There is a long discussion about this topic here.

I am in the "sound good, fly professional, and they will be good and professional back to you" camp.

W

I keep launching straight at the Stansted CTR in the hope that one of these days I'll witness this legendary unfriendliness from Essex Radar and I can write to Pilot magazine in disgust. Unfortunately I've been disappointed every time as they seem to treat me with the same professionalism and positive attitude as the rest of their customers as they thread me straight through the sstream of inbounds. :)

We've all had the very occasional bad experience with ATC (and we've all had the occasional off day as pilots!) but I think it's dangerous to generalise.

OK folks,
is anyone willing to tell me they have been refused a zone transit because there RT has been poor or is it all hearsay.
The example given was in fact by the sounds of it because the person was unable to give their routing request, and yes I have refused airspace entry for that very reason as I'm obliged to know exactly your routing if I'm allowing you inside CAS.

Sounding professional on the RT is great and yes it makes my job a lot easier but rest assured you will not be refused Zone transit because you are slow or take a couple of attempts to grasp what is being said to you.

Zone transits are refused for a number of reasons not being great on the RT is not one

I would guess that an ATCO thinking about allowing a transit will gauge their response based on many factors.

Traffic conditions, speed of the requesting aircraft, accuracy with which instructions are being followed, speed and competence of readback.

In the back of the mind or otherwise, you are not going to convince me that given a tight window to get somebody across a zone, an ATCO will not use all of the information available to him/her to decide whether to offer a transit.

Everybody relaxes when the traffic volumes are lower, so perhaps RT quality is one of the first criteria to be dropped in slack times?

Not for nothing is Communicate placed closely behind Aviate and Navigate.


Charlie

Flower

How much are you talking for yourself, for Cardiff ATC or for ATCOs the length and breadth of the land, d'ya reckon?

Cardiff is great, but the demands on it must be much less than on Thames, Luton or Brum (d'ya agree?). Maybe you have a greater luxury in being able to let people through that you are less confident in?

W

If I had only ever worked at Cardiff , had absolutely no contact with my colleagues at other units and thought in isolation then your comments would be true.
I find it quite awful that you would think that we consider that people who's RT isn't top notch are unworthy of zone transits.

For those who actually know and understand Cardiff's Airspace they would be aware that although we haven't the ATM's of places such as Birmingham we have a much more complex traffic situation with another airfield situated within our zone in which fast military aircraft fly (and yes I know Birmingham very well having worked there for many years)
All the comments are assumptions they are not based on fact, if anyone can prove it to me prove it.
If the zone is to busy , if there is instrument training going on, perhaps a navigation aid has failed making the controllers job more intense then yes a zone transit is unlikely. I see others have said that if they don't transpond they don't ask for zone transit, why not if we can identify you what is the problem. (I believe it is a fellow ATCO who said that and perhaps he is aware of local difficulties there)

Of course I would far rather everyone was great at RT and I don't think enough emphasis is placed on it in training but to be refused a transit ,sorry guys thats cobblers.

Flower

I don't think you are seeing the point.

Me thinks that WCollins is quite correct. I personally don't refuse a zone transit purely because the person is stumbling on the RT, but I do refuse IF it is busy and I can't afford to spend time nurturing them. To sum: I am penalizing them (for want of a better word) because I am too busy - not for being poor on the RT.

When it is not busy, we do all we can to help people - but if busy a short, sharp request and readback increases the likelihood of a crossing immensely!

I see on the CWL plate that you have 7 or 8 of routes published that you can let VFR aircraft fly, with 8 r 9 VRP's. Oh for that luxury.

Without pee-ing off my chums at Cardiff - if you are doing LARS and Approach on one freq it can't be that busy!!!

http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/stupid.gif

We do not do LARS and approach on one frequency and if you saw our new airspace you would see that we have an intensely large chunk of airspace which is very complex, however all zone transits are placed on the approach frequency so that all aircraft flying within the zone are on the same frequency.

We have airways upto FL165 which extend in total to 140 miles we have a busy LARS service and are an approach unit to to a Military airfield , we do the intermediate approach to most traffic into Bristol, and a number into Exeter and Swansea , as we have a UHF frequency we have a great deal of military aircraft flying receiving a service, it is without a doubt one of the most interesting radar units in the country and we do our damnedest to provide the best service we can, however I do not believe we are unique in doing do.

A bite in record time?!?!?

back to the thread...........

http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/air...FMSonabout.gif

I'm with Bright-Ling ;)


VA

Bright ling
just perhaps I am trying to tell people to try for airspace transits even if they are not to hot on the RT .
having to advise you that even a complex unit such as Cardiff does it with no qualms is supposed to let people know we arn't all ar***oles trying to catch people out.

Think Ive bitten then so be it, but maybe some of us here arn't interested in scoring points and wish to offer practical and encouraging advice to people

Well done you!!

No-one I know is trying to catch pilots out - just agreeing with all except you that R/T is important if you want to do a complex or exact crossing. We will help when we can, but sometimes we are too busy and have little airspace (I dream of saying FL160!!)

cheers VA (I trust yr rtn leg was quicker last night??!)

http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/mica/1signrunaway.gif

Flower,
I'm not at all an expert on this, but it's accepted to the point of being common knowledge among helicopter pilots, that if you want to fly the London Helicopter Routes your RT has to sound professional or they'll ask you to route around. Heathrow is really busy, and just can't cope with heli pilots who can't follow instructions quickly. And a Heathrow ATCO once told me in chat that he told an R44 to get out of the zone because "he didn't know what he was doing"...sounded like he was unsure on the RT. I know the London Heli-routes aren't typical, but there must be other places with that sort of workload, whojust haven't got the time to nurse people along. At least, I would have thought so.

Add my vote to the professional RT believers' side.


2D


(Vintage ATCO and I had a lovely run back last night <1 hr.)

flower,

That was me.

There's no problem or local difficulties, I just try to use the radio as little as possible when flying, maybe because I use it all day when I'm at work :)

I know I can be turned or whatever to be identified for a zone transit, but if all the extra hassle on what is just a pleasant little jolly is only going to save me five or ten minutes, why bother? Just the way I see/do it.

----

When doing the day job there are only two things I think I probably consider when I get a call for zone transits or a request for a radar service outside CAS (non LARS unit), and they are volume of other traffic (primarily the paying customers) and my workload, and all situations are different.

Zone transits should be relatively straightforward if a little common sense is applied in the flight planning stages. I know it's Class D, (we're talking Gatwick here) but if you ask to route through a 5 mile final at 1,500ft it just isn't going to happen for reasons that have been covered on these fora and many others before. But a clearance won't be refused, it will be modified slightly from what was requested.

RIS outside CAS is dependent on many things, not the least of which is that neither of the units I do approach for are LARS units. That said at Gatwick we do provide FIS on demand and most will provide RIS if at all possible. RIS is a time consuming task though, both in terms of r/t usage and having to keep scanning for conflicting traffic. If busy with IFRs and sequencing it is not always possible to guarantee that one will be able to devote the necessary amount of time to the task (RIS). It's not acceptable to say you'll provide the RIS and then fail to call conflicting traffic because you didn't notice it as you were too busy doing something else. Bye bye licence, employment and probably freedom for a while in that scenario if anything goes wrong.

Also always worth bearing in mind is that for the main London airports (which are all non LARS units), providing services to VFR traffic at the lower levels outside (and inside) CAS is officially not a priority. We have standing instructions that such traffic is not to interfere with normal IFR airways traffic operating into and out of the airfields.

Not ideal from the GA point of view, but these are the rules we have to work within.

Enough rambling.

WF

p.s. r/t standards......it's usually obvious whether it is a nervous/new PPL or an older hand who for whatever reason is incapable of using the r/t proficiently. Both can be handled in an appropriate manner.

Flower

Wow! what a lot of posts since yesterday evening.

I only wanted to point out that I asked questions, I didn't make allegations. :)

As I said on the other thread, I always fly in straight lines, regardless of airspace (exception being Manch), I fly quite a lot, and I am very, very rarely refused (I think three times in the last couple of years, twice at LCY and once at LUT). That is probably out of a total of several hundred requests.

If everyone had that record (let's say 98% success), threads such as these simply wouldn't exist.

Therefore the average success must be lower than mine. Why should it be? There are a number of possible explanations (the kit I fly - an Aztec - is a little faster than average; I fly more in the week than at weekends; I can accept IFR or VFR etc) but I still believe that the main factor is that I have been flying a long time (32 years) both as an amateur and a pro and have developed the "voice", know what I want and where I want to go and I know the buttons to press. My ATCO friends in the SE seem to agree.

But hey! If you let people through without regard to their apparent skill level or RT clarity more power to your elbow, I'm all for it!

W

I had not wanted to post on this again as it seems that people vehemently disagree with me.
The helicopter routes within the Heathrow zone are complex and require a great deal of skill to follow, Whirly again the suggestion you gave to me was that the ATCO felt the Pilot hadn't understood what was required of him/her.
We have a gentlemen who flys out of my airfield who's piloting skills can not be questioned however his RT is atrocious. Two of our instructors based at Cardiff first language is not English and they can sound to those not used to them as not to hot on the RT.
Just 3 people who fly locally but other airfields would by your definition not allow them to transit whereas they are all excellent pilots.
99% of the time my RT is spot on , perfect then i get that one moment where my tongue sticks to my mouth and gibberish comes out, the Flight crews be they professional or GA must think they have an idiot controlling them at that time.
There is no doubt good RT is an asset and i think people should work very hard on it but as has been mentioned on more than one post both here in Private Flyers and the ATC forums it is well down the list of priorities.
Gut feeling is a wonderful tool, and one by which many controllers operate, the system in use at my unit by the majority of ATCOs is that the LARS crosser will have called up on the LARS frequency advised they are looking for zone transit . The LARS controller will at some point in time co-ordinate with the approach controller for a zone transit, by which time it would be fair to say a picture of the pilots skills may have been established, should there be any concerns maybe an alternative clearance will be given however someone with limited skills too probably requires the direct routing rather than the extended routing around the zone.
I have yet to to establish that poor RT skills go hand in hand with poor piloting skills.
RT should be worked at it isn't hard but if people with poor RT skills feel they will be penalized then the likelihood of them contacting an ATC unit diminishes and there skills may never improve.
Maybe I'm on a mission who knows but I say again I will not judge your piloting skills on your RT only on your piloting skills

flower,

I hope I didn't sound vehement; I didn't intend to be...but I occasionally get accused of it so I'll make that clear anyway. ;)

The London Heli-Routes do require a certain amount of skill to follow...they're not that hard if you slow down and you have the relevant map. However, they don't necessarily require good RT skills. As you've said, the two don't necessarily go together...especially in the case where the pilot's first language is not English - good example of yours. Yet most of the helicopter pilots and instructors I know seem to agree that your first radio call must be good, or Heathrow won't let you in the zone. The example I gave before was perhaps not a good one; the problem could have been piloting skills not RT. But I'm just wondering if:

a) The London Heli-Routes are a special case, for access and RT fluency required
b) All of us heli pilots have got it wrong as to what's required (not unheard of ;) )
c) Heathrow are of course really busy, and maybe the same thing could happen in other zones if they're really busy.

I'm not arguing with you; I'd just like to know. And I think it's absolutely fantastic, and as it should be, that you personally give people clearances if you can, regardless of their RT standards. I'm just not yet convinced that all your colleagues do the same.

I've crossed many a CTR/CTA in Southern and North-East England, most frequently Luton and Solent, I've only ever been rejected once and that was by Solent, however it was the usual gin-clear summer weekend scenario with every man and his dog calling for CTR crossing, so was probably a workload-related refusal.

Re the London Zone heli-routes.

R/T quality was never an issue for me, what was a major issue, because of the proximity of the routes to Heathrow traffic, was how accurately they were flown both lateraly and vertically.

When flying the routes you are usually being watched by a controller who's prime function is to control a/c flying these routes and their vicinity so transgressions will be picked up very quickly.

I don't think you'd be refused access because your r/t wasn't 100% perfect, but if once in you prove you can't fly the routes accurately don't be surprised if you are invited to leave the zone by the shortest possible routeing.

A number of incidents of heli's following the A4 instead of the M4 eventually led to that part of H2 being closed permanently.

It's nothing personal in such cases, it's a flight safety issue.

WF.