In my opinion "Radar heading" is only good use of phraseology when used by pilots when they check on to a new frequency intending to tell the new controller the aircraft has been assigned this heading by the last controller. That is to aviod the new controller to believe that the aircraft is still inbound some fix and just reporting his present heading for information.

I think "Radar heading" should not be used by controllers. I think better phraseology for "make present heading a radar heading" would be just "continue present heading".

Just my opinion :)

C172pilot

Thinking about this, the magic words might be 'track direct to' as opposed to 'route direct to'. ANSA the AIP in oz requires the pilot to 'immediately position on track' once within range of an aid. So if you fly into range of a VOR, and are not on the correct radial, you are supposed to get on it immediately (in practice, an intercept is flown). Therefor if the instruction is to 'track direct to' and the pilot is navigating the old fashioned way (with reference to ground aids), he may be perfectly entitled to perform some unexpected manouvre. He's probably not in RNP5 airspace though!
We all get a bit used to the modern RNAV equipment I think, allowing the pilot to indeed 'track direct to...'

Radars don't give heading, Controllers give headings <G>;) ;)

will vector for pints

Scott

Well Said Scott!! :D :D

Actual example from two days ago: (solid IFR)

Colleague is approach control for only one C650 pointing nicely to 8 miles final.

Controller sets up for short approach and give:

"Descent to altitude 1.500 ft., QNH xxxx" (Minimum Safe Altitude 2.200)

Pilot: "Confirm this is radar control"

App: "Affirm, request your heading?"

Pilot (laughing): "325" :D

IFR should always be given a heading which will always be terrain safe. VFR should always be told to track. If a VFR a/c is given a heading then the a/c must be told to advise ATC if they cannot maintain VMC and also that it is their responsibility to maintain terrain clearance.

In the US if you are VFR then the only headings that you will get in the enroute environment are suggested headings. In a terminal environment you will get assigned headings. It is ALWAYS incumbent on the pilot in the US to advise if the heading can not be accepted to remain VFR...

regards

Scott

the heading shown on the label of the radar screen, what heading is that?
what i mean is aircraft told to flying heading say,180, the label is actually showing 190 because of strong easterly wind.

We don't have anything showing the heading of the aircraft. We figure that out ourselves <G>...

regards

Scott:p

Just going to point this thread in a slightly different direction (heading?). Just about all our traffic is A320/321, and SRA's are the only method of making an instrument approach. About 90% of pilots announce they will be flying the approach using 'track'. (I gather this is something to do with an Airbus recommendation that all non-precision approaches be flown using track/fpa.) If I stick to the book and give magnetic headings it gets confusing trying to work out whether it's me or the aeroplane trying to correct for drift, or even if the pilot is taking my headings, mentally correcting for drift himself, and inputting his track figure into the FMS. However, if I pass track instructions it makes the SRA eezy-peezy: just vector the a/c onto the centreline, give him the r/w QDM and voila! the aircraft's electronic gizmo's fly straight down the centreline. No more of this 'Turn left 5 degrees, turn right five degrees' rubbish. Big question though. How legal is it? SRG haven't made any adverse comments. Anybody else come up against this problem?