Question for ATC

[grrowler]

Can someone explain why this happened to me today?

MAY - SY Departed on time this morning with another regional departing just behind. We were faster in climb and cruise. Nearly to SY when the controller gets us to slow to min. speed and hold at BIK, and allows the other regional to steam on past, and then proceeds to give us an overfly for 16L with an outrageously long final. Instead of 15min early we ended up 5 late. I understand SY gets "busy" at that time and the need for runway changes, etc, but what's with the rearranging of two similar speed turboprops?

After getting over my little bout of air-rage, I was considering why this had happened. All I could come up with was that due to the tailwind and model of our aircraft we were ahead of our slot time, and maybe the following aircraft had an earlier one. Or that the other crew had performed sexual favours for the controllers :E :suspect:

Can someone shed some light on this?

[DeltaSix]

grrowler, I'd ring them and growl at them. I mean ask them in a nice way, why they did it. Maybe they do have sexual favours with the other guy or girl in the other plane.

I was flying one night and I was asked to do one orbit so this other regional can fly past me overhead. They say to "avoid a conflict" when I was only flying a slow moving duchess well below this other plane by about 4,000 feet. By the time I got the instruction I can see the other guy go past above me anyway.

Looks like another X-File to me.


DeltaSix

[DirtyPierre]

grrowler, I'd ring them and growl at them. I mean ask them in a nice way

Exactly! If you have a problem, give ATC a ring. Complaining about it here may make you feel better and get you some sympathy, but you won't really know why it happened.

ATC are in the phone book. Brisbane ATC 3866 3421.

BTW D6, did you ring and find out why you got an orbit? Maybe the conflict had nothing to do with the aircraft you saw, but the one that was inbound from another direction and on another frequency.

[DeltaSix]

DirtyPierre,

No, I didnt ring. It was around 9:30pm that night and having just gone through 2 NDB apps in Goulburn and 3 ILS in YSCB, I was too tired to ring up and ask questions on a night like that after coming back to YSBK. I was quite sure it was the aircraft above me because I asked Sydney Radar where the aircraft was (although he has mentioned it previously) to re-confirm his position and he said that it was "just above you now " and headed in the same direction.

So, didnt quite know why, But I'm sure he did that to increase the margin of safety for everybody's sake.


D6 :ok:

[Duff Man]

grrowler, i presume you're talking about a SY arrival between 7 and 9 am? If so, turboprops from the southwest fit where they fit. The preference for ATC (and you) is 16R but sometimes there are too many heavy jets from the north requiring 16R so you have to go on 16L. Luck of the draw I'm afraid. It happens every morning when a turbo in front has to overfly and lands after the one behind, I guess when it's the competition that hurts!

Sexual favours have little to do with it but now you mention it there is an interesting list of airlines at WIT and Breakaway that do other favours ;) although this doesn't stop us making decisions in favour of safety, efficiency and simplicity.

[Roger Standby]

Maybe someone should explain how Maestro works... the other guy can be miles behind and closing slowly (enough to put his est at the field a minute ahead) and the guru machine puts him number 1. Ahh... the system your bosses wanted!

R-S.

[grrowler]

DP, I wasn't complaining, I was asking a genuine question, and as this is a discussion forum frequented by ATC, I believed I would get a more varied and useful response than by speaking to one person. Alas, I get people like you with nothing useful to say.

Duffman, if you read my post, you'll see I am not questioning the change of runway, I realise they put us in wherever we fit best.

We were slowed down and held prior to/ at Bindook while the other slower/ later eta aircraft was allowed to pass. Why?

[aussiegal]

Maestro can be manipulated by controllers to fudge estimates for specified fix's and if it is not adjusted for a faster fix time it can also be to your disadvantage with the other acft going no. 1. It would have been worth a call as it doesn't seem fair that you were no. 1 to the other like type and then end up no. 2 through no fault of your own (other being med category etc)

[Hempy]

As far as I can tell, Maestro takes your aircraft's landing time, projects it back to the initial approach fix, divides the POB by the number of spanners in a Sidchrome Supertool kit, adds that to the combined IQ of the flight crew minus the care factor of the Flow, which then tells it the position of your aircraft in the sequence. If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard "F#$%#$g French **** !" exclaimed in exasperation, Donald Trump couldn't pay my taxes.


editM-A-E-S-T-R-O

Its French for Merde.

I thought merde was French for merde :}

[DirtyPierre]

DP, I wasn't complaining,

Certainly read like a complaint to me.

and as this is a discussion forum frequented by ATC, I believed I would get a more varied and useful response than by speaking to one person.

Maybe, but you might not get the ATC who actually made the decision (or his supervisor) to make you number 2. They'd be able to tell you EXACTLY why. Methinks you just posted here to vent your spleen.

Alas, I get people like you with nothing useful to say.

Well kiss my bottom and call me sweetie. Now the insulting attitude from the disgruntled pilot.

I thought my comment was quite valid, and I even gave you the telephone number of Brissie Centre. They'd be able to get any info for you if you ask nicely. ( Say the magic word ggrowler). Sorry, I don't know Sydney Approach Centre's number off the top of my head, but I could look up the white pages for you!

After getting over my little bout of air-rage

Maybe you haven't quite got over it.

[Duff Man]

grrowler yeah ok for the specifics of your situation it would have been best to call the Sydney TCU Traffic Manager or Melbourne Centre Ops Supervisor (1300 301 120). If you put something in writing they could possibly investigate within 30 days.

Also there is another online forum hosted by the ATC union which may get better answers than pprune.
http://www.civilair.asn.au/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

[grrowler]

DP, quoting back my own post to me...how useful *yawn*

For the other informative posts - thankyou :ok: