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Squawk Conspicuity

No. The releasing controller cannot know whether the pilot wants to continue VFR or IFR.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

“free sqwak en-route” ;)

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

British ATC is always so formal with their phraseology:

Farnborough Radar: “Basic Service Only due to volume of traffic, limited radar performance and controller workload”

Bremen Information: “The sun has got his hat on, my screen is full of 7000 squawks, be careful and have a nice flight!” (not made up – he said “es stehen sieben Sonnen am Himmel…”)

Biggin Hill

Emir wrote:

I’m trying to correctly pronounce “Conspicuity” whole afternoon and I’m not progressing much

Same here and I’m a native speaker…..

dublinpilot wrote:

I can see lots of “What?” “Say Again” from foreign pilots. I certainly don’t think it’s bringing the UK more into line with other countries. I’ve not heard it anywhere.

Reminds me of when our club first flew to the UK and although I’d briefed them about the peculiarities, of what to expect, I can remember chuckling as one of the club was met by a rather broad lancastrian accent asking them to “pass yer mussage” and the response, via 123.45 was ‘what the f***’?

Last Edited by Steve6443 at 20 Nov 09:20
EDL*, Germany

I read there’s an ICAO requirement for aircraft flying internationally but not talking to an ATC unit to squawk 2000. It was in a friend’s CPL theory course book, which he doesn’t have any more so can’t check the exact wording. Wikipedia says The code to be squawked when entering a secondary surveillance radar (SSR) area from a non-SSR area used as Uncontrolled IFR flight squawk code and references ICAO doc 4444 & ICAO Annex 10

EGHO-LFQF-KCLW, United Kingdom

‘Conspicuity’ – can anyone say it! What does it mean!

I fly more instrument than VFR, so am no doubt late to this issue.

Recently, on the odd UK VFR flight, when handed over from one ATC sector to another I am told to “squawk Conspicuity and free call…”. Maybe its just me, but I truly cannot pronounce this word “Conspicuity” (especially in the somewhat pressured environment of English low level VFR). I don’t have trouble with any other words in the Australian English language. It comes out of my mouth as “conspiss-quewity” or “conspi-whatever” of just “VFR” in desperation.

More important, WTF does it mean??? Does it mean squawk 7000. If so why not just say so. if it means squawk some other code, then say that FFS.

Upper Harford private strip UK, near EGBJ, United Kingdom

It means 7000 for VFR and 2000 for IFR.
Recent changes, went live early this year.

EGTR

Threads merged.

ATC here has only just started using this daft phrase – in the past few weeks.

Completely pointless, and guaranteed to confuse any pilot flying in from abroad. I had no idea what it meant, and anyway in any relevant situation you are not being handed over to another unit which might see you on radar, so setting 7000 is fine. And if you are in IMC, OCAS, not talking to a radar unit, nobody cares anyway, you aren’t getting any useful service, so 7000 is fine too

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

It’s better to read back squawking 7000 for or squawking 2000 for IFR and let them correct you. You will then know(if you on an IFR flight) whether or not on the UK have done what@ Peter often says and dropped you out of IFR when you think you are still in it.

France
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