Greg Esres wrote:
Heading and vector are synonomous.

There are no nonradar headings. A nonradar tower or approach
control can not, by definition, vector.

You're contradicting yourself, dude.

Non-radar facilities can, and, do, issue headings, but as you say,
they cannot vector, because they do not have radar.

Any heading issued by a tower controller is a vector.

As you stated above, a non-radar tower cannot vector, but they can
issue headings.

A nonradar facility cannot vector. There aren't very many of them
around anymore. Helena, MT is one of the few left. They are a nonradar
approach control and tower. You will fly the DP and it is a one in and
one out facility. You will never get a vector or a heading from them.
Now if they are a VFR tower, with or without a DBRITE scope, they may
give a vector if the approach control gives the tower the vector with
the IFR release. And of course a tower with radar gives vectors all the
time. As a matter of fact at my facility we have made the tower
controller a radar controller, it let's us use the airspace more
efficiently since we do a lot of opposite direction stuff.



You're vastly outvoted by other experts in the subject, so I think you
are in error and are dangerously misleading readers, because the
heading assignment by tower is not capable of providing what a vector
provides, which is terrain clearance.

If terrain is a factor there will be a DP. Any vector will meet that.
None of this changes the fact that there is no difference between a
vector and a heading, they are synonomous.