Beijing/Capital

[brookhouse]

Does anyone have views or preferably a written brief for operations into Beijing/Capital?

[Richardatnos]

As far as I know, Beijing has 2 rwy- 18/36, the choice of rwy for certain flight is primarily concerned of your parking bay, just for shortern taxi length, but actually the traffic controller is very subjective, sometimes the APP informs you 36R, and 1 min later, the ARR informs you 36L.
The Beijing int'l airport is very "crowded", just listen to the DEL feqy! Delay is inevitably! Sometimes, from your parking position to the departure rwy, it take more than 3 quarters to taxi!! So, pay attention to your taxi fuel! Because it is not strange to hear that some flight have to taxi in to refuel when it is already at the last holding point before take-off!
The traffic controller in Beijing seems to be very like to use "stadby, I will call you"(and forget you in 1 sec).
Once I heard in the feqy as follow:
DEL: STADBY, I WILL CALL YOU
NORTHWEST: STADING BY
(AFTER A LONG PERIOD)
NORTHWEST: REQUEST SLOT TIME
DEL:NO TIME DUE TRAFFIC FLOW CONTROL
NW: WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY NO TIME THEN
DEL: NO TIME IS NO TIME
THE THIRD VOICE: NO TIME MEANS SHE STILL HAS NO IDEA ABOUT YOUR SLOT TIME
:)

[petitfromage]

Quick brief on BJS:

18/36 (L&R) both 13,123ft.
ILS to all runways and PAPIs on the left.
*Caution: the DME for ILSs on to 36 is from the ILS 18 Freq.

R/T: The standard of ENG is actually quite good although like the French they flaunt ICAO regs and speak their native tongue to locals. Very unsafe as you have no idea who youre following of if anyone is close behind you etc.
This can also be complicated when they suddenly decide to use the Approach Freq as a Tower Freq too!

Terrain is a factor to the west. MSA 7100ft. if you have any doubt about your vectors with relation to the terrain or you have an emergency ask for "terrain clearance heading"

Expect track shortening on the arrival with very late changes and frequent late runway changes. The ATIS take-off and landing runways have no bearing at all upon which runway is actually in use! (in fact more often than not, I find that Id bet on the opposite)

Arrivals: expect to follow the STAR until D25 PEK and then get picked off for vectors.

Taxying: caution people on bikes, pedestrians and other modes of transport!
The taxi routes are very simple (for Asia)

There are 2 ground Freqs (East and West); 90% on time they are both working and sometimes you'll get a handover.

Departures: The SID is often revised at late notice. Expect them to assign a runway heading with your take-off clearance. If they forget, they sometimes give it to you while you rolling!!

Some of the local NDBs are military owned and controlled. If civil authorities dont pay their fees, the beacons are shutdown without notice. ATC have no way of monitoring them. Do not expect all the NDBs of your SID to be servicable. That said you have little option but to continue......thank goodness for FMS!

PS: the vis is awful in heavy pollution. ON an average day I wouldnt expect to get visual with the runway until 300-500ft. (slightly better at night)

Hope this helps.

[LearjetGA]

I was in June in ZBAA. Came in in the middle of the night. Carefull about Fog! We broke out at the minimas! Tower did not tell us about it! Arrival and Approach controllers were very efficient vectoring us around Thunderstorms, they did a great job!

We landed on Runway 18R and had a short taxi to apron 8 (Biz Jet parking) Passing Customs was interesting: We climbed in the Handler's minivan and 20 minutes later we were at the Sheraton (Great place to stay)

The following day, i thought that two hours ahead of departure time would be enough to walk through security. I was wrong, very wrong: it took 10 minutes and i got a cup of tea. They have a General Aviation/VIP terminal. GPU was ordered and 5 minutes later comes a brand new out of the box GPU (no charge)

Start up clearance is challenging (takes at least 10 to 15 minutes). Taxi clearance is easy: taxi Z2, A to runway 18L but long (25minutes)