New CTAF / CTAF(R)s

[THE IRON MAIDEN]

Does anyone (apart from NAS) have a 100% grip on the new changes, sorry "improvements" made by NAS

As I'm sure most of you have noticed that lack of CTAF boundaries on your VTC's. I drew a 10nm radius around those ALAs and CTAFs on the Melbourne VTC at came up with more than 3 or 4 airfields that have their own discrete CTAF freq overlapping with another or Multicom 126.7 Eg: YBSS and YMEL have nearly a half of their 10nm radius overlapping, and, in turn YMEL overlaps with the Romsey/Riddell/Penfield Multicom, which in turn overlaps with the YKTN CTAF

Which do you tune and broadcast on if you’re flying between them? And like most light singles have only one VHF. I could suggest switching back and forth on both.

Also there is a lack of clarification as to how high above the CTAF or CTAF(R) would be a safe height not to be on that freq when overflying. I've heard answers of 2,500' for some and 5,000' for others.

I find it strange that a CTAF(R) requires a radio to be carried, but it’s up to you to determine if you are in the CTAF(R) or not. Even some flight instructors and RPT guys that I have talked to about this don’t seem to fully understand it

I've not yet flown since these have come into effect and wondering what pilots are doing?

Cheers, The Maiden

[CaptHairDryer]

THE IRON MAIDEN

Hi mate, this question was pi$$ing me off ever since in came in, and the boys flying the jets at work didn't even know, now I phoned DOTARS the other day like it said, and firstly the woman ASKED ME TO SPELL "CTAF", I thought "oh dear this ain't good" haha, but then she took my name and number and someone in the 'know' called me back yesterday. Now when overflying a CTAF, its true, it only has a lateral boundary, not vertically. Yes it used to be 5000', now this gentlemen said you as the pilot need to make an informed decision to whether you will conflict with traffic in that circuit with regards to height. He said if you are at 8500, maybe forget it, but if your at 5500 well yeah have a listen, and make a broadcast if your concerned theres jets/turbines buzzing around. Personally I have 2 coms, and 126.7 plugged in 24/7, flying with 1 coms is a bitch hey. Hope that clears it up mate, another interesting thing he said was I told him I fly to a lot of cattle stations and he said "personally I wouldn't even bother broadcasting entering/base/final etc. because no one will even know where it is. He said make a call on area freq to let people know where you are if you like, but don't even bother. Well me, I need all the practice on these new procedures I can get, so I will be making calls (for now anyway) for a little longer till I get up to speed. Safe flying
CHD

[ovum]

5000' vertical boundary for CTAFs?...what country was that in?

The suggested vertical monitoring is based on a typical RPT/high performance aircraft descent profile. i.e. The higher you are, the further out (distance) you should be monitoring the CTAF up to a maximum of 30Nm

[Capt Claret]

Food for thought....

A typical VOR or NDB runway approach with an outbound leg of 2 minutes, followed by a reversal turn, then back to land (Nav aid at threshold end) can be commenced at A100 from overhead the aid turning outbound, and flown at flight idle (~ 1500 fpm descent) until a stable approach is intercepted at ~ 1000'.

Makes the concept of the pilot determines the appropriate freq if only one comm interesting.

[THE IRON MAIDEN]

The 5000' was suggested to me by the person I spoke to at NAS, but again he said that pilots should make up their own minds as to what height they continue to monitor the CTAF,

If I had it my way I'd always have 2 radios so I could monitor other frequencies near by, but my main concern is when I have only 1.

[Capt Claret]

Iron Maiden,

If I had it my way I'd always have 2 radios so I could monitor other frequencies near by

Sadly that's a practical requirement today, now that we have airspace being made safer by Dick and his ilk.

In the bad old days (and sorry if you're as old as I and I'm thus preaching to the converted) a second comm was there as a backup incase the first failed. It was also useful for calling ahead to the company for operational needs. However, it wasn't needed as one was handed off from one ATC/FS freq to the next, there was none of this monitor ATS and CTAF AND possibly HF to meet the continuous comms requirements of RPT/IFR!

How the hell is this safer than it was, I ask? :{ :mad:

[THE IRON MAIDEN]

Capt Claret

I'm VFR S.E., some of the 40yr old planes (bug squashers) I dart around in only have 1 VHF (and some times not a very good one) I was born in the 1980s but my dad was an FSO for some 25yrs so I've seen first hand what wonderful things our good friend Dick has done. Never flew in the days that VFR was separated form VFR thanks to the FSOs, but I can imagine how good it would have been.

My personal favourite about the whole affordable safety was when then made all the FSO’s redundant with nice packages, then when TAAATS hit the fan got them back on contracts that were more than they were getting in the first place! Great fiscal management

[karrank]

(Pilot hat on)

(Well OK, STUDENT pilot hat on)

I believe the intent of the new procedures has been smothered in layers of unintelligible dross in the training package and CASA dicking with the package in a different direction to that written elsewhere.

To me it doesn't matter if I am within 10 NM of 242 different aerodromes with 103 different frequencies, if I will not conflict with the CIRCUIT AREA of any of them there is no NEED to be on any of them. I MAY choose to dial up the one I'm closest to, or that I may conflict with high performance traffic at. If my flight will conflict with the CIRCUIT AREA of an aerodrome, either for a landing or overflight I will dial up the CTAF and make the calls 10 NM out.

I had a guy this morning report overflying at 2,500, which was nice because I had just departed and was climbing to 2,500. but I had finished the busy stuff and was looking out so don't feel the radio alerting averted a disaster or anything. A bit later a helicopter flew through the downwind leg in front of me without a word. I'd gone wide to get some space with the C150 ahead, otherwise I'd have had him bore-sighted. It seems the new calls aren't as mandatory as they're supposed to be.:yuk:

[hoss]

Just got back to work yesterday after 2 weeks off and thought I would be the first to thank the 'powers that be' for Jeppesen ammendment 23.

Unbelievable:yuk:

[GearOff]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who spent many hours enjoying Jepp ammendment #23. Good to see, also, that they spread the fun over two ammendments, with #24 ammending all the ones they forgot. Including the entire airport directory.

:mad:

[Chadzat]

oh ditto to the Jepp amendment. I have spaced it out over 3 nights and still haven't got it updated. :mad:

I have some first hand experience of the changes yesterday when I flew through a few CTAFS and did a circuit at one. The first CTAF I arrived at I did some NDB airwork and even though I hadn't heard anyone call up for a good 7 minutes prior to arriving I still made an inbound and overhead the aid calls. When i made my "overhead for airwork" call another pilot popped up and said "hang on we are here as well and opertaing at your level!" No drama I thought, I'll just cimb above him and do my airwork there. So I arranged this with pilot to pilot comms SHOCK HORROR! And it worked perfectly.

Later in the flight I had to do a touch and go at an airfield with 2 others in VERY close proximity. At one of these there were two a/c conduction continuous circuits and also 1 circuit a/c at the other airfield. My airfield was empty apart from me. I decided just to can the downwind call altogether as the frequency was already clogged JUST FROM 3 OTHER AIRCRAFT. Heaven forbid if there was a full circuit of 4 aircraft at the other airfields.

Another observation I had was that as I am not used to having to make a radio call while turning final I ended up overshooting final by a long way by the time I made my "intentions" call and then turned. on the subsequent circuit I just made my turning final call half way down base. I don't want to be worrying about making a call which could have been made when turning base ESPECIALLY when its nice and bumpy and I'm only 400-500' odd from the ground.

I seriously doubt the powers that be who put the changes in actually tested the new system out at a busy CTAF airfield.

The bit the really shat me off was that all these 100's of calls didn't matter to be one bit, as they weren't even at the airfield I was!! GRRRRRRR

[TopTup]

Been interesting reading, then re-reading the changes in the Jepps. I thought I'd missed something when unable to find a vertical limit. Seems to me it's an airmanship thing that will be up to each pilot to "interpret". That to me brings high density aerodromes into the realms of the lowest common denominator. Not so long ago I heard a call on area freq, despite me being in Class A, "Everyone in the Lismore M-TAF....."

Also, and I may be missing something (?), what about the 500' seperation between levels at GAAP's? Airports like Bankstown and Archerfield have an upper limit of 1500' (from memory). It was 1500' so as to allow 500' seperation for circuit traffic and the busy CTA above. With turboprops (metros, SAABs, king airs....) at a circuit height of 1500' that 500' margin is gone. The arguement may be that accurate flying is all that is required.....