately (I believe that to be the case, correct me if I am wrong). Sometime around april 2004 Thames officially became part of the TC family (some three years earlier than planned).
All was well in the world, sort of.
Those lovely thames chaps and chapettes do not work when the sun sinks below the horizon as heathrow approach take SVFR at night, and so they were invited to turn their hands to other airports so that they could partake in the great night shift snooze in. I suspect that they have now begun to train on other approach units now but that is the reason that they were initially thames only.
And they all lived happily ever after
The End.


Edited to correct terrible spelling mistake.

Ahh, but HH isn't run by NATS. You could ask the same question of the source at Jersey.

The reason that you might imagine this solution is kinda unlikely will depend on your degree of cynicism.

The real question might be that surely there must have been some SSR data within the NATS system that could have given some coverage in the Solent area - or was poor coverage considered worse than none?

BTW, nothing so technical as a microwave link would be needed, a telephone line suffices in most other cases.

That's a good story there Vlad.

Tell me the one about TC moving to Swanwick.

Once upon a time, in a distant land far, far away there were a brave gang of guys and gals who used to work in the bowels of the London Terminal Control Centre in west drayton.
And they're still there and likely to remain so for the forseeable future.
And some of them lived happily ever after.
The rest were mighty f***ed off.
The End.

"Cardiff..........brilliant success"
I thought success was in the eye of the receiver!

As for NATS being in a "rabid frenzy to take over Bristol ATC". Tell me, just how rabid are we talking here, they're taking so long we've almost forgotten they exist!:zzz: