Report or NOT Report...That's the Q

[Pointer]

The other day i was passing(actualy we were passing) allong London airspace, and with the danger in mind of being to complacend we know that bit of air pretty well. At once out of the blue we got a reprimand of the atc controler that we forgot to report a 'compulsory' reporting point!?

Who can set me straight on this; When under radar control are you or are you not required to report a Comp. point? (at this instance we got a descent clearance right over it. So we didn't see the need to do so)

Anybody..?

[ATC Watcher]

Compulsory reporting points in radar environement( the few which are left ) are all there for a purpose and should be folowed up. Most of them are located at entry/exit points of FIR,and are saving numerous problems such as entering a new FIR still on the frequency of the old one.
The one which has not missed a call in today busy R/T environement can throw the first stone.

[Pointer]

Thanks ATC Watcher,
It confirms my thoughts on the subject but just to clarify; ATC gave us a descent clearance over the point. Me as drive then assumes he is aware of my position (this in correlation with the airspace limits)? Then wy do we get corrected for not reporting?

[Cavemonster]

ATC Watcher....I don't know on which London sectors you have experience of, but your knowledge of 'compulsory' reporting pts sounds a tad anal to me.

We have enough of a freq congestion problem as it is; the last thing we need is compulsory reporting point reporting. In practice, all we need is a check in on freq and an acknowledgement of STAR/rte/hdg/lvl/spd clearances thank you.

[PPRuNe Radar]

Cavemonster,

If you don't need them as compulsory reporting points, then why not get someone in Ops to amend the AIP and make them all on request ones ? Until that's done, it's not really fair to criticise anyone who actually clogs the RT by doing what they're supposed to do. The other alternative is for ATC to instruct the pilot to omit position reports on first contact.

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PPRuNe Radar
ATC Forum Moderator
[email protected]

[bill]

as a controller who works a couple of London sectors, all equally busy these days, I often find it useful to request that a pilot report over a particular point so that I do not forget to, for example, give a descent clearance or whatever.