‘Waiting on Center for the handoff’

[RyanB]

Heard this on ATC and it had me wondering what exactly the controller meant. It was a transmission between the TRACON controller and a CRJ7 that had just departed. ATC told the aircraft he was just waiting on center and would have higher shortly. A minute or so later he issued a climb to FL210 and still didn’t give the handoff. Another minute or so passes and then the controller gives the handoff to Atlanta Center.

I take it that sector controller was busy and couldn’t take the aircraft at that moment? What is this exchange between TRACON controller and Center controller sound like?

 

[Timbeck2]

More than likely just a flashing data tag that needs to change from a D to a C before the tracon controller can switch you over to center.

Tracon hits the "hand off" button on their keyboard and the sector they want to hand off to (C here in Tucson, can't speak for anywhere else) and then hits "enter". The data tag will change and start to flash on the center controller's scope. The Center controller accepts the hand off (by moving their mouse over the data tag and clicking the left button...yep, not kidding except it doesn't look like your mouse on your computer), On the tracon controller's scope, the data tag will flash a few times and then will change from whatever tracon is using (usually a D since the guy is with departure) to a C. Then the tracon controller will tell you to contact center.

 

[RyanB]

More than likely just a flashing data tag that needs to change from a D to a C before the tracon controller can switch you over to center.

Interesting. Could you explain this a bit more? Just curious.

 

[Timbeck2]

I did in my edit.

 

[Velocity173]

A lot of times Center gets so busy they’ll ignore the flash but they’ll give you higher. That happens with TRACONs as well for that matter. You ignore the handoff as long as possible in hopes that it’ll go away. I’ve seen controllers key up the landline and say “spin him”, meaning they can’t take the handoff. Or, I’ve seen “keep him coming” to let the transferring controller that he can enter the receiving controller’s airspace but they’re not ready for a handoff yet.

JAX Center used to be bad at taking handoffs when they were going down the tubes. Makes things worse for the transferring controller because you’re trying to get them out of your airspace (vertically) to top your local traffic. It also creates a problem if you can’t get higher because it can get to the point that you now have to get a “point out” with a border TRACON because Center is keeping him down.

 

[RyanB]

Cool, that’s interesting and good to know... Thanks!

 

[Velocity173]

Quick story on center not taking a handoff. One time on approach I had an F-18 getting ready to go and was requesting unrestricted to FL330. At the time, Venezuela was looking to buy F-18s so this particular aircraft had a Venezuelan General in the back and getting a demo from a MD test pilot. I called center when he was rolling and only got a lousy 17,000 ft. Got radar on him off the end of the runway already doing almost 450 kts and bugging me for higher! I immediately flashed him at center because he was doing like 3,000 ft per sweep. Center got on the line and gave me FL230. Still flashing at center and quickly approaching FL230 the impatient pilot again requesting higher. I was just getting ready to call center when he came over the speaker “330 for HAWK 55!” I hadn’t even gotten 330 out of my mouth when the F-18 was blowing thru 230 on the way to 330. I didn’t think he was going to level off.

Anyway, it was one of those days where they were busy and I had an aircraft well into their airspace without a handoff but approval for higher.

 

[luvflyin]

Heard this on ATC and it had me wondering what exactly the controller meant. It was a transmission between the TRACON controller and a CRJ7 that had just departed. ATC told the aircraft he was just waiting on center and would have higher shortly. A minute or so later he issued a climb to FL210 and still didn’t give the handoff. Another minute or so passes and then the controller gives the handoff to Atlanta Center.

I take it that sector controller was busy and couldn’t take the aircraft at that moment? What is this exchange between TRACON controller and Center controller sound like?

You can’t tell when the handoff was made just by when the frequency change was made. It may have happened something like this. Plane was held at a lower altitude waiting for the handoff to Center. Handoff was made and Approach climbs the plane. For whatever reason, the frequency change wasn’t made until later.

 

[luvflyin]

...Or, I’ve seen “keep him coming” to let the transferring controller that he can enter the receiving controller’s airspace but they’re not ready for a handoff yet...

LMAO from a memory. The reason for the keep him coming is often they don’t even see it on their scope yet. This happened at Lemoore, NLC. Called Castle, MER to make a handoff. It was all landline, manual handoffs, we didn’t have automation yet. Common response was “keep him coming, I’ll call when I see him.” Girl was flustered, obviously in training, you could hear it her voice. She says “keep him calling, I’ll come when I see him.”

 

[PaulS]

I think I had a failure to hand off this week. Was IFR into a delta, VMC was asked by ATC to keep up speed, but it was really bumpy, so finally I told him I was slowing down, to 140. He asked me if I had the airport in sight, I told him yes, he cleared me for the visual. Meanwhile I was zipping into the delta, getting down to pattern altitude, he was busy, rabbling away. Finally about 2 1/2 miles from the field I was able to ask him if I should go over to tower, he said yes, I switched over to hear my call sign and the tower say "I'm calling into the blind here, if you can hear me, ident and cleared to land." I called back, "ident, cleared to land, and my call sign, and said sorry I just got handed over." the tower guy said "no worries". Another day in the adventure of flying.

 

[Justin M]

I think I had a failure to hand off this week.
Snip
said sorry I just got handed over." the tower guy said "no worries". Another day in the adventure of flying.

I heard a similar exchange on my way home Monday. I'm VFR into my class Delta under a bravo shelf, the tower was accepting an apology from someone else. Tower said testily, "not your fault, but they're supposed to hand them over 8 out but they've been dropping people very late today."

 

[luvflyin]

I think I had a failure to hand off this week. Was IFR into a delta, VMC was asked by ATC to keep up speed, but it was really bumpy, so finally I told him I was slowing down, to 140. He asked me if I had the airport in sight, I told him yes, he cleared me for the visual. Meanwhile I was zipping into the delta, getting down to pattern altitude, he was busy, rabbling away. Finally about 2 1/2 miles from the field I was able to ask him if I should go over to tower, he said yes, I switched over to hear my call sign and the tower say "I'm calling into the blind here, if you can hear me, ident and cleared to land." I called back, "ident, cleared to land, and my call sign, and said sorry I just got handed over." the tower guy said "no worries". Another day in the adventure of flying.

Likely it wasn’t a missed ‘handoff’ but just a failure to get the frequency change done.

 

[Radar Contact]

ATC told the aircraft he was just waiting on center and would have higher shortly.

Could be a couple things. I use it occasionally because the center has our departures capped at 15K and 250kts. The system works best when the center takes the handoff by 10K so the jets can keep climbing without leveling off and accelerate. If they have to level off and fly a ways at 250 I’ll just say it so the pilot understands I haven’t forgotten about them. Sometimes the airliner will just ident if they think we forgot about them and then I’d say that as well.

 

[PaulS]

Likely it wasn’t a missed ‘handoff’ but just a failure to get the frequency change done.

I think you are right, I thought maybe I had missed it, but I had a video camera going and it wasn't there.

 

[luvflyin]

Interesting. Could you explain this a bit more? Just curious.

There are different ways it actually appears on the ‘scopes’ depending on the type of Radar ‘automation’ in use. I’m sure there are ‘configurations’ in use now I haven’t seen. But what is common to all is once the handoff is initiated by the transferring controller, be it via ‘mouse’ or equivalent like Track Balls, something is happening on the transferring controllers scope to indicate handoff is being made and on the receiving controllers scope. Then when the receiving controller accepts it, something happens on the transferring controllers scope to show it’s been done. Sometimes it is as @Timbeck2 describes where the ‘symbol’ over the ‘target’ changes. Sometimes it can be a symbol in the ‘data block’ of the airplane rather than the ‘symbol’ directly over the ‘target.’ This is how it was at the Center when I was working there many moons ago. And, every system I ever worked with had a way to do it without ‘mouse’ or equivalent. All that was needed was to ‘identify’ which ‘target’ is being handed off. This can be done on the ‘keyboard’ by using Callsign, discrete Beacon Code or a CID. CID is Computer Identification Code, a three digit number assigned to each flight. @Radar Contact , how up to date am I?

 

[Jmcmanna]

Also, to expand on the climb before the frequency change...very likely the departure controller got on the landline “south, south, handoff”. The center controller then would say something like “radar contact, climb him to FL210” just to get them climbing a bit sooner.