squawk ident
 

I recall several years ago a memo from ATC (Scottish) asking pilots not to squawk ident unless asked.

My reason for asking, I have noticed an increased number of pilots contacting departure and squawking ident on initial contact prior to being asked. Their reason being, they know full well they will be asked to by ATC. But from a (Pilot) training point of view am I correct in saying that we should not ident unless asked to do so?

You are correct, ident only when asked.

ISTR a year or two ago when pilot's were getting into the habit of doing it without being instructed, there was a NOTAM issued by the UK CAA that was valid for a few months.

CW,
Absolutely correct on your part.

From the controller's POV an ident not associated with a specific instruction to do so should not be used for verification. If a target "idents" on a controller's display before being instructed to so, it would (or should) raise some alarm bells to the controller. There are a lot of reasons why some control transfers involve a new request to squawk ident while others don't. And there are situations (albeit rare) where an incorrect data tag is displayed, or even "tag swapping", occurs; in which case an "ident" without an instruction to do so could be a contributing factor to an incident.

One of the main reasons not to do such a thing until instructed is that it just causes more comms from both sides. If I, as a controller, am operating according to appropriate manuals and directives, and you (the pilot) squawk ident without being instructed to do so, the least I must do is to ask you if that was you who just squawked ident. You then must confirm. More comms added. Under ICAO rules I would have to ask you to squawk again. Even more comms -- and time -- used.

In essence what such crews are doing (those who squawk ident without an instruction to do so) is what we are all taught not to do: assume something.

Happens constantly in the LTMA. Pilots get airborne and call "London Control, ABC123, SID123A, passing 3000 for 6000, Squawking Ident".

The controller should respond with an instruction to squawk ident... because of the reasons already given.

Invariably, the pilot will not read back the instruction (which is wrong because they are supposed to and more importantly it is also the final step in proving serviceable 2 way communications). Observance of compliance with the instruction means nothing if the pilot dos not respond verbally - although we know that it is more than likely identing in response to our instruction, as Grizzled said, we cannot assume.

Also, although I don't care because I know I am in the right, I often get the feeling that pilots must think that ATCOs do not listen to them, because after all (as far as some pilots must be thinking), they got airborne stating they are squawking ident - if ATCOs were listening properly, then they wouldn't ask pilots to squawk ident again :ugh:

I think the reason pilots do it is because they know they will be asked to as soon as they are airborne, therefore they mistakenly believe they are helping us out!