Law always supersedes ICAO documents, which aren’t law. Under FAA law, you receive a take-off clearance, a landing clearance and a clearance into a Class B airspace, and in those cases hearing the word ‘cleared’ is very important. You do not hear that word whe entering when entering US Class C or D airspace. The is no ambiguity under FAA law, as Peter pointed out in the first post FAA law and practice is very well established, and within the US ICAO documents have no regulatory relevance.
You don’t see separation as being relevant to removing “obstacles” in a very physical sense?
That sounds strange to me. Separation means moving two or more objects away from each other, there is no removing of parts involved.
Wasn’t there a reform of radio phraseology a while back where one removed the word “cleared” from most phrases except some like “cleared for take-off”, “cleared to land” and maybe a few others?
IOW most clearances will not contain the word “cleared” to avoid confusion.
Aviathor wrote:
Wasn’t there a reform of radio phraseology a while back where one removed the word “cleared” from most phrases except some like “cleared for take-off”, “cleared to land” and maybe a few others?
There was, but as I recall it was a long time ago — the 1990s? The reform was to remove “cleared” from phrases that were not actual clearances. (E.g. “cleared to leave my frequency”, “cleared to push back”, “cleared through restricted area RRR”)
Airborne_Again wrote:
The reform was to remove “cleared” from phrases that were not actual clearances.
You mean, ones where separation was not involved. 
bookworm wrote:
You mean, ones where separation was not involved.
Right you are! I can see what you are getting at…
Airborne_Again wrote:
I can see what you are getting at…
But in fact clearances are not given just to achieve separation, but also to achieve an expeditious and orderly flow of traffic, which is the second responsibility of ATC. E.g. radar vectors to an approach are clearances but are — particularly at low traffic density airports — often not given with the primary purpose of achieving separation but to expedite traffic. The same holds for clearances to particular approach fixes.
- and AFIS airports in G airspace. As uncontrolled as it can be, and usually low traffic, so no problems with logistics. In fact the only reason to have a person in the tower is to assure separation of commercial flights and IFR. No clearances given, but separation is assured through radio and information from the tower.
Thinking about it, the only time explicitly asking for a clearance is when starting up in a CTR; " – request clearance for leaving the control zone .." for instance. When entering I never request a clearance, but sometimes I get one sometimes just “proceed towards XYZ via ABC”. Landing is always a clearance, but I never request a clearance to land.
Maybe the whole clearance thing is just semantic mumbo jumbo ? No one seems to know exactly what a clearance means anyway, other than the semantic context.
Airborne_Again wrote:
But in fact clearances are not given just to achieve separation, but also to achieve an expeditious and orderly flow of traffic, which is the second responsibility of ATC. E.g. radar vectors to an approach are clearances but are — particularly at low traffic density airports — often not given with the primary purpose of achieving separation but to expedite traffic. The same holds for clearances to particular approach fixes.
Radar vectors and clearances to particular approach fixes (e.g. “route direct XYZ”) are, in effect, amendments to clearances. But in both cases there is a promise of separation from other IFR traffic* by ATC, and the amendment to the clearance achieves it. In effect the controller is saying “if you follow these instructions you will be separated”.
*Except in class G in the UK where it’s only from other IFR traffic getting a procedural service from the same ATC unit. But we’re weird like that.
LeSving wrote:
Maybe the whole clearance thing is just semantic mumbo jumbo ? No one seems to know exactly what a clearance means anyway, other than the semantic context.
Probably the truest assertion on this thread. We should go flying instead of debating semantics.
