Thanks all for the very helpful advice! I think I'll hop onto London Information, more for peace of mind that someone will know where and what I'm doing more as I go along.
Molesworth, great pics - hopefully my brother will get some good ones to!
Maybe my thoughts are slightly biased as I am one of the operators at "Scottish Information"....It amazes me how many low time PPL's trundle around the country not talking to ATC.....I give up a fair ammount of my spare time visiting flying clubs and arranging visits to my unit at Scottish ATC in an attempt to try and convince pilots flying out in the open FIR and at times over hostile terrain to use the services provided by Scottish Information...at least when the shit hits the fan and the engine starts to run rough we have the basic details ready at hand when the Mayday or Pan call comes.....I know there are one or two forumites on here that have been glad of my help in recent times!!...so go on dont be shy and dont stay quiet, give us a call and see how one day you may be gratefull you did...
Maybe my thoughts are slightly biased as I am one of the operators at "Scottish Information"....It amazes me how many low time PPL's trundle around the country not talking to ATC.....I give up a fair ammount of my spare time visiting flying clubs and arranging visits to my unit at Scottish ATC in an attempt to try and convince pilots flying out in the open FIR and at times over hostile terrain to use the services provided by Scottish Information...at least when the shit hits the fan and the engine starts to run rough we have the basic details ready at hand when the Mayday or Pan call comes.....I know there are one or two forumites on here that have been glad of my help in recent times!!...so go on dont be shy and dont stay quiet, give us a call and see how one day you may be gratefull you did...
i totally agree. Ive only just obtained my PPL but cannot understand why someone would not want to have someone on the other end of the radio at all..
Sometimes I fly just to chill out and distance myself from the stresses and strains of modern-day living. Open FIR and radio volume off. If you haven't tried it, do so. I find it immensely liberating. Maybe I've been lucky to survive the last 30 years?
I can certainly confirm that Scottish info. is always helpful & very friendly. Whenever we head north of Lancaster that's who we talk to. BUT back to Wales. I would always be listening out, so as to have some idea of what's going on around me, and if it's busy would speak to whoever is nearest. Why be shy? Are you frightened of letting people know what you're doing??
Why be shy? Are you frightened of letting people know what you're doing??
I think there are two sides to this. If the weather is good, and no one can really offer a useful service, then why bother? Last time I left Caernafon Valley had just closed, so rather than call London Info we just climbed to 7.5k above a layer of broken cloud, and tuned into Cardiff, enjoying the view and chatting amongst ourselves. Every one else we saw was a couple of thousand below us under the cloud.
Once Cardiff came into range at about 100miles out we got a Traffic Service as we were going to pass reasonably close to their zone.
During the flight we had 121.5 set in standby and should things have gone wrong, then would have called on that, sqwarked 7700, activated the ELT and started sending emergency messages on the satellite tracker. I don't think that London could have offered us anything more useful, so we didn't call them. It is a very relaxing way to fly...
London Information would only have to coordinate any Mayday with D & D, which would take up valuable time. One might as well cut out the middle-man and keep 121.5 on standby. D & D is sitting there doing nothing (thankfully) most of the time. I just do not understand this 'must be talking to someone' mentality. Many such calls are made to inappropriate units which, in turn, unnecessarily encumbers the workload of many ATCOs and FISOs around the UK. This can detract them from their Primary Task and thus compromise air safety.
London Information would only have to coordinate any Mayday with D & D, which would take up valuable time. One might as well cut out the middle-man and keep 121.5 on standby.
Not sure about London but up here in Scotland the D&D coverage on 121.5 is very poor below 3000ft...thats why I try to convince my customers to talk to Scottish Info....yes indeed we will co-ordinate any Pan or Mayday with D&D but at least we will have RT comms with the flight where as a call direct to 121.5 may go unheard!!
As for folk just trogging around and only listening on the FIS frequency whats the point in that??....if your going to go to the bother of selecting the frequency then please please say hello as well. the way i look at it is that the more aircraft that use the service the better the service will be......still cannot understand folk that will fly over hostile terrain i.e. mountains and sea and not bother talking to anyone!! ....
Your points regarding Scotland are very valid and this area does have some challenges which make talking to you more attractive than your colleagues down south. However the question was about Wales, and this is much smaller and better covered by D & D. Unlike Scottish info, London Info can be so busy that it is unable to provide the sort of service which is common north of the border.
Just to clarify, on a week day it is possible to get a Traffic service over most of Wales, and that is very defiantly worth having. On a weekend, with the military LARS closed, this option is not available. Last weekend I flew through south Wales on the way to Lands End. I was able to get a Traffic service from just past Shobdon all the way to Lands End thanks to the excellent people at Cardiff and Newquay.
For most of these areas a GPS ELT is going to work far better than VHF.
Scottish certainly try to fill that gap in - but they are talking to aircraft all over the country and whilst they are a 'voice' and have been instrumental in co-ordinating a number of rescues the little yellow gadget allows the radio to be turned down.
Talk to people if they have a radar set and offer 'Traffic' otherwise there is not a lot of benefit. Even Scottish suffer for poor reception in quite a number of areas unless you are reasonably high.
Another reason to talk to Scottish or London info....quite often during a search and rescue operation a TDA or TRA ( temporary restricted area ) will be placed around the area of operations...these are mainly to provide the SAR helicopter with some form of protection from all the other traffic flying around the FIR....these TDA's are promulgated at short notice ( often after you have read your notams and departed on your flight! )the info is advised to the FIR sectors so as we are able to advise any traffic we are talking to that may indeed infringe these area's. As for relying on an ELT to help you well the delay that is built into following ELT transmissions up could make the differance between life or death.....I still say if your flogging around my FIR at low levels please give me a call....then I know your there and who you are...one day you may be very glad of the help!!
as a regular user of scottish info in an area were unless over 3000ft radar cover is variable ie lake district north the always helpful and probably most friendly controllers in the country at scottish are a must, as for being no use unless they have radar last year I was almost had a head on with a northbound pa 28 who went over my head by about 300ft and was able to alert the traffic about 10miles behind me because we were were both talking to scottish . I must agree with the original thread when in central wales usually late afternoon or early evening it can feel a little lonely
i totally agree. Ive only just obtained my PPL but cannot understand why someone would not want to have someone on the other end of the radio at all..
Because I have yet to find a radio that can fly an aeroplane When I am flying a radio equipped aircraft I will probably tune in 121.5 and listen. I don't appreciate a lot of chatter and if I am not in hostile terrain I don't require a service. ATC can be a big help in a "slow" type problem, the sort of thing that would justify a pan call. If the engine stops dead there isn't a lot they can do except send someone to pick up the bits after the event, so if I do have to carry out a forced landing then I will concentrate on getting down so that I can fly out again. BTW, I also fly gliders where every landing I get one go at it, including field landings. And because I'm not the world's greatest soaring pilot I've done a few
How about the family that took off from Oban in poor weather, left the Oban frequency but never bothered to call Scottish Info!!....2 days later someone in the club in Essex went to use the aircraft and it wasnt there.....someone said oh they are up in Oban, phone call to Oban and the guy in the Tower says Oh they left 2 days ago....about the same time a shepherd on a hill near Oban came across the bodies and wreckage!!.....now I am not saying in this instance the accident was survivable but if it was and they had bothered to call Scottish Info soon after the accident we at Scottish would have tried to take some tracing action as we would have lost contact with the aircraft..........just food for thought next time you flogging around the Highlands of Scotland at 3000ft enjoying the peace and quiet that many of you seem to enjoy!!
We can all quote incidents to support a particular view. However gliding in the Highlands - unless you are in wave and hence pretty high, you have very variable VHF coverage. The same thing goes for most of my flights - which rarely excced the tops of the higher ground.
The yellow gadget will work in those situations - as often would a mobile phone - if you 'land' in the lower areas.
Bentine's son - a very long time ago when 10 channel radios were rare - if he had one wh would he have spoken to? The resulting publicity resulted in the near worthless 'booking out' arrangements being implemented.
The glider incident is a good example of why the VHF often does not work - once going west from Aboyne VHF coverage is very mixed. A yellow gadget would have alerted rescue teams within a couple of minutes.
Similarly with the Steve Fossett crash - his aircraft had a 121.5 ELT - which on the ground in hilly terrain has very little range. A modern 406 unit with GPS would have saved a lot of wasted petrol - although of course had no effect on the outcome.
I guess Scottish Info is a different case, but isn't London Info largely swamped with channel crossings, especially at weekends? and you'd be listening for a long time to hear anything related to Welsh mountains...
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