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Some information about airspaces and the air traffic control services provided. |
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In air traffic, there are the following airspaces:
ATZ (Aerodrome Traffic Zone), CTR (Control
Zone), CTA (Control Area) which is made of
TMA (Terminal Control Area) and AWY (Airway),
FIR (Flight Information Region), UIR (Upper
Information Region) and ADA (Advisory Area).
Air traffic services provided in these airspaces
vary in accordance with the airspace.
The ATZ airspace, which
is an aerodrome traffic
zone, goes from ground
up to 1500-2000 feet,
and is big enough to contain
the standard
traffic circuits. The authority
which manages
this airspace is the control
tower if it's
a controlled airport or
the AFIS Unit if
it's an uncontrolled airport.
The control
tower provides ATCS (Air
Traffic Control
Service), while the AFIS
Unit provides only
flight information (meteorological
conditions,
air traffic).
Proceeding with the other
airspaces we have
the CTR which is a controlled
zone; vertically
it expands from ground
surface up to a specified
altitude; the ATZ airspace
is located within
the CTR airspace which
can contain one or
more ATZ airspaces. The
istitution which
operates in this airspace
is the APP (Approach
Control) and suplies ATCS
service. To ease
the management, the CTR
airspaces may be
devided into more zones.
The next airspace on the
"airspaces
list" is the TMA -
terminal control
area. The vertical expansion
of the TMA airspace
goes from a specified limit
up to FL195;
the TMA airspace contains
more CTR airspaces.
The authority which operates
in this airspace
is the ACC (Area Control
Center); the air
traffic service provided
in the TMA airspace
is ATCS.
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Airways are airspaces having the shape of
a lane of 10 nautical miles width. The lower
limit of the airways is given by the MEL
(Minimum Enroute Level), while the upper
limit is FL195 (Flight Level 195). On the
charts, along the airways are marked empty
triangles and filled triangles; when an aircraft
is over an empty triangle in an airway, the
report of the position by the pilot it isn't
mandatory, while when crossing a filled triangle
the report of the position by the pilot is
mandatory; each of these triangles is called
FIX. On the charts, between two fixes, is
indicated the name of the airway, which is
an alphanumerical code, the distance between
the fixes, the minimum enroute level and
the heading. Above FL195, the airways are
called routes. The control service provided
in the airway airspace is ATCS.
The FIR (Flight Information Region) airspace
expands below flight level 195, and within
it we find the other airspaces: ATZ, CTR,
TMA, AWY. The Flight Information Region is
an uncontrolled airspace; in this airspace
the following services are provided: FIS
(Flight Information Service) and ALS (Alerting
Service). The authority which manages this
airspace is the FIC (Flight Information Center).
The UIR (Upper Information Region) airspace
goes from flight level 195 to unlimited.
The UIR airspace is devided into two secondary
airspaces: the lower UIR - from FL195 to
FL460 - and the upper UIR - from FL460 to
unlimited. In the lower UIR airspace the
control service provided is ATCS while the
istitution which operates in this airspace
is the ACC (Area Control Center). In the
UIR airspaces develop R/NAV and ATS routes.
The last on the list of airspaces is the
ADA (Advisory Area). This airspace isn't
controlled and within it ADS (Advisory Service)
is provided.
Written by Claudio Adriano Dobre, © 2005
Please notice that this article was written in 2005, so the contained information may be outdated.
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