Radar Contact P3d

[Gisberto Letter]

Nospecific response is typically necessary (although acknowledging that you heard the transmission with a callsign or "roger" is appropriate). The call means that the controller sees your aircraft on radar & has confirmed that "this" target is "that" aircraft, i.e. your aircraft. He is now capable of providing ATC services that require the use of radar, such as radar vectors, separation, traffic calls, minimum altitude monitoring, etc. Not saying that he necessarily IS providing all of those things; there's a little bit of context to such things.

You can also hear, "radar contact lost" either when you are below the radar horizon due to terrain, or over the water too far away from from the radar site. This means that you're now, if flying IFR, operating under non-radar IFR rules, and things like making position reports at the mandatory reporting points now applies. (You don't have to make those reports while in radar contract.)

Interestingly, you may also (rarely) hear a military fighter call "radar contact" in response to a traffic call, meaning that he sees the traffic on radar, but not visually. Not sure if that's standard terminology for them in an ATC environment or not, but I've heard it a few times.

Context: You will typically get this the first time you contact an ATC facility and they reply with a squawk code. "Radar contact" is to tell you that they now know which blip (aka contact) on their radar display is you and are thus able to provide various radar services--though whether they actually will is another matter.

Notably, if you don't hear this, you're likely either below their radar coverage or talking to a facility that doesn't have radar at all. Obviously, they're not able to provide radar services in that case. They're likely to ask for position and altitude next so they know where you are relative to other aircraft. If they do see a primary radar return at the position you give them but no secondary, it's likely your transponder isn't working; in that case, they probably won't ask position again but will ask your altitude occasionally--and near a busy class B/C airspace, will likely tell you to keep out because having to verify that every time another plane comes near adds too much work.

Responses: If all they say is "radar contact" and nothing else, just acknowledge it with your callsign. Usually, though, they'll start giving you traffic advisories, and you'd reply to those with "looking" or "in sight". If you didn't specify why you're calling them on your callup, they may also ask you to "say intentions" so they know what to do with you--and may start giving you vectors accordingly, which you would need to repeat back as usual.

I was wondering. I thought I had read somewhere that it is not correct to say "radar contact" on intial contact of a plane that was in previous control of another controler. For example, if I am controlling LA Center and I get a handoff from ALB Ctr, when the pilots contacts me, would I say "callsign, radar contact, continue as filed"? I thought that you only say that on the first contact an aircraft has made with a controller. I hope this made sense...

Usually when an aircraft is handed off to you from another center you normally just need to say "N4715, Memphis Center, good evening", say you just log on or an aircraft coming from uncontrolled airspace calls you you would say "N4715, Memphis Center, radar contact FL250 25 miles east of Jackson VOR..." Hope i helped

The reasoning behind this is because if you are accepting a handoff from another facility, you have acknowledged radar contact and don't need to tell the a/c that. That's why approach controllers always say it, because tower is techically not a radar position and doesn't really do a "handoff".

If a Departure Controller handed you off to Center, the center should not say radar contact, because the last controller already had you radar identified. So you are correct, he didn't need to say it.

I'm not a controller and have never flown in American airspace as a pilot but I know for a fact that in other parts of the world such as my home country (Brazil) where we don't have radar available everywhere controllers always say to an a/c on inital contact whether they are under radar survaillance or not. Doesn't matter if it is a handoff from a another ATC where the a/c was flying under radar. If there is radar contact the controller must announce it so that the pilot knows that from that point on he does not have to report in on the compulsory reporting fixes depicted in the ERCs.

RADAR- A device that provides information on range, azimuth, and/or elevation of objects by measuring the time interval between transmission and reception of directional radio pulses and correlating the angular orientation of the radiated antenna beam or beams in azimuth and/or elevation.

RADAR APPROACH CONTROL FACILITY- A terminal ATC facility that uses radar and nonradar capabilities to provide approach control services to aircraft arriving, departing, or transiting airspace controlled by the facility.

RADAR CONTACT LOST- Used by ATC to inform a pilot that the surveillance data used to determine the aircraft's position is no longer being received, or is no longer reliable and radar service is no longer being provided. The loss may be attributed to several factors including the aircraft merging with weather or ground clutter, the aircraft operating below radar line of sight coverage, the aircraft entering an area of poor radar return, failure of the aircraft's equipment, or failure of the surveillance equipment.

RADAR FLIGHT FOLLOWING- The observation of the progress of radar-identified aircraft, whose primary navigation is being provided by the pilot, wherein the controller retains and correlates the aircraft identity with the appropriate target or target symbol displayed on the radar scope.

RADAR POINT OUT- An action taken by a controller to transfer the radar identification of an aircraft to another controller if the aircraft will or may enter the airspace or protected airspace of another controller and radio communications will not be transferred.

RADAR REQUIRED- A term displayed on charts and approach plates and included in FDC NOTAMs to alert pilots that segments of either an instrument approach procedure or a route are not navigable because of either the absence or unusability of a NAVAID. The pilot can expect to be provided radar navigational guidance while transiting segments labeled with this term.

RADAR SERVICE TERMINATED- Used by ATC to inform a pilot that he/she will no longer be provided any of the services that could be received while in radar contact. Radar service is automatically terminated, and the pilot is not advised in the following cases:

RADIO MAGNETIC INDICATOR- An aircraft navigational instrument coupled with a gyro compass or similar compass that indicates the direction of a selected NAVAID and indicates bearing with respect to the heading of the aircraft.

RECEIVER AUTONOMOUS INTEGRITY MONITORING (RAIM)- A technique whereby a civil GNSS receiver/processor determines the integrity of the GNSS navigation signals without reference to sensors or non-DoD integrity systems other than the receiver itself. This determination is achieved by a consistency check among redundant pseudorange measurements.

REDUCED VERTICAL SEPARATION MINIMUM (RVSM) AIRSPACE- RVSM airspace is defined as any airspace between FL 290 and FL 410 inclusive, where eligible aircraft are separated vertically by 1,000 feet. Authorization guidance for operations in this airspace is provided in Advisory Circular AC 91-85.

REFINED HAZARD AREA (RHA)- Used by ATC. Airspace that is defined and distributed after a failure of a launch or reentry operation to provide a more concise depiction of the hazard location than a Contingency Hazard Area.

REMOTE AIRPORT INFORMATION SERVICE (RAIS)- A temporary service provided by facilities, which are not located on the landing airport, but have communication capability and automated weather reporting available to the pilot at the landing airport.

REMOTE COMMUNICATIONS AIR/GROUND FACILITY- An unmanned VHF/UHF transmitter/receiver facility which is used to expand ARTCC air/ground communications coverage and to facilitate direct contact between pilots and controllers. RCAG facilities are sometimes not equipped with emergency frequencies 121.5 MHz and 243.0 MHz.

REMOTE COMMUNICATIONS OUTLET (RCO)- An unmanned communications facility remotely controlled by air traffic personnel. RCOs serve FSSs. Remote Transmitter/Receivers (RTR) serve terminal ATC facilities. An RCO or RTR may be UHF or VHF and will extend the communication range of the air traffic facility. There are several classes of RCOs and RTRs. The class is determined by the number of transmitters or receivers. Classes A through G are used primarily for air/ground purposes. RCO and RTR class O facilities are nonprotected outlets subject to undetected and prolonged outages. RCO (O's) and RTR (O's) were established for the express purpose of providing ground-to-ground communications between air traffic control specialists and pilots located at a satellite airport for delivering en route clearances, issuing departure authorizations, and acknowledging instrument flight rules cancellations or departure/landing times. As a secondary function, they may be used for advisory purposes whenever the aircraft is below the coverage of the primary air/ground frequency.

REQUEST FULL ROUTE CLEARANCE- Used by pilots to request that the entire route of flight be read verbatim in an ATC clearance. Such request should be made to preclude receiving an ATC clearance based on the original filed flight plan when a filed IFR flight plan has been revised by the pilot, company, or operations prior to departure.

RESCUE COORDINATION CENTER (RCC)- A search and rescue (SAR) facility equipped and manned to coordinate and control SAR operations in an area designated by the SAR plan. The U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Air Force have responsibility for the operation of RCCs.

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