Hi all
As a controller who works in London Centre (D&D) I felt I had to register with Pprune after reading through this thread. Whilst reading it I found myself shaking my head in disbelief at some of the attitudes displayed. I am sure that there are student PPLs out there who will have been following this thread & will now be positively terrified of using 121.5 for its legitimate use in the UK FIRs of practice or emergency calls.
Some of the facts thrown around this thread about D&D are wholey inaccurate, As an example, yes the stated coverage for DF fixing is outside the LTMA is 3000 & above up to the humber estuary, over to Liverpool & then down to the south coast. Those figures are the guaranteed coverage, it can work very well beyond those horizontal or vertical limits.....
As for the comment about us as Mil controllers giving a service to Mil ac in emergency over GA in emergency, what planet are you on? As trained expierienced professionals we would prioritise and act accordingley! And as for not having the info any civil airfields.... wrong, its just displayed differently. Its on the VDF PC and we have access to details even of a large number of farm strips
Regarding the percetage of tx by PP calls versus those made by CAT etc, I can tell you from first hand expeirience that time in D&D can (& usually does) go very slowly I have never had a shift where 121.5 has been cluttered up with PP calls......It just does not happen. We do however hear lots of calls on 121.5 from CAT to other agencies etc, we do on a regular basis go out on 121.5 to get ac to go to the correct freq and might I add that this happens when there have been no "interferring" calls made on 121.5 by practice or emergency traffic. We have at least once to my certain knowledge, been sworn at by a Airline pilot!!!
As for the controller training side of it, yes we do usually have a trainee in D&D & if we relied on emergency traffic alone, we would never be able to endorse a controller because of the paucity of traffic.
Do all you Airline chaps maintain currency when you fly? Yes... well we need to as well. When PPLs get lost often they are not just lost but in a dangerous situation eg stuck at low level with a lowering cloudbase & poor viz. In order to resolve situations like that successfully we as controllers need to be up to speed instantly, be familiar with our kit and know what will work at the position / level the guy is at. If we sat on our butts all day & just handled actual emergencies you could go for weeks without talking to an ac. Would you trust me to get someone out of the poo having not dealt with any traffic for some considerable time..... No neither would I.
I agree whole heartedly the system inplace is not ideal, but its not changing anytime soon. Instead of challenging it on here and berating those who chose to use it for practice, wouldnt it be better to file the appropriate reports catalogeing events that have caused problems in an attempt to change policy?
Diddley Dee Out
Last edited by Diddley Dee; 25th May 2006 at 11:28.