<<Personally, I think it was a way of "showing off"......... in much the same way as Heathrow has a DIRECTOR to show how big and importand it is >>

Well thank you, sir! I had no idea I was so well thought of!!!

HD

Re: Difference between Approach/Departure & Radar.
 

Field In Sight,

I'm a controller and I'm confused by the answers provided by my brethern from across the pond.

Anyway, in the US, Approach is used for acft inbound to the primary and or satellite airports, and for overflights.

Departure is used for acft that have departed the primary or satellite airports within my airspace.

Granted I have good Radar coverage where I can see acft on the runway at FWA and I can see them out of 1800 off my satellite airports.

Things are so much easier over here,

Mike

I may be wrong, but I thought that "RADAR" only applied to an ATCRU.

I know Brize still uses the term Radar but that's because they couldn't think of a way to differentaite between LARS and Radar Approach when they lost their Area Radar status.

WBS

In the military - yes, but not in the civil world.

MATS 1 App E 3.1. They give a table of ATC service against R/T suffix used.

It's interesting to note the comments about Radar:So reading that suggests that if you're a Radar controller doing arrivals and departures then radar is what you say.

CM

CM, that's why you have a yellow book and I am a mere military puke.:D :D :D

WBS

Maybe I have got a 'yellow peril' - but I still remember my roots ;)

All the best :)

CM

Field in site, If you place 50 ATco's in a room you will get at least 50 different answers.
It does depend on where and how you were trained.
Personally if I am sat in front of a radar I am always "radar", if I should answer the phone for the radar controller as they are busy I call myself "approach" as I would then be providing a procedural service (some of us do still hold those ratings in Nats and no I am not old)



:rolleyes:

All very confusing. At our unit some of us who can't remember who we are just use the callsign with no suffix. At least then you don't call yourself app or rad when you're in the twr and vice versa. All very illegal of course but hey!

It does get a little confusing at times. I regularly fly past one such airfield (Coventry) that sometimes has radar available, sometimes not.

Sometimes I wish a radar info service, sometimes in better weather I am happy with a flight info.

I get round the problem by calling just the airfield name on Approach freq. and waiting for the ATC reply, suffixed with "approach" or "radar" before making the appropriate request.

Sometimes, if it's obviously very busy for the "radar" controller we just ask for flight info anyway to help ease his workload a bit.