Another Daft Pilot Question

[Recover]

Could one of you kind Departure-types help me with a question that's been bugging me for a little while now.

If I'm on a LAM departure from LGW I'm obviously going north and it would be jolly nice to get going that way quicker, rather than attempt to reach AMS first. But what's the best way to do this in the grand ATC plan? Is it better to whizz out eastbound (assuming 'no speed restriction', of course) and try to get abeam/beyond LAM, 'cos that always seems to be where you turn us. Or is it better to keep the speed back and go for a better angle of climb so that you can get us high over London and on our way beyond the Watford Gap?

And while I'm at it, who gets the great job on 130.92? Do you have to draw names or is it reserved for Mr/Mrs Senior. "Climb FL210 and contact 127.1", what a great sector for max coffee drinking time :D

Cheers y'all,

Recover

PS: If you could make the standard call on the LAM dep of "Hdg 095, climb FL 90" I could win a lot more beer :ok:

[Over+Out]

Firstly it all depends on the traffic situation at the time.
We have to climb you to FL130 to be level abeam LHR and position you on a radar heading to the west of LAM. Therefore to generalise, it would normally be better to go for the rate of climb ( when climbed to a FL) and keep the speed down. We are assessing your rate of climb/distance to go to achieve our goal as stated above.

[055166k]

If you are genuinely interested I suggest a visit to West Drayton to sit in with a controller for an hour or so..........Unfortunately the tone of your post indicates that this is unlikely.......but please prove me wrong! If you're closer to Southampton come and spend a morning with us at Swanwick..you will be made welcome, pilot visitors are almost unknown and bearing in mind that we are in the same line of work [sort-of] I have never understood why this is the case.

[BOAC]

Recover - FMFBI - my solution (it works most of the time!) is to offer a 'good rate' (if you have it!!) on transfer to London, and have a look at the TCAS picture as you go round the corner (26L?). If you see contacts like Flock wallpaper in a Chinese restaurant, the guys/girls are going to be busy (even on 130.92 :D ), and generally I accelerate to whatever on the eastbound track to get to LAM and round the corner more quickly. You always have the 'stick lift' to get up if it is needed. If it LOOKS reasonably clear I keep the speed back and hope for the rapid climb. The other clue is if you get a radar heading of, say, 095/105, the CHANCES are you are going to go to the east, so again I accelerate to 250kts and use the 40kts 'spare' to get a good rate if offered. With the 7000ft look-up with TCAS you can generally predict when the left turn is coming as you start to clear the top of the stacks.

For the London team - it is a great help for us when we offer a 'good rate' to get an idea of whether or not you are likely to use it. Most of you do say, but the ones who don't make the speed planning a bit more difficult.

Great service y'all. :ok:

PS - learnt that in DanAir.....or was it on the Trident'?:eek:

[eyeinthesky]

From memory of my days in TC:

The problem is the BIG stack and LL departures. It is no good stepping on the gas off 26 at KK and thinking you can get shot up the gap west of BIG as you are underneath all the DVR departures off LL.

The next challenge is to get you above or round the holding aircraft at BIG. You are put on a heading of 090 or 100 or whatever to take you south of that traffic to climb underneath traffic from TIGER running into the stack and then turned north when you are above the traffic in the hold. All this assumes that there are no SS departures southbound at FL 70 or 80 and nothing conflicting through TANET for KK at FL 130...

So it's not quite as simple as you might have thought, is it...!?

Enjoy the coffee:hmm:

[Recover]

Over & Out, Eye In the Sky and, of course, me ol’ mucker BOAC,

Thank you for your considered answers in aiding my rapid departure to places north of West Sussex. I do appreciate, despite my usual dimness, the fluidity of the situation and that there are no hard and fast rules, but it is nice to know a plan that works a lot of the time, so it’ll be ‘good rate’ for me from now on. I have to admit to completely forgetting about the BIG hold and will examine Mr TCAS in more detail to facilitate the climb. EITS, no, I never, ever thought it was easy, just you guys make it sound that way and your efforts are appreciated, despite the way some of my colleagues sound sometimes.

055166K,

I apologise if my post caused offence. It was meant to be light-hearted, but I obviously need to work harder to ensure my tone is not misconstrued. I have, indeed, taken up the offer of visiting West Drayton in the past and currently have 7 educational tours under my belt. I’m yet to ‘do’ Swanwick, but will endeavour to get there one day and admire the shiny new office. I miss having the ATC chaps/esses on the flight deck for famil flights, as I used to get all my silly questions answered without having to resort to typing and I like to think it helped to break down a lot of the ‘them & us’ barriers that still seem to find there way into our professions. It does puzzle me that more pilots don’t make the effort to even arrange something as simple as a tower visit, which I always considered a very enjoyable and educational way to carry out airport standby at LHR.

Right, I’ll bore you no further and look forward to those early northerly turns. I still reckon 130.92 is the best freq though
:)

[WMD]

Recover,

The reason you only get 2000ft of climb from 130.92 is to get you through BB and BE inbounds who are descending from FL220 towards BB. WELIN (130.92) have to give the LAM departures to DTY (127.1) climbing or at FL210 clean against this traffic desceding into BB. If there are no conflicting BB/BE's then you might not speak to 130.92 at all and be climbed to FL210 by CAPITAL(127.95) and transferred straight to DTY.

WMD

[055166k]

No question is "daft". If you ask it then it deserves a reply. By the way I am familiar with the unintended offence problem, as soon as I press the button the words seem to reassemble into something completely different. Slot reserved for you on Golf One tomorrow unless you're the concorde driver who keeps saying I sound like Bob Peck or somebody...anyway I've never heard of him.

[Moondance]

Interesting thread, as a driver, there are many cases when I wonder to go for speed or altitude. I have to disagree about 130.92 though - it always strikes me that the sector is often doing most of the work of BHX approach, sequencing the inbounds, especially when 33 in use (as well as dealing with the traffic enroute elsewhere). Keep up the safe work (and claim a financial reward from BHX for doing their work!)