I always found the phrase 'continue on present heading 'til advised' to be very useful.

The number of civilian aircraft under IFR that are not capable of flying accurate and consistent tracks to a waypoint are very few are far between nowadays.

Flight Plans already have the ability to indicate PBN status and have done for some time now. The ANSPs have the information at their fingertips and the technology is there onboard, to eliminate headings when out of the terminal area at least.

NATS have seemed to dipped their toe in the water with embracing the advance in navigation technology with some RNAV departures but technology is advancing quicker than they are! Not having a dig at ATCOs either!

In this anti-PBN, anti-concentration, anti-aircraft(!) environment, which airport would willingly go to consult on introducing PBN SIDs?

I remember listening to a certain TC controller handling Brecon direction departures from Heathrow; his standard phrase was 'any heading you like in the general direction of New York'.

Well that explains some of the traffic positioning we get on S23 then :)

The problem is not just different routes aren't 'deemed' separated, but that lots of big flying things want to fly the same routes at the same time. I imagine some of them would be clever enough to fly an offset right, offset left, one up the middle etc, but then of course you have the added fun that the route next to that one then needs to be offset, and so on. The present system is far from perfect, but PBN will not solve most of it...

The problem with that is that 95% of the time it is delivered while we are in a turn! It goes along with the fact that you always wait until we have put some food in our mouth before issuing an instruction or have come to a stop at a holding point (with nothing on approach) before clearing us to line up.

Not a rant, just the way it always works ;)

Flap40

Like when we say" no speed restriction" and then get asked two minutes later "are we still speed restricted?" Humans eh, roll on the robots.

Flap 40
 

It's a bit like the many occasions I said to a crew, ' Are you ready immediate ?', ' Yes ' came the reply, with the next arrival plainly in view 4 miles away. Our heroes then take squatter's rights on the runway and the inbound has to go-around, - of course with the takeoff clearance cancelled for the 'helpful' crew.

Not a rant! Only saying!

Back to my bath chair!

I'm going to ripple the water, radar headings are not the best form of separation. Two aircraft routing on their own navigation with separation constant or increasing is far safer, the aircraft can fly accurately and allow for wind drift, headings do not. Sadly as another poster has said, how can you not use headings when two aircraft are flying one on top of another along the same route, there is not much else a controller can do (but it is still possible, but only under certain circumstances where a direct routing cuts a dogleg out so one is short cut, the other left on track and then aircraft now trailed with speed control). It all depends on your ATC discipline, there are areas of the job where this just simply wouldn't work, but times are changing and so are controlling techniques.

The biggest issue in the UK is getting the government to grow a pair and force through low level airspace change and not be intimidated by the general public. I cannot wait to see the fallout for the new routes to/from the new runway in London, they cannot just be stuck onto existing routes so other routes that will come into confliction will have to be moved, someone will be upset by this.

Free route airspace is a lovely concept that works as long as you can reduce the flow by around 50%. The UK has so many congested areas that free routing just cannot happen, unless you can guarantee missing the 5 main Heathrow arrival routes just to begin to give a reason why......

A few years ago, as passenger on a flight from New York to London, I was listening to the inbound aircraft. One pilot requested a direct from his position to a point convenient for him to begin his LHR approach, ATC declined.

The pilot asked again a bit later, same request. ATC said I cannot let you fly direct because you would be transiting a danger zone.

Whereupon another nameless listener suggested "Go for it!"

I bet I wasn't the only one laughing.