Air Traffic Control in Europe Is It Applicable to Australia

SRA/SRZ/MATZ are treated by the pilot in the same manner as controlled airspace, requiring clearances to fly in/through. MATZ are quite different to miliary airspace in Australia-they are little chunks of airspace (a circle of 5nm radius centred on the ART, 0-3,000ft AGL, with stubs of additional 5nm in length by 4nm width, 1·3,000ft AGL, aligned in the directions of the principal runway), unlike any military airfield in Australia, which is buried within a massive ‘R’ area.

Every civilian pilot flying in the UK is allowed (subject to clearance) to penetrate any MATZ anytime in the course of expedient en route operation- simply call on the zone frequency to ensure that it is clear of military traffic and to maintain separation. Such an easing of passage through military zones would certainly be a welcome change in Australia.

The MATZ ATC agencies also provide a very useful radar based flight following service: to explain-as described in the UK Air Pilot (equivalent to our AIP), flight OCTA can be either VFR or IFR, no different to Australia; however the customary practice of the UK aviation community is that of ascribing a flight as being VFR or IFR depending on whether it is conducted OCTA or airways respectively, that is all – the operational consequence is that a ‘VFR’ flight may possibly be flown IMC (this I find difficult to reconcile and would not like to see it become a customary descriptor usage in the Australian FIRs. The MATZ ATC units provide a Lower Airspace Radar Service (LARS) across about three-quarters of England; upon request, participating LARS units can provide a radar information service, appropriate to VMC flight, wherein visual separation from informed traffic can be maintained by the pilot – or a radar advisory service, appropriate to IMC flight and wherein ATC provide radar vectors in order to maintain positive separation from other traffic (often consisting of radar returns from non-participating traffic at unknown heights).

This is definitely the service that I would like to see in Australia -from military sector radar operators. Operating in a less dense traffic environment, Australian mil sector radar operators could, I am sure, integrate all civilian traffic requiring expeditious routing near or through mil CTRs or R areas – such as north from Adelaide (through EON), west from Sydney (through Richmond), west/SW from Moorabbin (through LAV/PCK) etc. Flying abeam Upper Heyford (with its F-111 traffic), or abeam Greenham Common or Brize Norton for example (with their heavy transport traffic), one finds it extremely difficult to see the argument against such a system.

It should also be pointed out that LARS units provide these services over areas that extend a good distance from the appropriate MATZ; for example, flying north from the Isle of Wight you can take an advisory service from Boscombe Radar as far as the Cotswolds, past Heathrow Zone. The other point to mention is that the controllers take flight details over the radio upon first contact, not from any flight plan (except rarely). Flight OCTA, VFR or IFR, within the UK FIRs is conducted normally without submission of flight plans, unless flying well offshore (for which submission is only advised, not required). For CTA or international flying, a plan (in the !CAO format) is submitted.

SAR

After taking considerable time in the early days of my flying in Australia to get used to the flight following levels for SAR (Fullsar, Sart1me, Nosar, Nosar No Details) it is initially somewhat alarming to fly with no in-flight following for SAR: UK ATC or Eurocontrol need only initiate SAR action one after ETA if the plan has not been closed (at destination) or an Arrival Report has not been received by destination and point of departure in the event of an en route diversion. In practice, because of the extent of radar coverage, an uncertainty phase or further may be initiated much closer to an actual mishap.

Nowhere has the significance of (the lack of) the Australian flight following system been more apparent than travelling across

the heart of the Arabian Desert, after Ha’il Ops radioed through

(via HF) our flight plan from there to Dubai to Jeddah Control, a mere dozen words (airway, ETD, flight level, POB, endurance) with a squawk code for reply, out of VHF coverage and no response on HF frequencies.

Aerodromes

All small airfields, and many international ones, in the UK are privately owned and many provide a radio flight information service, callsign ‘Sandown Radio’ for example. Such aerodromes have Aerodrome Traffic Zones (ATZ), 0-3,000ft AGL, 2-2½nm radius (depending on runway length, the dividing length being 2,000nm) into which flight is not allowed unless permission has been granted (by radio or previous arrangement). This situation is akin to our AFIZs- which however are substantially bigger; in fact circuits should be kept tight to ensure you keep well within the ATZ-for example with RAF Hawks speeding close by the boundary, unknown to the A/G radio officer at the aerodrome.

Controlled Airspace Operations

Flying in controlled airspace is basically little different in Europe to in Australia. There is the added advantage that the vast majority is under radar coverage. Nevertheless it is required to give positional reports even under radar monitoring, different to in Australia. Position reports are dispensed with in areas of especially high density traffic – viz TMAs, such as transiting the London, Amsterdam or Frankfurt TMAs. Start clearance is required for every IFR (CTA) flight across Europe. Continental airspace (CTA) is certainly ‘area’ in form-the Federal Republic of Germany has all airspace controlled above 3,000ft, although a positive clearance is not needed or generally used for low level VFR flights therein.

Upon taxying for departure from a non-TMA aerodrome for an airways flight in the UK, the clearance delivery can become rather loquacious, eg departing Southampton for Amsterdam across the London TMA, the required readback was “Vectis 5 cleared to Schiphol via flight planned route, to hold over SAM VOR after takeoff, climbing to 3,000, higher on clearance from London Control, squawking 6453”. As opposed to the Australian FIR, mandatory readback items include altimeter settings and all frequency transfers. It would be a good thing if these were made likewise in Australia.

On the other hand, clearances in some Continental FlRs such as in France and Holland, are more expeditious, almost tacit. I have found that French Controllers may or may not issue progressive en route clearances, eg ‘cleared Dinard-Tours’ (bound for Nice), but with additional radio traffic, no progressive route clearance is given at Tours; one then continues under the original departure clearance. Further, French approach agencies I have found to be equally tacit at times in delivering the approach clearance-approaching Nice from the NW via the STAR through Leluc and Pixot, Nice Approach cleared me to intercept the LIZfor which runway and which approach thought I, as none had been formally passed in an approach clearance.

Flow Management

Many airways routes across Europe have reached saturation, wherein demand is greater than the ATC system can control, using the existing IFR aircraft separation minima. Many air routes are flow regulated over the summer season, when the flying demand to/from/ northern European countries vastly increases due to inclusive tour (IT) operations in anything from a BAC-111 upwards.

Several routes eastbound from the London TMA are flow managed year round, eg to Schiphol. If planning to use such routes (or if planning to enter or transit the Amsterdam TMA) the flow control cell must be telephoned (concerning private or business travel) no sooner than 2 hours before ETD and a route slot requested. All requests go to a processing computer which determines the departure time which will permit transit and arrival for each aircraft without conflict with any other aircraft. In my experience slot allocation for business transport (it must be remembered that with the !CAO flight plan format the only applicable flight category descriptor is ‘G’ – general aviation aircraft, with distinctive descriptor for private, charter etc) has been quite forthcoming; however over the high summer season it can be a different matter.

In addition to demand one of the problems facing UK and European Controllers, inside and out of the Eurocontrol organisation is staffing numbers. In a word, recruitment plans and attendant fiscal allocation (probably a chicken and egg situation) have been slow and the system is suffering as a consequence. It was not so long ago that the UK CAA was divesting itself of controllers to assist in the Netherlands FIRs, where there was at the time a bad shortage. Such a redeployment of staff comes under the management umbrella of Eurocontrol. Now, and in the future every British controller is needed in Britain; the UK CAA is stepping up their recruitment programmes. Another place in the world you will hear British controllers ordinarily is along the Gulf-from Dhahran through to the United Arab Emirates – where London controllers rotate duty.

Eurocontrol

Eurocontrol is the name given to the European ATC operations and accounting management organisation; participating states include the UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, FRG, Austria, Italy. Although the concept of Eurocontrol was to provide an integrated rather than fragmented ATC across all Western Europe, north to south, east to west, in order to increase airspace traffic capacity and flow, individual member states have been reluctant to hand over sovereignty of airspace. Until further resolution, Eurocontrol effectively remains a charge coordinating and cost recovering organisation. Eurocontrol does not extend into the Eastern Bloc; Yugoslavia for example, woulq benefit substantiallyfrom ATC integration as it handles a large amount of northern European IT traffic over the season and is the standard intercontinental route Oust the area in the long flights south in which the Jumbos and DC-10s jostle and barter for altitude, Mach number and expeditious routing).

Altimetry

The UK has been operating on a mixed QFE and QNH system; transition altitude across England, apart from in the big TMAs, is 3,000 feet with no transition layer; flying above transition altitude on days of low pressure it is the pilot’s responsibility to maintain terrain separation by choice of cruising level at the flight planning stage. Use of QFE makes altimetry a complicated business, with double the error possibilities. Typically – taxi and depart on aerodrome QNH, transit below transition altitude on regional QNH, or TMA QNH if below/in a TMA, 1013 above transition altitude, arrival aerodrome QNH at TOPD to below transition altitude and then QFE for the instrument approach. On the other hand, Continental Europe uses just QNH generally. British Airways has recently transferred back to solely QNH, a move for the better; hopefully the change will gradually filter down through the whole of the UK aviation industry.

Applications to Australia Two systems which would definitely assist general aviation if introduced into Australia are firstly a lower airspace radar service provided by the military sector radars about the primary zones, accepting IFR traffic on radio notification only and assisting with minimally restricted passage through military airspace and, secondly, the airway/runway slot allocation system similar to that employed at busy northern European airports. By providing for business aircraft it helps not hinders business aviation. In Australia, corporate aircraft are largely treated as second class citizens when it comes to gaining access to our major airports. Finally, now that publications and charts are sold by the CAA (and at an ever increasing price) and not given away, isn’t it time that our WAC charts were changed to a format akin to the UK half mil series, whereupon everything is shown – all airspace breakdowns, all aids and VHF frequencies etc. Half mills for the Primary Zone areas and One mills for the rest of the country would replace the VTCs, VECs, WACs and FISCOMs in the cockpit and mean less reference to the ERS in-flight. Although the UK maps look incredibly cluttered, they become very usable in no time at all.