Originally Posted by
StickWithTheTruth
You said you don't have the charts so I asked the question.
So when Joe Bloggs VFR bug smasher says he is 5 miles east of the town of Boganville, overhead the Boganville dam wall and didn't give a reference to the airfield as it's actually 9 miles from the dam, do your IFR charts show where the town is?
Yes, probably. The thing is, the jet is doing about 290 knots TAS at 30 miles when they call in, by the time the crew have worked out where you are on the chart, they've travelled another 12 miles and have probably either hit you or not hit you. It is best if you just reference the aerodrome, because that's the way the crew are already thinking and they can work out where you are in a few seconds as opposed to a couple of minutes.
Do you just ignore his call, ask him for more info or look on a more detailed map? Just wondering for my own interest.
If Joe Bloggs wasn't taught IFR waypoints, radials and IFR approaches, that's not his fault, it's a fault of the system... a system which you also need to work in.
Provided Joe Bloggs says "Boganville traffic bla bla bla" and the RPT is landing at Boganville, the RPT crew will do everything they can to ensure they know where Bloggs is.
The crew don't expect Joe Bloggs to know anything about radials and waypoints, they do expect Bloggs to be able to give a simple position report with intentions, "Boganville traffic, Jabiru ABC is 10 miles west of Boganville at 3000 feet, tracking East for Clownsville".