Cleared for the ILS at LHR
 

About 2-3 months ago I understood that an update was issued on the use of phraseology at Heathrow from the separate commands of "Report Eastablished" and "Descend with the ILS" (or roughly equivalent phrases) to the one that is used more often across Europe of "Cleared for the ILS".

At the moment, turning base into LHR I occasionally hear "Once established, descend with the glidepath" but not the shorthand version. Is there a reason or reluctance to use it?

The approach charts for the EGLL ILS show a platform altitude of 2500ft, therefore unless an aircraft has been cleared to descend to 2500ft or below for the intercept, it cannot be "cleared for ILS approach," but it can be instructed to descend on the glidepath. Since intercept altitudes are typically 3000ft or 4000ft, the original phraseology is still appropriate.

Funny how times change, "when I were a lad" we used to get reprimanded for saying "descend on the glidepath" instead of descend on the I.L.S." The rationale beingboth localiser and glide path were used.

In future will it be "descend with the teeney weeney signal in space"?

SGC

Or "Descend for 2 minutes on high" aka microwave!