UNICOM - Worse than useless?

[Guest brentc]

Something that throws a spanner in the works sometimes is that only left turns are permitted within several miles of an airfield. This is excempt for right hand circuits, such as Tooradin.

 

Phil, I know the ERSA entry well. I wrote it!

 

 

[WestCoast]

Orbit

 

Although not often used by ATC these days, the instruction to "orbit" is still a valid instruction as a delaying tactic (see AIP GEN 3.4-59).

 

On a lighter note:

 

Many years ago prior to the installation of radar at Perth airport; in order to facilitate traffic sequencing, a British Airways (B.O.A.C) Boeing 707 inbound from Singapore was instructed as follows:-

 

Perth Tower: "Speedbird 6......for sequencing, at 22 DME, make one right hand orbit"

 

Speedbird 6: (in a very pukka accent) " Perth Tower, do you realise that an orbit in a 707 costs my company 3000 pounds?!"

 

Perth Tower: "Speedbird 6, at 22 DME make one 3000 pound, right hand orbit"

 

Dave

 

 

[Yenn]

So what do I do if the Thruster in front of me starts a go around because of the condition of the runway. I am on logg final, he is at 10' and slow and also climbing. If I go around in the Corby, the nose goes up my speed goes to 80kts and the Thruster in front is climgimg at 50kts but going up faster than I am. I will not be able to see him, I expect he will turn towards the live side of the circuit. I will turn to the dead side and be looking for him.

 

Would that be a good assesment?

 

 

[IanR]

So what do I do if the Thruster in front of me starts a go around because of the condition of the runway. I am on logg final, he is at 10' and slow and also climbing. If I go around in the Corby, the nose goes up my speed goes to 80kts and the Thruster in front is climgimg at 50kts but going up faster than I am. I will not be able to see him, I expect he will turn towards the live side of the circuit. I will turn to the dead side and be looking for him.Would that be a good assesment?

Ian, I think we can get too worried about process if we try hard enough - my assessment would be do whatever is needed to miss him !! If doing an "official" method seems to be the wrong thing at the time then it probably is. There is no hard and fast answer to anything.

 

 

[Guest brentc]

If you are overtaking, you'd overtake to the right, or alternatively give way to the right and turn right to go behind. There are exceptions of course such as these, but put those down to common sense.

 

I had an interesting one this morning. I joined a reasonably tight right downwind on 17R at Moorabbin at 1,000ft. About level with crosswind they told me to join behind the Cessna 152 turning downwind in a very tight circuit. Looked around and noticed he was under me by 200ft at my 9 o'clock. I was doing 140 knots and he was probably lucky to be doing 70. I told the tower that I couldn't slow down enough to let him go in front, so they told me to 'widen' my circuit, so as a result I had to fly directly over the top of him whilst he was climbing to get to the outside of him. It wasn't my idea of a safe circuit procedure.

 

 

[Guest browng]

So what do I do if the Thruster in front of me starts a go around because of the condition of the runway. I am on logg final, he is at 10' and slow and also climbing. If I go around in the Corby, the nose goes up my speed goes to 80kts and the Thruster in front is climgimg at 50kts but going up faster than I am. I will not be able to see him, I expect he will turn towards the live side of the circuit. I will turn to the dead side and be looking for him.Would that be a good assesment?

Yenn, Question. Why is he moving to the live side if he is No 1? What's wrong with him flying down the centerline? The scenario above is why the No2 (in this case the Corby), moves to the live side, to give lateral separation from the Thruster in front. Unless I am mis-understanding it, your description has one aircraft dead side, one live side, and a vacant centerline?

 

 

[facthunter]

Avoidance.

 

The most important aspect of this is to keep the other aircraft in sight. The thruster will climb steeper, but at a slower speed. The manoevering Corby would climb less steeply, but much faster, so there could easily be a collision point. If you can't see him, and you do not know what he is going to do you are counting on providence (luck). Not a good thing.. I think in this situation, I would not be in too much of a hurry to climb, and would displace to the right, (dead side) by not a large distance and when visually past the thruster,( and below it, therefore having good visibility at all times) resume climb at a speed above what the thruster would do. Positive visual separation, and I can't see how it would endanger any other traffic.

 

brentc , Why are you doing 140 Knots on downwind in the circuit at Moorabin? The normal speed for a B727 in that situation is 145 Knots. What are you flying? Regards Nev...

 

 

[Guest browng]

We can easily get too caught up in this specific issue. I believe the most important aspect is to make sure you safely aviate the go-around, keeping the other aircraft in sight is a very close second. According to Flight Safety Magazine, the ATSB recorded 24 go-around accidents between 1990 and 2000, three resulted in fatalities, none were due to collisions. Lets not forget to fly the aircraft first.

 

 

[Yenn]

We seem to have got this sorted at the end, just fly the plane and keep safe. If ATC comes up with a stupid unsafe proposal you can always say "negative that is unsafe"

 

 

[Guest High Plains Drifter]

For those with an interest in ATC matters, Dick Smith has just started a new thread over at PPrune. "Airservices' impresive US class D towers" - Look in 'Dunnunda & Godzone, D & G Reporting pionts.

 

Mention is made to transponders not being mandatory in E

 

HPD

 

 

[ahlocks]

Had the first experience with the Unicom trial at YSWG earlier today (yesterday now...).

 

Made our call on the CTAF® with taxi intentions and was answered with a request for our call sign by the Unicom operator and provided with a "no traffic in area" advisory. I advised the operator that I was intending on some circuits and all was good. It's nice to have a human monitoring the CTAF inform you that there isn't 'supposed' to be any traffic in the area instead of just using the AFRU for an indication. Nice, but I still am wary of any sneaky ones not making radio calls and as YSWG has only recently changed CTAF frequency, we're also monitoring the old frequency as well as keeping an extra careful lookout - just in case.

 

I did notice that when another outbound aircraft made a taxi call, that the Unicom operator prompted its pilot that we were lining up on the runway in case they had missed our call. Much better than an AFRU beep back in my opinion.

 

I changed our intentions to a local flight on crosswind as it was a bit too bumpy for lots of circuits and advised Unicom of same with no issue. Did some air work in the training area and called inbound about thirty minutes later with intention to track for a 45 downwind entry to the circuit and was again greeted by Unicom with traffic info. I requested and was then given a wind speed and direction - love it!

 

With no reported traffic in the area at the time and now knowing what the wind was doing, I advised that I'd like to track for a straight in approach. The operator replied that it was my decision to do so and paraphrased the advisory nature of the Unicom as per AIP. I reckon we’ll all be a bit less formal and swapping pleasantries as we get to know one another.

 

We were on about four mile final when the evening RPT services started calling their inbounds and Unicom kept us all informed of what was happening and who was where. The 1st SAAB had covered over 20 miles inbound and was calling 5 mile final in the time we’d flown our straight in approach and called clear of runway! There’s fair chance that had we flown a full circuit entry, we would have ended up annoying each other.

 

So far so good with the Unicom trail. There were no issues with my adlib flight planning for the evening and I definitely like the aerodrome weather information when inbound. Just got to get the operator to loosen up a bit.

 

Cheers,

 

Steven B.

 

 

[Captain]

Nice report Steve. Thanks for that.

 

 

[Mazda]

Thanks Steve!