Russian/Chinese Airspace Question

[Seat 22C]

I was fortunate to ride from SFO to HKG yesterday and the UA 744 captain had Channel 9 active. The airspace is much different from my familiar US airspace and I wanted to ask the captain some questions. A tight connection prevented that, so ...

- Over Russia and China, I listened to multiple position reports (flight, altitude, location, time, next, time, next). Yet, more than once the controllers also changed squwak codes. So why were we on non-radar procedures (porition reports) if we were in radar contact (squwak codes)?

- Flight levels were in meters (10,500, 10,800, 12,000) instead of feet but the FL differences were 200 meters or 300 meters - Feet FL are always 1,000 ft apart (assuming RSVM), but meter FL's varied. Are there "standard" meter FL's or were the controllers just assigning them arbitrarily?

- After hours at FL 10,800 meters, the captain requested 12,000 meters only 90 minutes before landing at HKG. Shortly after the climb was completed, we started our descent. I can't imagine that the fuel/time saving would justify the very short period at 12,000 meters. Any idea why the captain requested a climb?

Can't wait for the return flight and more Channel 9 activity.

[PAXboy]

Welcome aboard Seat 22C. :D

An interesting question indeed but this is probably not the best forum. Whilst you might be pax yourself on this occasion, 'Questions' or 'Tech Log' would place your question under more pairs of pilot's eyes!

Perhaps ask our moderator, Xenia [bows low] to move this thread to the one considered more suitable.

[Boss Raptor]

In many parts of the world they have primary and secondary radar however control remains procedural as opposed to 'radar control' hence position reports.

The Russians use altimeter settings at the altitudes you are talking about same as most of the rest of the world. Russia uses a system, where all enroute flight above 2,000 meters is done with the altimeter set to 29.92 i.e Flight Levels QNE .

Flight level difference 200m is approx 650ft and 300m 1000ft - so equating to 500ft and 1000ft seperation in Western airspace so again not that unusual although less than 1000ft at altitude sounds unusual, do they use the quadrantal rule in the UIR's?

Minimum enroute altitudes are based upon flight over either mountainous or non-mountainous terrain. For VFR flight, the MEA is 300 meters above the highest obstacle in mountainous areas, or 100 meters over the highest point in non-mountainous areas. Not sure about IFR.

Need more detail from a pilot using these routes on a regular basis.