36 replies to this topic

[Jamie Fox]

I am very pleased to announce, at long last, that the following changes to the London North area airspace will come into effect at 0001Z on:
Thursday 12th January 2012

North will become a 'parent' sector, now divided into 3 sectors: MAN West, MAN East and London AC North. The MAN sectors cover an area around Manchester up to about FL285, with AC North covering the airspace above FL285, as well as at all levels in the North Sea area, east of the MAN sectors.

Documentation links
London agreed level diagrams
London area sector maps

 LondonACNorth.png   159.48K   205 downloads
 MANWestandEast.png   210.71K   228 downloads

These new agreed level diagrams have been a real team effort so I must say an enormous thank you to Mike Pike, Ross Bristo, George Wright, Chris Pawley and James Latham for making all this possible.

Sector splitting

There are 3 new positions for splitting North:
128.05 MAN_W_CTR, covering the MAN West sector only.
133.80 MAN_E_CTR, covering the MAN East sector only.
118.77 MAN_CTR, covering both MAN West and MAN East, unless being covered by MAN W or MAN E respectively.

AC North airspace and any vacant MAN sector remains under the control of LON_N_CTR as normal.

So, for example, if MAN_W_CTR logs on, then he controls the MAN W sector and LON_N_CTR is left to control MAN E and AC North.

Just as with the Central and South splits, the parent sector airspace must be covered (by LON_N_CTR or LON_CTR) when the sector is split, and the decision to split is at the discretion of the controller already logged in (as LON_N_CTR or LON_CTR).

Controllers should assess the current and expected traffic situation along with the availability of adjacent approach units to decide on the preferred method of splitting. The AC North sector is usually quiet, so the use of the MAN_CTR bandboxed position is not recommended under normal circumstances, unless an abnormally large amount of traffic is expected through AC North.

When a sector split is open or closed, it is responsibility of the area controllers concerned to ensure that adjacent APP and TWR units are aware of their presence, and the correct frequency to use.

MAN_W_CTR, MAN_E_CTR and MAN_CTR use the RT callsign 'Scottish Control', because the MAN West and MAN East airspace is in real life controlled from the Scottish ACC at Prestwick.

Training will not be directly affected - area students will continue to be assessed on LON_N_CTR in the parent sector bandboxed configuration.

Who to handoff departures to/accept inbounds from

Manchester
MAN West: departures via WAL, MONTY and NOKIN. APP receives inbounds via MIRSI.
MAN East: departures via HON, LISTO, POL and DESIG. APP receives inbounds via ROSUN and DAYNE.

Birmingham
MAN East: departures via WHI and TNT. APP receives inbounds via CHASE.
Daventry: departures via CPT, COWLY, WCO and DTY. APP receives inbounds via GROVE.

East Midlands
MAN East: departures via WAL, TNT, ASNIP, POL. APP receives inbounds via ROKUP.
Daventry: departures via DTY and BPK. APP receives inbounds via PIGOT.

MAN West: Liverpool, Hawarden, Isle of Man
MAN East: Leeds Bradford, Humberside, Doncaster Sheffield, Newcastle, Durham Tees Valley

If you're controlling GND with no TWR or APP online then you need to handoff to the CTR controller who is responsible for providing a top-down service for TWR, as shown below. (For Birmingham and East Midlands that's the Daventry sector.)

MAN West
 MAN West.jpg   226.62K   134 downloads

In the absence of local APP and TWR ATC, MAN West is responsible for providing top-down coverage at the following aerodromes:
EGGP Liverpool
EGNR Hawarden
EGNH Blackpool
EGNO Warton
EGNS Isle of Man

MAN East
 MAN East.jpg   120.4K   56 downloads

In the absence of local APP and TWR ATC, MAN East is responsible for providing top-down coverage at the following aerodromes:
EGCC Manchester
EGNM Leeds Bradford
EGNJ Humberside
EGCN Doncaster Sheffield
EGNT Newcastle
EGNV Durham Tees Valley


AC North
 AC North.jpg   204.55K   33 downloads

In the absence of local APP and TWR ATC, AC North is responsible for providing top-down coverage at the following aerodrome:
EGSH Norwich

Edited by Jamie Fox, 31 January 2012 - 12:10 AM.
Diagrams link updated

[Leon Hunter]

Wonderful, I'm happy to see these changes being implemented!

[Phill Powell]

Jamie,

Thanks to everyone for all the hard work.

I'm sure this will be of immense benefit to London North trainees but I'm not sure about:

Quote

The AC North sector is usually quiet, so the use of the MAN_CTR bandboxed position is not recommended under normal circumstances, unless an abnormally large amount of traffic is expected through AC North.

. The last time I was on for a mentoring session I thought it was heavy going. My mentor said it was a normal night for North!

I'll look forward to a "quiet night".


Phill

[Tom Smith]

Jamie Fox, on 09 January 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

If you're controlling GND with no TWR or APP online then you need to handoff to the CTR controller who is responsible for providing a top-down service for TWR. For Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands that's MAN East.

Hi Jamie,

so LON_C is no longer responsible for top down at EMA and BHX?? :S

Tom

[Luke Cunningham]

Tom Smith, on 09 January 2012 - 01:46 PM, said:

Jamie Fox, on 09 January 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

If you're controlling GND with no TWR or APP online then you need to handoff to the CTR controller who is responsible for providing a top-down service for TWR. For Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands that's MAN East.

Hi Jamie,

so LON_C is no longer responsible for top down at EMA and BHX?? :S

Tom

From what I gather, in the absense of the MAN sectors it is still responsible for top down cover.

[Jamie Fox]

Quote

so LON_C is no longer responsible for top down at EMA and BHX?? :S

Sorry, no, that's a mistake. There's no change intended - Daventry sector remains responsible for top-down TWR/APP cover at Birmingham and East Midlands as before. I'll correct my original post.

Quote

The last time I was on for a mentoring session [on LON_N_CTR] I thought it was heavy going

The high level sector is called 'AC North' to distinguish it from the group of 3 sectors known as 'North'. So while you might have found North heavy going, that was probably mostly because of traffic in MAN West and MAN East, not in AC North. The point is that usually, opening MAN_CTR will leave MAN_CTR will much more workload than LON_N_CTR (who's now covering AC North only), so normally opening just one of MAN (MAN_W_CTR or MAN_E_CTR) will give a better balance of traffic.

[Johan Grauers]

Well done! Very nice to see this documentation released, it will help me when controlling North that's for sure

[Dave James]

[Chris Pawley]

Is there some merit in staffing "up" these new positions a few nights this month - to familiarise ourselves and the underlying controllers?

Thanks to everyone who has made these possible - super stuff!

C

Edited by Chris Pawley, 11 January 2012 - 03:45 PM.

[Jamie Fox]

Yes, definitely, how about at the weekend? I see that Saturday and Sunday are already busy with other things so I've booked MAN_E_CTR for Friday, but if there are a few of us we can swap around so we all get a go at everything. There's also CC APP and TWR mentoring on Friday so hopefully that might help them to attract some traffic too.

Don't forget that the Liverpool and Chester event is a week on Saturday (21st Jan) so we would be wise to be well-prepared.

[Gunnar Lindahl VATUK1]

Thanks to all for your work on this - look forward to seeing some new sectors online!

Cheers,

[Simon Plant]

Don't suppose anyone knows if/when VatSpy will correctly show the sectors ? I'm aware it doesn't show a split of EGTT (N, C, S and SC ETC) anyway. Is this something for UK to talk to the developer about ? I know FSINN etc etc shows online controllers and all that but as a non-controlling pilot some of this is rather confusing :) Maybe its a simple change for pilots, but that doesn't come across.

Nothing beats visualisation, especially a live, updating one :-) Changes are good and lots of controllers on this thread like it so I'll assume its good. I'd just like to see some information for pilots on the changes rather than having to try and work it out from the 13 attachments.

Maybe I'm strange as a pilot, but I like to have a rough idea of the communication path before I start my clearances and flight :)

Edited by Simon Plant, 12 January 2012 - 12:39 PM.

[Dave James]

Simon,

This will probably be your best bet for visualisation
http://www.vattastic.com/

Vataware and Servinfo are less of a tool when showing the correct CTR AOR's in the UK with no further scope for the sectorisation being shown.
If there was, we would all have seen it day 1 when the renaming protocol of the new sectors was launched

Its simple enough to do with ref to showing the AOR's as new dummy FIR's for both programs, but only relevant to the map view, everything else with regards to airport ownership and the other tabs would be trashed though which isnt the idea of either program.

Good maps of the AOR's can be found on the website

Edited by Dave James, 12 January 2012 - 01:58 PM.

[Dave James]

Polite Question for Jamie:

There are 3 new positions for splitting North:
128.05 MAN_W_CTR, covering the MAN West sector only.
133.80 MAN_E_CTR, covering the MAN East sector only.
118.77 MAN_CTR, covering both MAN West and MAN East, unless being covered by MAN W or MAN E respectively.

Just as with the Central and South splits, the parent position (LON_N_CTR) must be online when the sector is split, and the decision to split is at the discretion of the controller already logged in as LON_N_CTR.

Both MAN E (1930-2100) and MAN W (1830-2200) are already pre-booked this Friday.

Therefore, without sounding a bit thick, how can these split sectors (apart maybe for events where the sectors defined as required have been pre planned) be booked on the system without a LON N being there.

Further, even if the LON N was already booked, it would be his decision as to whether a split takes place, so how can the MAN sectors be booked on the system in advance of this hypothetical decision - if you follow ?

Regards

Edited by Dave James, 12 January 2012 - 03:32 PM.

[Simon Plant]

Thanks David, that helps :)

Si

[Jim Johnson]

Dave James, on 12 January 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Polite Question for Jamie:



Just as with the Central and South splits, the parent position (LON_N_CTR) must be online when the sector is split, and the decision to split is at the discretion of the controller already logged in as LON_N_CTR.

Both MAN E (1930-2100) and MAN W (1830-2200) are already pre-booked this Friday.

Perhaps if Lon_N doesn't log on before 1830 to give this permission, then perhaps Man_W should initially log on as Lon_N and give Man_E permission to log on at 1930. They can change over positions as required. Perhaps both Dave and I are misunderstanding the cover criteria?

Jim

[Jamie Fox]

No, your understanding of the cover criteria is correct - LON_N_CTR needs to be online when MAN_*_CTR is open. For bookings, the first come first served principle generally applies - i.e. the priority of bookings is in the the order that the bookings were made.

To take this specific example of tonight: for the period 1830-1930 MAN_W_CTR is booked. If LON_N_CTR is online at 1830, he is entitled to remain in place provided that he's willing to split with MAN_W_CTR. If not, or if there's no LON_N_CTR online, then MAN_W_CTR will have to log onto LON_N_CTR himself.
For the period 1930-2100 both MAN_E_CTR and MAN_W_CTR are booked. If there's no LON_N_CTR, then one of the controllers will have to cover LON_N_CTR - since the MAN_E_CTR booking was made first, mine, I have the right to decide whether I want to do LON_N_CTR myself (and have MAN_W_CTR online) or whether I want to log on to MAN_E_CTR and have the booker of MAN_W_CTR (Adam) do LON_N_CTR.

In practice these things are usually resolved by mutual agreement, but this is the situation in terms of what has actually been booked and who is entitled to what.

Had LON_N_CTR been booked before the MAN_*_CTR bookings were made, we would have needed to check with him whether he was willing to split, and if so which split he would like to operate. As his booking were there first, it would be for him to decide what he wanted to do.

Edited by Jamie Fox, 13 January 2012 - 02:11 PM.

[Jamie Fox]

I see that Chris P has now booked LON_CTR from 2000, which provides coverage of the LON_N_CTR airspace too.

I've just realised that I made an error with the phrasing of the cover requirement and then repeated it in this post - the requirement is the same as for Central/South - that all of the parent sector airspace (i.e. the 3 North sectors) must be online in order for the sector split to be used. So for North, MAN_*_CTR can be open provided that either LON_N_CTR or LON_CTR is open.

I've rephrased this in the original post as:
"Just as with the Central and South splits, the parent sector airspace must be covered (by LON_N_CTR or LON_CTR) when the sector is split, and the decision to split is at the discretion of the controller already logged in (as LON_N_CTR or LON_CTR)."

[Dave James]

Thanks Jamie,

I understand what you have written just - but it is still confusing that the split control positions can be pre-booked on the system.
There seems little point in booking a position if whereby the governing control position occupier holds the decision as to allow the split or not as the case may be. It just doesnt make any sense whatsoever. You even detail this:

The AC North sector is usually quiet, so the use of the MAN_CTR bandboxed position is not recommended under normal circumstances, unless an abnormally large amount of traffic is expected through AC North.

Regards
David

NB: WIth respect, it is the pre-booking of the split positions I am requesting clarity on, when those positions are going to be affected by the host controllers decision to release ownership of the split sector based on traffic density as detailed in your original post. Apart from events, this cannot be predicted days in advance.

[Jim Johnson]

Thanks Jamie for clarification. I suppose as per usual Lon_N could alway initially be booked and if anyone wants to log
on to a lower sector, perhaps first log on as an observer and request control of E or W. (or pre-arrange). I'm sure this would not cause a problem.
I'm more interested to see how pilots who are not familiar with the new trickle down coverage will know which sector to
QSY to in the absence of Approach being on line after departing. Perhaps it will still be Lon_N or a 'contact me' Practice make perfect, its a learning curve and I look forward to any observations after tonights 'first' use of the new system coverage.

Jim