On 3/26/2007 9:28 PM, Newps wrote the following:

Mitty wrote:

If you are getting vectors, he may not have the vector though.

The previous controller is required to coordinate that.


My experience is limited to sitting with MSP and ZMP controllers but I am sure I
saw cases where the handoff was automated and there was no talk on the
telephone. Possibly these are standardized routes where everyone knows what the
vector is. Or is there a way this info would have been coded into the data tag
& I just didn't notice?


I don't
believe that the automated handoff has any facility for passing the
vector information, although part of the data tag in a handoff (from
Center to a TRACON for example) can indicate the runway that the
flight is being vectored for.

The center has no control over my data tag. The center does not vector
to a runway, that is an approach controls job.


Possibly it is different at MSP. When I was sitting at the north arrivals
position the data tags on the targets coming from Center were already marked for
the runway. "V3R" or something like that, indicating that the flight was headed
to 30 right. Possibly there is an LOA where Center picks the runway/approach
gate based on the direction the flight is coming from, then adds the tag. But
it was definitely there when the target began to flash, before Approach took the
handoff.


Another interesting thing I learned was that the TRACON radar doesn't
show the little vector that indicates direction of flight like the
Center radars do.

That's because center controllers are retarded and wouldn't know which
way the little airplanes are moving if the computer doesn't tell them.


So, you work at a TRACON, right?