My turn now..
As ATC, we could also become better re speed control. How often do we forget to terminate speed control when issueing a reduction? Well, more than we think! So, to some point I understand why a pilot will reduce, he needs to land the bird.
Reason why we don't do thight downwinds are many. Some ATCOs just think 5 nm wide "looks" good and others consider conflicting departing traffic (A13/A31). So you might ask why don't we just get close and stop at 4000, well you departed earlier as well, so you probably also want a continous climb (and avoid the possiblity of a level bust, TCAS TA/RA etc.). BUT we Radar ATCOs receive the departure strip in time, so we roughly know when the flight will be airborne. Therefore no departures, get 'em close and short..
Re night operations at AUH and 10 nm separation between successive arrivals. Its a lot of bull!!! If we as ATCOs have a well "controlled" speed control we can easily bring them in closer. The instruction is: 1st landed aircraft has to vacate the runway when 2nd is on 4 nm final (funny enough, nothing mentioned about a departing traffic... but let it rest). Respect of which types are being sequenced and departures at the holding point, I consider 6-8 nm spacing sufficient/perfect for both situations. I know some drivers moans when its "very" close between departures and arrivals (in the event of a missed approach etc.), but believe me, if I'm in the tower I've got a plan B/C as well. Its all about speed control on final. But we're all different. Landing clearance can still be issued when you pass the threshold and previous departing aircraft has passed the runway end... Its close at night I know, but you do the flying and I'll do the controlling
Having said that, perhaps we should give you some more space due to the unreliable equipment at AUH. Some mornings are crazy! You probably already heard an ATCOs voice on the freq. being "stressed". Simply because there's too much traffic for one sector to handle. So what about ground radio failure, radar failure, total power failure etc. Well, I hope I'm not on duty and I hope you'll be flying a trip to Dubai that day instead
To all you pilots! Which speed do you prefer on final (please mention the type you fly as well)? I'm used to 160/4 or 180/5 and 200/8 or 220/10 (minimum clean) and it worked great where I'm from.
Another thing. Its not like we practise speed control to our finger tips here in the Gulf. AUH is not that busy! (some will say yet
). A typical inbound sequence is normally 3-4-5-6 at the time, and luckily some with "peaks" with 7-10, but its normally gone within 30 min. That's the practise we get, if we're in position that day. So we might be "rusty" at times. No simulator to practise on either. So bear with us if we miss a mile or two (in the right direction of course
). As said before, sometimes we want you to fly high speed on downwind, maybe to close a gap so you can get in front of a straight-in guy (that requires everyones attention though, so please listen up on app freq).
Talking about "listen-up". Some drivers tends to "confirm" nearly every instruction given to them. THAT IS ANNOYING!!! Of course better safe than sorry, but c'mon, what do you expect on an approach freq.? Descend, Turn and Speed....right? That would help us a lot when busy. You could then justify that there's too many on the freq. at the same time, but then again, there's normally only 1 Qatari on the freq at any given time. (Sorry Qatari
). GF should look into some similar callsigns they use (call-sign confusion!) and change re Human Factor principles.
That's all for now, back to you
