When did airway colour naming end?
 

When did Amber become Alpha and Red Romeo?

ISTR mid eighties, but others are saying mid nineties.

I'm pretty sure is was the eighties rather than the nineties, but I can't be any more precise than that.

Early 90s, then all the desgnations changed again Europe wide in about 2002 eg Green 1 became Golf 1 then Lima 9.(You figure it out, I can't)

Some interesting history on Green One here. The Green One

It would seem that even by the mid-1950s, airways had started to be identified on charts just by the first letter of their colour (so "G1" rather than "Green One"), and presumably in the same way on flightplans, etc, though I certainly recall airways clearance readbacks, for example, quoting "White Nine, Amber One", etc in the 60s.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....773977f7fd.jpg



So the change from "Green" to "Golf", when it came, wouldn't have resulted in any change to airways charts, though of course it would have been apparent on R/T.

I was labouring under the misconception that it was was still Green 1, etc! :)

What does ASR stand for? Chatham ASR, Lundy ASR, etc... I naturally think Air Sea Rescue, but somehow Barnsley seems a bit strange... Radar?

Tread - it's Altimeter Setting Region.

Interesting chart. I remember Green 2 as the Blue Way - ,Blue 1 from Otringham. Also Amber 25 I'd missing.

David Gunson wouldn't be impressed.

PN

Bunny Gunson, ex-Coastal Siggie then CAA ATCO at Brum', well known for his after dinner talks about ATC - very funny but with a lot of poetic licence as I think he only ever worked as an ATCO at Brum'. I've just seen you've deleted your post PN - to make sense of this post PN put ???? after Dook's reference to David Gunson.

ATC after dinner speaker.

"what goes up might come down".

Very famous speech.

Part of it was how to give instructions to pilots.

This is not accurate but you'll get the idea:

"You go up the green one, then the red one and then the blue one".

I remember the last line:

"And does anyone know why the toilets in Concorde have frosted glass ?

Ah! Obvious! Thanks!

I wonder what the Transition Altitude was in those days ('50s).

I don't know; the inclusion of ASRs on the IFR chart might indicate that the TA is very high or even that at the time of printing, ISA hadn't even been adopted.

No, the TA was definitely 3,000 feet.

In the Varsity nav trainer the rear crew altimeter had the ability to set SPS (1013.2) but not QFE or QNH. Before take-off we would zero the altimeter giving us an effective QFE. Passing transition we would reset the altimeter by adjusting the setting until a white line was aligned which gave us 1013.

On descent to base we had no direct means of resetting to QFE, nor were we taught to calculate the difference between SPS and QFE and adjust the altimeter by the appropriate number of feet.

Not quite sure why but In those days, 1962, our navigation ceased at the entry point some 15 miles from base when we were picked up for an ACR7 approach. Our base had no nav aids except the pundit.

NRU74, indeed you are correct (57 years ago) :)

kcockayne, the lowest even flight level is 40. I can't recall whether the quadrantal system applied within the airway but either was 40 was the lowest westbound flight level.

Transitioning from QNH SPS and a flight level depended on the transition layer. FL30 could be above or below TA. If it was below TA the next available FL would be 35 or higher depending on magnetic course being flown.

Then the allocated FL also had to allow for safety altitude. This would be the MSFL or minimum safe flight level.

Are Purple Airways still created for short periods,or did that concept disappear when the Royal Flight was disbanded ?

Ex82, apparently no longer used but Royal Low Level Corridors are used for helos.

The earliest AERADs I have are from 1970/'71, and the TA, outside CAS was generally 3000'.

In the EGCC TMA, in 1979, TA was 4000', allegedly because of the proximity of 2 of The U.K.'s highest land-based obtsructions. Winter Hill and Holme Moss were both close to 2,500' AMSL.

Zooker, I think the Lyneham and Honington zones were also much higher but I can't remember specifics. Both were larger zones because of the congested military airspace. In the case of Lyneham it pushed the lowest airway FL up. East of Lyneham the lowest height was 5,000 and to the West 7,000 with the Brecons causing it to be higher still.

Thanks Pontius,

I'll have to dig them out and check. I'm always on the lookout for aeronautical/airways charts dated between 1945 to 1971. If you have any, or know someone who has, please get in touch.

It's for my own personal interest, but also for GATCO's atchistory project.

Do an image search for the chart at #4. You will find a blog up That may interest you.

"Bugger! I thought I had reached the age of retirement without missing anything. Now I will never be able to fly the Concorde to find out :-)

PN,thanks for that.- I'd forgotten about the LLCs.

Flight levels on Airways were not allocated according to the Quadrantal Rule ie odd 500' levels were not used.Generally,even levels were used for Westbound flights,odd levels used for Eastbounds.There would ALWAYS be 1000' between aircraft when separation was provided by height alone.However,above FL 290,the minimum vertical separation was 2000',thus the first available level above this would have been FL310.Bear in mind however,that airways were etablished only in the lower airspace(FIR),up to FL245.Above that lay the UIR (Upper Information Region),which was all controlled Airspace (Special Rules Airspace to be exact),and there were not Airways,but Upper Air Routes.Things have now changed of course,with the advent of RMVSAs (Reduced Minimum Vertical Separation Areas),and 1000' separation is pretty much standard at all levels.

The 'Royal Flight' was not disbanded, it wae elevated to squadron status and still exists in the form of No 32 (The Royal) Sqdn RAF.
Purple airspace was dispensed with however and if and when extra airspace for Royal Flights is required, AUS will notify the creation of temporary controlled airspace in the form of a Class D CTR around departure and destination airfields plus temporary Class A airways joining the Class D CTRs to the national airways system.

RLLCs are not regulated airspace but are merely advisory for the benefit of other trffic.

ACR7 or Decca 424 as it was known in the civilian world was a 3 cm pencil beam radar suitable for providing half mile SRAs; it had no glidepath element therefore its decision height sorry 'procedure minima' was higher than that used for PARs.
I saw the ACR7 at Topcliffe in 1971 when I was there for summer camp, there was another at Lindholme until late 1972 and as far as I'm aware, only one survives at Lasham airfield however this has got serviceability problems due lack of spares. Talkdownman of these pages is one of the controllers at Lasham.

Disbanded in the sense that that particular name ceased. What happened to the Captain of the Queen's Flight? Does the sqn cdr hold that historic title of has it lapsed?

Slight thread drift, but when did TA come down to 3000ft? AFIR in the 50s it was up at something like 10000ft. Below that we were all on QNH - no QFE even in the circuit - which meant mental arithmetic for BABS/ACR7 approaches.

Thank you Binbrook; that's what I suspected and why I queried the depiction of ASRs on the IFR airways chart; there would be no need to depict the ASRs if the TA was 3,000ft as everybody would be using ISA.

A further thought - AFAIR the upper limit of UK airways in the 50s was something like 12000ft, not that we had the nav kit to use them. I have a vague memory that we could go through airways at X000+500ft, but maybe that was only in emergency. Anyone out there got an old RAFAC?

Chevron, we used the Regional pressure setting in the event of flight below transition away from an airfield so that everyone would be measuring altitude on a common datum.

It was also to calculate the MSFL.