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Requesting a basic service or a traffic service

I did my first solo nav today and spoke to Farnborough East LARS whilst flying around.

Today was very bumpy and there was traffic everywhere. I actively turned to avoid two aeroplanes (one being a Spitfire). I kept a good lookout and stuck to an odd altitude (2100ft instead of planned 2000ft) and all was well.

I wondered what the point of a basic service from a LARS is though? If they didn’t notify me of primary returns (assuming these people had their xpdrs switched off) nearby and on such a busy day it made sense to use a traffic service.

On my lessons I’ve only used basic service and have not discussed this with the instructor yet, but I have another nav exercise tomorrow and I expect the conditions to be similar, so I am considering requesting a traffic service for that flight.

My question, therefore, is whether it’s even worth requesting a basic service as it seems useless or indeed if a traffic service is not advisable for any reason, perhaps increased workload from potentially receiving a number of unexpected calls?

United Kingdom

Indeed – a basic service isn’t very useful.
If you’re able to maintain heading and altitude, then requesting a traffic service is a much better option. Sometimes you get a basic service even if you request a traffic service “due to controller workload”, although in my experience this only happens around 1 in 10 times. One slightly confusing thing with a traffic service is that different controllers report the traffic in different ways. For example, most seem to say “traffic, 1 o clock, 2 miles, left to right, 100ft below” which I find much easier to understand than “traffic, north, north west, 2 miles, east to west, 100ft below”, which suddenly puts pressure on you to work out where to actually look.

EGBJ and Firs Farm, United Kingdom

IO390 wrote:

I wondered what the point of a basic service from a LARS is though?

Well, they’ll telly the correct QNH. :)
But generally I’d tune to someone so that if I enter some CAS/area by accident, then by the squawk code they’ll know my frequency.
Sometimes I go to listening squawk (aka FMC – Frequency Monitoring Codes), sometimes LARS, sometimes – London Info.
Traffic service is not always helpful, especially when it is good weather and a lot of traffic, quite often the controller is conservative and tells you around every man and it’s dog in the 10nm radius, sometimes they don’t have the capacity.
As it was previously pointed out, for most VFR pilots (after the PPL course :) ) ATS in the UK is pretty much useless.

EGTR

I wondered what the point of a basic service from a LARS is though?

Very little.

In theory a radar unit like Farnborough is supposed to warn you of a CAS bust but they have no obligation to do so (they are under obligation to report it though).

Same with advising traffic – no obligation to do so, even if controller workload is not a factor.

“traffic, north, north west, 2 miles, east to west, 100ft below”,

That’s horrible. I wonder if that is some new CAA form of words, for a non-traffic service, designed to avoid suggesting they can see you on radar?

In general, with ATC calls, call up only units which either (a) you need to call up or (b) can offer you a useful service. The latter usually means a radar unit, in the UK.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

You’re a student pilot. Have you done Air Law yet? In there should be a complete list of what you can expect when receiving a Basic Service. It comes down to:
- An Alerting Service: If you go missing ATC knows about you and will initiate a rescue operation. (That’s why you should always sign off from a Basic Service when changing frequency. Don’t just leave.)
- Information pertinent to your flight. This includes at least the relevant QNH, but also important changes to NOTAMs, airspace or weather that may affect your flight.

Basic Information does NOT include any kind of traffic information or avoidance instructions. For that you need any of the higher services. Although in all honesty, controllers are nice people and if they see a situation developing and if their workload permits, they might warn you for traffic anyway.

Also note that the UK structure of Basic/Traffic and such is a (filed) deviation from ICAO standards. Official ICAO standards are “Flight Information Service” and “Traffic Information Service” and they are subtly different from the UK practice. Similarly, “Flight Following” is a (filed) US deviation from ICAO standards. So outside the UK make sure you request the right service.

@BackPacker

Thanks, and yes all exams done. To be clear I wasn’t expecting traffic info, not being on a traffic service, just wondering what the point of a basic service is really.

It seems the main benefit is the alerting service as you say, and certainly it seems to be better to be on frequency with a basic service if one does encounter an emergency.

United Kingdom

Perhaps treat a Basic service as A) a way to confirm the local QNH and B) someone you have on frequency that you may request something from later.
If you don’t need any of that, there may not be any point in calling them.
It’s still a good idea to listen to a suitable frequency so A) you may hear useful position information from other aircraft and B) you have something set in the box if an emergency happens (hit that PTT while dealing with it, rather than tuning a freq first).
If I’m stooging about I may not get a service.
If I’m in a hurry going somewhere I’ll be trying for a traffic service.

United Kingdom

BackPacker wrote:

Official ICAO standards are “Flight Information Service” and “Traffic Information Service”

“Traffic Information Service” is not an ICAO concept. “Flight Information Service” is. Flight Information Service includes providing information about known traffic that can pose a collision hazard.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Here a personal story to illustrate why, if available, I think you should always request a traffic service, pr count yourself lucky to fly in a country where this is automatic.

When I started my CPL training with around 700 hours under my belt and all the ingrained habits this brings, I requested a traffic service from Farnborough Radar right after departure, as had become my habit. The instructor “corrected” this, their SOP was to request basic service in general and to obtain it – wait for it – from london info or from airfields in the vicinity of the route. After a brief discussion I saw the error of my ways and followed the good old rule that when an instructor asks you to paint your bits blue you don’t ask why, you ask for a colour chart.

A little bit later – I don’t remember if it was on the same sortie or shortly thereafter – we had the closest encounter I ever had over Brands Hatch, another PA28, same altitude and perhaps 30-50ft horizontal separation as it flashed across our windscreen. We didn’t say much for he rest of the sortie, but later over a drink in the clubhouse my instructor quietly said “you have a poi nt there” – I didn’t even have to say “I told you so”…

Biggin Hill

IO390 wrote:

On my lessons I’ve only used basic service and have not discussed this with the instructor yet, but I have another nav exercise tomorrow and I expect the conditions to be similar, so I am considering requesting a traffic service for that flight.

A basic service is indeed almost entirely useless.

However, you requesting one in the context of your training may not be. It gives you a chance to practice a bit of RT but at the same time avoids having to interrupt the lesson every few minutes to acknowledge traffic information.

That was the reason given when I asked my instructor why we/she always took basic and not traffic during lessons.

EGLM & EGTN
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