| Some information about the airspaces and
air traffic control services provided. |
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.
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.
By Claudiu A. Dobre, © 2005 |
|
|
|
