Civil Aviation in Bangladesh

[captalam]

Can the pilots flying into Dhaka please share your experience of ATC, Radio nav facility and runway condition in Dhaka.

[GlueBall]

ILS was working, a few runway lights brighter than others, heavy rubber deposits on touchdown areas, pavement slippery when wet, ATC competent. Third world poor country with infrastructure overload.

[gh0strider]

Was at the holding point a few days ago when an airforce fighter declared an emergency inbound. Have to say the chatter on frequency between ground and the fire trucks wasnt the most confidence inspiring ever. i think it must have taken them 5 minutes to try and position themselves at the runway if not more.
on the otherhand was pleasantly surprised when Approach gave us fairly good vectors as no 2 for the ILS. the last time i was there (a while ago) it was the dme arc for the ils.

[dash8pilotCanada]

Hi I fly a MD82 out of Dhaka..

Firstly there are not to many aircraft that fly out of Dhaka compared to other international airports, so delays are not frequent. Note ground frequency is rarely used.
You will get your ATC clearance on the taxi out and get your taxi instruction after landing from the tower and there is no changing to ground. As for the taxi, the taxi ways are horrible, always being fixed but never fixed. There is 1 runway 14/32, pretty decent expect for a bump at the middle of the runway. You have a few standard ILS approaches. If there are no military jets flying in the area its a plesant experience. Note if there are more than 3 aircrafts in the zone, controllers get shaky. They do have a radar (use 121.3 MHZ) but its not always used. Controllers are very nice, there is english is good (not great). Fog in the winter months and thunderstorms during april-june. Happy flying

[Panama Jack]

It seems to be getting better . . . slightly.

For a while there they had NOTAMed out of service the primary VOR's and most of the supporting navigation aids in a non-radar environment, but still giving clearances based on these nav aids. I am puzzled on how this is all supposed to function without reliance on GNSS or Inertial navigation systems. I once queried the Controller on how he expected us to fly the SID departure with the nav-aid being NOTAMed out of service. He sounded confused and responded that the VOR is working OK.

One thing that puzzles me is that almost all of the approach procedures have the note that all procedures are based on 140 knots TAS. What exactly does this mean?

Another source of annoyance in Dhaka (and throughout the Sub Continent) is controllers sometimes trying to fly you down on the profile after clearing you for the approach, when you are on a published segment. However well intentioned this may be, it creates confusion and this is a "no-no", if my memory serves me right from the IFR training that I received years ago, unless they would be kind enought to call the flare for me also. :E

Also, I don't understand why Dhaka and Calcutta cannot be on talking terms to be able to coordinate traffic via a land line. Here we are, in the 21st Century.

[Rotorhead1026]

controllers sometimes trying to fly you down on the profile

Standard procedure here. I don't like it either, but they ain't asking me.

Also, I don't understand why Dhaka and Calcutta cannot be on talking terms to be able to coordinate traffic

This isn't even done between FIR's within India, so they surely won't do it with another country.

[saperaa]

can ATC say hi across FIR ?
no way ,no time to say helo between tower to radar or ground at the same airport.