James Chan wrote:. When and where should I ask for traffic service as opposed to a basic service?
In my opinion, you should ask for a traffic service where available.
This is obviously an area where strong personal opinions abound. Personally I don't agree with your line quoted above James, but that's just my opinion.
I think that my reservation stems from that fact that if everyone asked for a traffic service then no-one would get it, because there simply isn't capacity in the system to provide a traffic service to all VFR traffic. Furthermore, leaving aside controller workload, the airwaves would be simply swamped with traffic information rendering it unusable for any other purpose.
Furthermore, many students or low-hours pilots simply do not have the capacity to process that information in the air, in my experience. That, in turn, would lead to more missed calls, more repeats, more clogging of the airways etc.
And finally, and this is more or a philosophical point than one of practicality, a
VFR pilot should be flying visually and he
should be looking out. He should be seeing and avoiding. If he can't or won't do that then frankly he shouldn't be flying and he shouldn't in my opinion be using the fickle comfort of a traffic service to compensate for his poor look-out.
In my view, less is more when it comes to volume of communications. The advent of the Listening Squawk, for example, has noticeably reduced radio clutter on some busy frequencies. This clutter stemmed from [largely unnecessary] Basic Services in the main. As a result, important radio traffic now has much more chance of being heard by all - which in turn improves everyone's lot.
Just my opinion....