[chevvron]

Farnborough have recently been very keen to terminate service before you get to WCO. If going North, you are then without radar until about 20 south of Birmingham (if they accept you).

WCO is actually outside North Sector; today's Farnborough controllers would seem to be more 'rule bound' than I was.
If I felt I could continue giving service outside the boundary and there was no other radar unit to hand you to, I would 'bend' the rules and do so (same with East Sector and aircraft crossing to LFAT).
Further north, Cottesmore was the main unit I would hand traffic to but they were closed at weekends so East Midlands would happily accept it.

[marioair]

In hindsight might be better East Mids - Brize - Fboro and going west of Luton to increase chances of LARS/TS

[Geraint Pinches]

For the OP, now Coventry has no Radar you are unlikely to get a hand over going south as East Midlands cover does not meet Luton/Brize/Farnborough

Does it not? When flying south from Gamston towards CPT, I tend to find that East Mids will dump me when I've left CAS and I'll then freecall Brize immediately (from somewhere a bit south of Leicester) and get a Traffic Service from them straightaway.

The LARS map suggests the radar cover from East Mids and Brize meet each other too...

(edited to say: provided one is 3000' or above).

[chevvron]

For the OP, now Coventry has no Radar you are unlikely to get a hand over going south as East Midlands cover does not meet Luton/Brize/Farnborough

I found either the Heathrow 10cm radar (the one near T4 rather than the 23cm in the Central Area) or the Debden 23cm both gave excellent coverage towards the Birmngham area. Since I retired however, the Heathrow 23 cm has been replaced by a new radar at Bovingdon and being sited some 500ft amsl, I would think it also has excellent low coverage to the north.

[almost professional]

Officially LARS cover is 30 south, ie 10 north of DTY, can work south of that but cover at the kind of level of most traffic is poor by then. We tend to find that if Brize try handing over then we will not see the Traffic offered, so take details and tell them to free call and we can give service north of DTY

[velostar]

Rant and frustration understood.

But they would have given you a Radar Controlled Service inside CAS, not a TS.

(I lose track of the pilot readbacks of “Radio Controlled Service” !!!)

Personally if I were you I would have said “I am IMC and can accept an IFR clearance” if the controller offered a VFR clearance and I was IMC.

Shouldn’t that be ‘Radar Control Service’ rather then ‘controlled’?

[AlanM]

Yes indeed.

Will leave it incorrect for the autocorrect giggle

(PS still not a Traffic Service!)

[marioair]

Yes indeed.

Will leave it incorrect for the autocorrect giggle

(PS still not a Traffic Service!)

I wasn't expecting a RCS because I was OCAS!

[Mike Tango]

WCO is actually outside North Sector; today's Farnborough controllers would seem to be more 'rule bound' than I was.
If I felt I could continue giving service outside the boundary and there was no other radar unit to hand you to, I would 'bend' the rules and do so (same with East Sector and aircraft crossing to LFAT).
Further north, Cottesmore was the main unit I would hand traffic to but they were closed at weekends so East Midlands would happily accept it.

These days you operate outside of the rules at your peril, there is no tolerance if one wilfully and knowingly breaks rules whilst working.

For one, there will be no recourse to a defence of Just Culture, nor will there be much interest from union or professional body for representation in any disciplinary action.

The company I left recently is markedly different in many ways to the one you’ll remember.

[Mike Tango]

Farnborough have recently been very keen to terminate service before you get to WCO. If going North, you are then without radar until about 20 south of Birmingham (if they accept you).

If only we had an ATC magic money tree where comprehensive services could be provided to one and all, irrespective of whether or not they contributed towards any of the costs involved.

[AlanM]

I have to say that I am amazed that there has been little or no pressure on the CAA over my 30+ year career on LARS provision.

The lack of joined up services and operating hours of (mainly) military units astounds me and makes that map I linked to look far better than the reality.

Places like Plymouth Mil (helpful chaps and chapesses) are Mon-Thurs 0800-1700L and then Fri 0800-1400L and closed weekends, for all of August and most of Christmas.

And yes Chevvers, MikeT is correct in terms of the landscape changing and the culture is a lot different from where it was even 6 years ago. Have a look at the EU340/2015 and see areas like Provisional Inability. I have had to invoke two personally.

[James Chan]

mixing it at levels below that really does throw a significantly sized spanner in the works.

Pilots may find limitations such as the above worth highlighting in Future Airspace Strategy discussions. I'm aware other places around the world seem to have overflight levels a bit lower and permit VFR flight too but then every place is different as London has quite a few very busy aerodromes, with Stansted's runways pointing a different direction to the rest!

This sort of complex working knowledge is beyond me.

[rikur_]

The lack of joined up services and operating hours of (mainly) military units astounds me and makes that map I linked to look far better than the reality.

I built one where you can see LARS by day of week/hour of day: http://labs.f17.co.uk/apps/lars/

[G-JWTP]

At the Class G Airspace conference a few years ago, during a open Q and A , I asked Andrew. Haynes a question on the future of ATSOCAS and especially LARS. He differed the question to one of his colleagues, who told us that the CAA were looking at expanding the LARS service, especially at weekend's, by funding it. We were told that there was to be a paper and proposals published prior to that Christmas.
Well that was about 4 years ago and nothing has come about.

I suppose like most things this was dropped as being to difficult or costly to solve.

G-JWTP

[marioair]

We don't always get what we wished for Christmas