CPL Met, Sydney WAC references

[Jazzy78910]

I'm doing the CPL Met on Friday, and am currently revising Bob Tait's practice exams in his text book.

There is some questions that offer an ARFOR and then make reference to the Sydney WAC 3456. The ARFOR makes reference to cloud around SLOPES and RANGES, but being that I fly out of Brisbane I'm not sure where these are.

Can someone enlighten me to the locations of these on the WAC?

Cheers

[scavenger]

Very good question and one that CASA or BoM seem unable to answer themselves when asked. Certainly the guy wh runs flight crew exams is very unconvincing when trying to explain the use of these forecasts in exams.:=

One interpretation used is that the ranges are the highest points along the Great Dividing Range joined together and running roughly North - South. There is a particular colour of hyposometric tint used along this line and for an area either side, the size of which depends how quickly the elevation decreases East - West. The area thus coloured would be the ranges.

The slopes (usually the Western slopes in the ARFOR) is the area of steadily increasing terrain leading to the ranges from the West. Not having a WAC handy i can't elaborate on place names but the WAC gets bluer at its Western edge. These bluer areas wouldn't be Western slopes.

This link may help: New South Wales Forecast Area Map (http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/nsw/forecasts/map.shtml)

I'd love to read a more accurate answer from someone who knows or compiles the forecast.:ok:

[tmpffisch]

I actually rang the BOM ARFOR forecaster for clarification on this before my Met exams.

Scavenger's explanation is as good as what I could do, however it would be nice for some clarification of this to be put into CPL study books/BOM Manual.

[Jazzy78910]

Cheers for the detailed explanation Scavenger! That puts things in a better perspective, but I still managed to get the practice exam question incorrect :ouch:

It says:

SCT ST 1000/3000 SW SLOPES, BKN RANGES TILL 08

The proposed flight is from Wagga Wagga to Canberra and the answer indicates that an arrival at 02 will result in:
5 to 7 eighths of cloud with a base of 1000
along the route

How this proposed route is near / over ranges I am unsure, as the Great Dividing Range appears to track N/S about 30NM east of Canberra...?

[Ted D Bear]

Rest assured - if you track from WG to CB you will fly over some bloody big ranges. The IFR LSALT on that route is 6,500 - high enough to think about taking the long way round in a light twin.

[Ted D Bear]

The interesting thing about

SCT ST 1000/3000 SW SLOPES, BKN RANGES TILL 08


on that route is that, read literally, a good part of that cloud would in fact be underground :confused:. Usually the ARFOR will specify different bases and tops for the slopes versus the ranges ...

[AVIATOR1982]

Guys, it worries me that people are being sent to exams unable to read a Wac chart and the information it presents to you.

The Wac charts gives you topographic data for that given area, if you look at a Sydney Wac you should be able to quite clearly see the ranges run north/south the slopes are obviously either east or west as they are attached to the ranges. (ie the SW Slopes will be the southern end of the ranges on the western side.)

You should not need to know a particular area to be able to work out where the mountains are.

The only way to approach these questions is to draw your track on the Wac, then label it with your departure and arrival times, the questions will refer to troughs etc and low cloud moving either ahead or behind your planned route, again draw the positions on your wac and label them with the time at that position. You should then quite easily be able to build a picture of exactly what's happening with the weather around you and be able to work out what kind of conditions to expect.

Good luck for those exams !!

[AVIATOR1982]

And for god sake make sure you use the bloddy TAF for your conditions on arrival at the aerodrome and not the ARFOR !!

You might think this is a given but I have seen many people get so wrapped up in the ARFOR that they forget to use the TAF for their arrival.

[Wan]

I think it is a bit unfair to suggest that Jazzy cannot read a WAC. His question suggests he does. True it is that the word "slopes" suggests the slope of the ranges, but in Vic and Qld this term is not used, even though the great dividing range extends through both, and the terrain generally does slope to the top of the ranges (as opposed to flat land from the sea until the cliff-faced ranges). I don't know why this is so; then again, I don't know why they call bathers "swimmers" in NSW.

[Ted D Bear]

Thread drift I know - but we don't call 'swimmers' 'bathers' because when we go down to the beach we don't take our rubber ducky and a brush to scrub our backs, we go to have a swim. :rolleyes: I guess if we took a bath with clothes on, they'd be bathers we were wearing :ok:.

In fairness to the original poster - a little bit of local knowledge goes a long way when reading ARFORs. If you don't have the local knowledge, then I guess it is incumbent on you to work it out by looking at whatever resources you can - including the WAC, with all the topographical data it has. But - again in fairness - real ARFORs do include a phone number at the end which you can ring to talk to the forecaster to clarify or elaborate - and that's obviously not an option in the exam.

One useful piece of local knowledge is that in many places the highest peaks of the ranges are not the actual divide (from which the Great Dividing Range gets its name). The Brindabellas (south-west of Canberra) are quite rugged and mountainous, for example, but they are not the divide. If you've ever driven from Canberra towards Goulburn, you wouldn't even know you were crossing the Great Dividing Range unless you noticed the sign - there, it is just a small ridge which you cross north of Lake George.

Where Jazzy went wrong was to misinterpret where the 'ranges' ended, as much what was meant by 'slopes' - and they've got ranges in Qld and Vic.

Ted

[Jazzy78910]

Cheers for the replies guys! In case you are wondering, I passed no worries, but do have one small gripe about wording of some questions and potential meanings it could imply:

2 or 3 questions in my exam gave a circuit arrival time of say, 0240 UTC with a TAF of:
TAF YXXX 232330Z 2400/2412
22007KT 9999 FEW025
FM 240300 23020KT 5000 BKN010

The question asked for the "forecast conditions at time of arrival", but did not specify whether it was talking about the possible need for an alternate and the mandatory 30 minute buffer it would impose, or just the conditions at 0240 literally.

I went with what I would do in the real situation, where I would see the deterioration of wx within the 30mins of my ETA and HAVE to plan that the forecast weather would be the lesser conditions. I believe I got this wrong and they wanted the literal forecast, but I am unsure. A heads-up, I guess for others maybe?

By the way, in QLD a lot of people use the term "Togs" to describe bathers / swimmers! Being from the south originally, togs has never sat well with me and I prefer swimmers ;)

[capt787]

i would go for the most restrictive forecast (i.e. 23020KT 5000 BKN010), but i could be wrong for the exam :\

[The Green Goblin]

The forecast conditions for the time of your arrival are as per the 00-03

When allowing for fuel however you need to make allowances for the conditions deteriorating as per the 30 minute buffer from good to bad.

So you would have been incorrect.

CASA exams :yuk:

[Ted D Bear]

I agree: :yuk:

They think they are being smart by writing a question which looks like a trick question (testing on alternate and holding requirements) but really isn't, to trap everyone who's been warned about trick questions.

Now - what sound reason could there be for doing that, other than to be :mad:s?

[b_sta]

The sad part is that the safe and logical answer in real life is wrong for the purposes of the exam! :mad:

[The Green Goblin]

This is a classic example of why you need to read a CASA exam question carefully. A word different is the difference between two different answers.

Good thing is you passed, congrats. Now get ATPL met out the way soon while it is still in your head!

[Jazzy78910]

This is a classic example of why you need to read a CASA exam question carefully.

I re-read this question and deliberated between the 2 potential meanings until I ran out of time. The problem was that 3 questions were worded such as this, so I got all three wrong, despite actually having an intimate understanding of the knowledge being tested.

I feel sorry for the poor International students with English as a second language, trying to interpret underlying meanings to such badly worded questions. But a pass is a pass, and a hoop-jumped-through is a hoop-jumped-through. :rolleyes:

[40Deg STH]

AVIATOR1982, What is a WAC chart?

World aeronautical chart chart?

I remember one lecturer i had when doing my CPL before 1982, would happily take the piss out of anyone who called it that.:D I still smile everytime I see it referred to as a WACC:)

I see the exams are still obscure sometimes. The people who tend to write these exams appear to have very little or limited commercial experience and generally have only been instructors in GA airports.

Good luck with the answers. It really is no reflection on your ability but more a sign of commitment to get through no matter how stupid the questions are.

Good luck, we have all been there.

[The Green Goblin]

or an ATM an ATM machine :p

[Arm out the window]

That you enter you Personal Identification Number number into to get your money out.

[scavenger]

Personally I think that asking for the forecast conditions at a specific time would be an absolute gift in an exam. There is a difference between forecast conditions at a particular time and operational requirements that may be imposed by a BECMG, FM, INTER or TEMPO that begins after your ETA.

I know that when checking weather operationally, I expect whatever is forecast for the specific time of arrival but consider the effects of changes that may occur earlier or later than forecast.

I don't think being able to interpret the forecast for a specific time is an unimportant skill. I wonder why people would assume whoever wrote the question is trying to be a smart ass? Seems very straightforward to me, ie what does the forecast say for your ETA.

In fact,

They think they are being smart by writing a question which looks like a trick question (testing on alternate and holding requirements) but really isn't

is one of the more amusing criticisms i have heard. Not only do they trick you, but they write questions that look like tricks but aren't.:D Why not just RTFQ?

I would assume that other questions in this or other exams cover operational requirements. You would have no hope of determining operational requirements if you could not determine forecast conditions for a specific time.

A more important point might be that, whoever you did your training/study for this exam, this type of skill (how to extract forecast conditions at a particular time) probably should've been covered.:ugh:

Disagree with comments about local knowledge and calling the met office for clarification. I think that the forecast should stand alone and be able to be easily interpreted from primary source documents (charts, AIP). They should use the various locations shown on PCA, rather than subjective descriptions of terrain features, to identify boundaries for winds, clouds and the like.

Well done for passing.

[Ted D Bear]

Scavenger - if they are not being smart in asking the question that way, why do they ask for the forecast conditions at a time which is within the buffer around a change which requires you to plan as if the forecast conditions are not as forecast for that time, but for later?

The question could easily have tested the ability to describe forecast conditions at a particular time outside the buffer.

You say RTFQ - and that is what the original poster did. Presumably, he then thought about the warnings everyone hears about 'trick' questions and read more into the question than was really there.

Ted

[scavenger]

why do they ask for the forecast conditions at a time which is within the buffer around a change which requires you to plan as if the forecast conditions are not as forecast for that time, but for later?


Because, if you do not undertsand the forecast, there is doubt as to what are forecast conditions for a specific time, rather than conditions which are forecast in the future of the specific time but are considered when determining operational requirements.

Never let it be said that I would defend the person in charge of these exams, who is very rude and unhelpful, even when demonstrably wrong - at least he was when i was involved with these things.

Whatever you may think about the question, it should've been covered in the training but apparently wasn't.

Cheers

[Ted D Bear]

You just don't get it, do you?

[AVIATOR1982]

40Deg STH thanks for that :D, I am so happy for you that you have so much time on your hands that you can just trawl pprune for anything that you think is spelt or named incorrectly. Why not contribute to a thread instead? or even do yourself a favour and go and get yourself a job!:ugh: