The good thing is you don’t have to remember it because you never get traffic service in the UK anyway…
you don’t have to remember it because you never get traffic service in the UK
LOL 
That’s not actually true, guys…
Traffic service OCAS will always be dependent on controller workload, whether this is stated or not. Well, unless there is really no traffic to report, which is pretty well the case in most of Europe
Agreed.
I’ve often got a traffic service in the UK (And at weekends too, which is when I mainly fly). I think it’s a case of most people flying in the UK don’t bother to ask as they assume they won’t get it. But if you don’t ask, then you don’t get!
I’m curious to know why they decided to use the non-ICAO phraseology of “Traffic not sighted” vs. “Negative contact”.
You mean “Traffic in sight” vs. “Negative contact”…?
No. I mean what I’ve said.
I’m curious to know why they decided to use the non-ICAO phraseology of “Traffic not sighted” vs. “Negative contact”.
It does seem extraordinary that one would take a clearly distinct phraseology and turn it into something that could be more easily confused with “traffic in sight”! Perhaps it’s the word “contact” that feels wrong, as it is usually in the context of RT comms.
The majority of the changes to CAP 413 in edition 21 (now a year old) in terms of radar traffic phraseology are to be welcomed though! The “crossing ahead”, “crossing behind” and “converging” are truly useful.
I’m curious to know why they decided to use the non-ICAO phraseology of “Traffic not sighted” vs. “Negative contact”.
I wondered whether it was to be consistent with the danger area phraseology of “active” and “not active”? That was an improvement on the ambiguous “danger area closed” which could mean either closed to me or not in operation. Small words like ‘not’ are easy to lose in poor reception though.
