Can we get back on topic?
What was the topic?
Peter wrote:
There is no practical need to pass one’s FL, to any radar unit (and nearly all ATC doing CAS has radar) because they can see your FL.
Excellent videos…I believe you need to pass your passing or maintaining altitude on first contact with radar or departures so they can verify your encoder…after that there should be no need.
On first contact with all new sectors you should tell them “direct xxxxx” or “radar heading xxx” so they can confirm that you are going where they think you are going…
Maybe I’m pedantic but numbers should be prefixed by “heading” or “altitude” or “flight level” or “squawk xxxx”….
Like all these things, if you think through what information they want, and why, it’s obvious.
AnthonyQ wrote:
I believe you need to pass your passing or maintaining altitude on first contact with radar or departures so they can verify your encoder…
That’s exactly the reason. As Peter said, “they can see your FL”, so what they see has better be right!
Airborne_Again wrote:
That’s exactly the reason. As Peter said, “they can see your FL”, so what they see has better be right!
It’s like that in the US.
When you initially call up London Control, they ask you your altitude. That happens at say 2000-3000ft and serves to “confirm your transponder” for the rest of your flight. You don’t need to pass it to any unit afterwards, presumably because each one (a) knows your cleared level and (b) sees your Mode C altitude.
I always on a handover give my cleared altitude/FL and radar heading or waypoint I am going to.
I do too, although strictly speaking the waypoint isn’t necessary. I’ve taken the (bad) habit of giving my passing altitude as well, need to stop that.
I was very recently taught by my instructor to give my passing altitude, cleared altitude and heading or inbound waypoint.
One needs to consider what the next unit actually needs to know. What it needs to know on a typical IFR flight in the Eurocontrol system (actually very little apart from your reg, due to generally good ATC unit coordination) is very different to what it needs to know on a typical IFR flight in UK Class G or VFR or IFR at some low level anywhere else in Europe.
A lot of this comes only from experience and there are no written rules. For example in the UK, Class G hacking about, one often passes one’s squawk as well as the next few waypoints. But even that has been changing, with units calling ahead with your reg and the next unit’s squawk assigned just before the handover.
In the Eurocontrol system, listening to other traffic (99% of it being airliners) is useful. They say very little. They also often say it badly, with nonstandard stuff, so you don’t want to copy that bit
If ATC need to know more, or need to know something unusual, they will ask.
This is better than doing what one hears so often on the radio which is someone reading out War and Peace (usually doing what they were taught by the FI who has never flown past the crease on his map ). Especially a UK pilot doing this in France with a lot of “conversational English” thrown in, which just produces a bewildered pause followed by “G-XXXX radar contact”
