Heathrow ATC

Flying Hours Today 0:00, Total 9:15

I found myself spending two days on business at a conference at one of the many hotels surrounding Heathrow airport. An ideal opportunity to listen into ATC to get a better appreciation of how R/T conversations operate in practice.

I had my ICOM-RC5 airband scanner to hand and a list of frequencies for Heathrow. There are a number of frequencies available to tune in to: ATIS, ground, tower, approach etc. With multiple channels for some of the ATC controllers e.g. two ground channels, departure and arrivals approach etc.

I also managed to tune in to some of the radar routing of traffic over the extremely busy South East of England.

I thought that Leeds / Bradford and Manchester had a decent amount of R/T chatter to listen into, but Heathrow is an order of magnitude more.

There is just so much traffic it is overwhelming at times. If you get the chance to listen in during your training you will find it extremely worthwhile. The number of aircraft movements is quite staggering, you also get the chance to listen to departure and arrivals on a very regular basis - with a flight every 90 seconds, by the time one has landed you have already listened to the next two or more join the approach so you can really get to follow the procedures and request / response conversations that can be used later at your own airport.

One thing I did notice is the way frequencies are spoken. The training manuals would state that 118.7 is one one eight decimal seven. At Heathrow it may be given as one one eight seven, or simply one eight seven. It is also reassuring to know that even the professional pilots sometimes need to repeat instructions, or tune to the wrong frequency or take the wrong direction - of course the ATC controllers are always ahead of the game and quickly put the pilots right!