ATC IssuesA place where pilots may enter the 'lions den' that is Air Traffic Control in complete safety and find out the answers to all those obscure topics which you always wanted to know the answer to but were afraid to ask.
There's an airline with blue aeroplanes that flies both F70 and F100. They regularly interchange the types and every now and again the flight plan doesn't get updated. The aircraft fall into different wake turbulence categories....
There's another airline with green ATR 42's and 72's. Again interchanged often and sometimes the flight plan doesn't keep up. Also different wake turbulence categories.
Not picking on or criticising the two operators... Just highlighting how it can be a problem. Even for operators with one aircraft type... There aren't many aircraft who's name is such a mouthful that it causes additional R/T congestion?!
Last edited by aerotech07; 23rd Jul 2012 at 21:00.
There's an airline with blue aeroplanes that flies both F70 and F100. They regularly interchange the types and every now and again the flight plan doesn't get updated. The aircraft fall into different wake turbulence categories....
Only because the UK's wake turbulence categories differ from ICAO's.
There's another airline with green ATR 42's and 72's. Again interchanged often and sometimes the flight plan doesn't keep up. Also different wake turbulence categories.
There is also a wake turbulence difference between the ATR42-300 and ATR42-500 which are both operated by that company IIRC. So even substitution of a different series of the same type can be an issue too.
I'm delighted my questions provoked such discussion.
As I think you all realised, I don't have an issue with including aircraft type in the initial call for all the wake turbulence or speed sequencing reasons mentioned above. As a general rule it is worth doing and takes a second.
The pedantry is where a controller, knowing your aircraft type, makes a second call seemingly for the sole purpose of pulling you up on the omission from your first call.
As I said, I think controllers at STN and LGW are the best I've experienced. I raised a specific point on unnecessary pedantry which is regularly commented upon by pilots in my airline.
Depone, don't take it personally. Pedantry is trained into us through basic training, OJT, examinations, validations, supervision, standards checks, assurance vistis, SRG, ad infinitum. Just like it is trained into pilots. The difference in the controller-pilot relationship is that everyone else can hear us pick you up, whereas only your co-pilot hears you pick him up. Standard Noise had it right - if everyone (and that is everyone, not just pilots) transmitted only what they were supposed to transmit, there would be enough airtime for the belt-and-braces bit.
Last edited by orgASMic; 24th Jul 2012 at 12:45.
Reason: clarity
Depone, you seem to have missed the point. It is not apparent what your aircraft type is unless you state it. If you don't, then expect the next call to be asking what it is! Mode S does not give aircraft type as has also been stated previously.
I can't see how that is pedantic? Please explain how you do!
What I don't get is why there is a comm procedure to pick up airline/pilot's failing to submit correct amendments to FPL. Those that are amending their FPL correctly are being painted with the same brush as those that don't. Corrective action should be aimed at those that don't. ATC will not be blamed for incorrect wake turb standards where the FPL has not been amended correctly.
Mode S does not give aircraft type as has also been stated previously
Actually that's not strictly true.
Every Mode S transmission contains a unique ID that is capable of being used to identify pretty well any civil aircraft by tail number, and hence the type - it's just that controllers don't get presented with that data.
Every Mode S transmission contains a unique ID that is capable of being used to identify pretty well any civil aircraft by tail number
Certainly every Mode S transmission carries the aircraft id. Using that to identify the tail number is not quite so easy because of the disparate way in which these ids have been allocated and registered.
Quote:
ATC will not be blamed for incorrect wake turb standards where the FPL has not been amended correctly.
If there is a smoking hole in the ground the blame will be spread far and wide and the smart QC at the subsequent enquiry will only have to ask the ANSP senior manager how often did this happen? with the follow up question what did you do about it? and the blame will very quickly spread that way.
Maybe we can cut RT down even more by not giving out a SID as part of the clearance? After all, one can infer the appropriate SID from the flight plan, so everyone should be fine.
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Using RT to give out SID's? What a blatant misuse of airtime, thats what datalink clearance is there fore, isn't it? Makes it even easier to protocol the clearance too, simply print it.
Anyway, we all know the brits have a few special quirks, providing the aircraft type on initial call is one of them. Most of the rest of the world doesn't need it, either because their airlines actually have competent OPS departments or ATCO's that can actually cope with a Fokker 100 instead of a Fokker 70 which is the same wake turbulence category in the rest of the world anyway.
Depone, I suggest you visit your nearest ATC unit. I like nearly all of my colleagues work with a VERY open mind because we have to, so we can deal with situations such as a B767 being operated on a route filed to be a B737-400 which happened YESTERDAY! In the UK we do not and will not get aircraft type from Mode S data, you HAVE to state it, that is a mandatory requirement. Still haven't explained why it isn't pedantic to ask if you do not tell......
I don't wanna criticize the choice and the procedure at all, but you should limit the "state type" to the very first call only where the very first controller would be able to check if the aircraft does match to the FPL.
