Sounds like our American friends need a bit of (re)training.
Hardly. Too often, however, it seems that if it's not done the british way, it's just not done right. Or so the brits would have us believe.
So far as DX Wombat's actions go, she elected to use the tools available to her in arranging for the safety of the flight. Whether an emergency situation existed or not isn't particularly relevant. As the Pilot in Command, she acted within the scope of her responsibility to do what she felt was necessary and appropriate to ensure the safe handling of the airplane and a safe conclusion to the flight. Clearly as she has initiated and continued to post in the thread, she was right in doing so.
However, having said that, the thread deserves further comment. I've spent a number of years performing search and rescue services in various capacities, including searching for and finding ELT's, locating missing water craft, hikers, skiers, and aircraft. I've done this from the air and on foot, and have received and relayed a number of emergency calls by other aircraft or personnel on the ground, over 121.5. I've had a few occasions to use it myself, and have always maintained a pratice of guarding it (the reason it's called "Guard," by the way).
I've seen CAA documents studying/enforcing the misuse of 123.45 which seems like a lesser offence.
The idiot frequency, 123.45 is actually the prescribed air to air reporting frequency for North Atlantic operations, on which ride reports and other air to air traffic is provided. It's commonly used throughout the world for that purpose, on the larger scale.
CAT has rarely used/listened to 121.5 unless it has been a chat freq, football score retrieval system etc etc. In recent years, CAT has been required to monitor 121.5 to avoid potentially embarrassing situations.
This is untrue. 121.5 has been guarded in the cockpit for many years. I've always done it myself, it's always been the policy of each company for whom I've flown, I've always done it privately, and do it when I'm flying large or small aircraft. It has nothing to do with 09/11; it was a practice long before that event, and it's still quite appropriate today.
I've no idea what "potentially embarassing situations" might be avoided by guarding 121.5, but I do know of numerous ELT's that get picked up on guard, as well as distress calls and other emergency traffic. Most places in the world, if you broadcast on guard, you're far more likely to be monitored by, and receive a response from commercial traffic than an ATC facility. There are more ears listening on 121.5 by commercial traffic (corporate, airline, etc) than ATC by a wide margin, and there are many places in the world where there's simply no ATC coverage to hear your cry for help, relay a message, etc. Overhead commercial traffic can and frequently does this.
I have NEVER heard a spurious call on 121.5 from a light aircraft, but I've heard hundreds from airliners. Glass houses and stones come to mind.
I've heard hundreds of frivolous calls from light traffic on 121.5. I hear it all the time. All over the globe, in fact. More in the US and Europe than anywhere else, but I do hear it all the time.
To all the GA - crack on - better to get the words fuddled when the donk is at idle rather than wait till it happens for real!
Translated into English, that might have been an intelligent comment...but we may never know.
I am really struggling to decide if the "Guard Police" are worse than an idiot that uses the emergency service for their own personal vectoring service in marginal weather.
I thought that comment was well put, though perhaps not particularly applicable to the original poster.
Just because airliners suddenly have to monitor it since 9/11 doen't mean that it's suddenly become an airliner emergency frequency only. If you want an airliner only emergency frequency then ask for a frequency for that, rather than expecting everyone else to change.
Non sequitor. 121.5 has nothing to do with being an "airline frequency." That more commercial ears are listening to it and guarding it than anyone else is merely a fact of life. Its never been an airline emergency frequency, it's often an airliner that responds. There's been no "suddenly having to monitor" since 09/11. The requirement has always been there, and the monitoring has always gone on.
Nobody has asked for a change. Just some respect for 121.5; it's not a chat room. Unless you have a bonafide situation for which your lone voice should have priority above all others, then stay off. Whomever you are.
I will say, however, that because I do hear a great deal of frivolous chatter on guard, advising others to stay off gaurd isn't unwarranted. Sometimes a simple reminder that "you're on guard" may be adequate to handle the situation, just as a quick "blocked" over the radio lets others know that the transmission has been covered, and something important might have been missed.
It is not rocket science to manage a Jet, it is however Rocket science to have a professional courteous attitude as you can see.
Actually, it really is rocket science to manage a jet, in many cases. This doesn't mean it's particularly complicated, but between the use of high altitude psyiology, the requirement for a fairly well rounded understanding of the physics involved, high speed aerodynamics, and some fairly sophisticated equipment, it is rocket science. That's really neither here nor there...but then a professional, courteous attitude has nothing at all to do with rocket science...making the above quote both nonsensical and nonsequitor.
Reminding one that they are inadvertantly on guard is not unprofessional, nor unwarranted. Nor is it in any way related to rockets, or the science thereof.
There is no small irony in Americans trying to enforce R/T discipline. Before 911 domestic flights rarely monitored guard and international types used it mostly for ride reports and sports scores over the water. After 911, it is monitored religiously even on domestic flights lest you be intercepted and have to fill out paperwork.
Again with this. Guard has long been monitored, not just by airlines, but by all kinds of aerial traffic, from the private pilot on up. When I flew Grand Canyon tours, eons ago, we monitored guard...and it was used, too. Even in that limited domain, I picked up emergency calls by river runners with a broken leg or an illness, needing an evacuation. The only possible means they had for getting a call out was traffic flying directly overhead, due to their being in the bottom of a very deep hole in the ground, and no other communication available. That was well before 09/11, too.
You self-appointed “Guard Police” are a menace and, if you carry on will eventually cause a fatal accident by your constant interfering and the stress you cause by doing so. You sit happily in your nice, comfy, super-equipped aircraft flying along in the beautiful blue sky above the clouds with not a care in the world except perhaps what you are going to have for your next meal, or what is in the day’s newspapers. I, and many like me, am restricted to flying beneath the cloud in conditions of which you are completely unaware. You seem incapable of understanding that in order to help someone it is necessary for the person requiring the help and D&D to speak to each other using 121.5. Do you have crystal balls to do this for you in the USA? We certainly don’t over here.
That was a little over the top. I'm one of those who sit in my nice, comfy aircraft. It's not super equipped, but it wil do. I do have a care in the world, I don't get the day's newspapers, and I have the weather to deal with as well...not just on a 50 mile flight between local airports, but globally. I cover a lot more ground, hear a lot more transmissions, and field a lot more calls requesting help. It may simply be relaying for ATC, or it may be someone in the middle of the atlantic, ferrying a light airplane and in trouble, who needs a voice to hear them.
As for being completely unaware of your flying conditions, how do you suppose most of us made it to our "nice comfy cockpits?" By spending a lot of time in bad weather doing all kinds of flying right where you are. Many of us still do. We're quite aware of your flying conditions, of your needs, and of your discomfort when pressed into conditions which may try you or make you afraid. We've all been there, and we do understand. We also see and hear a lot more than you do, have probably been flying a lot longer than you for a great many more hours in a lot more places, and this isn't our first time around the patch.
When I hear traffic needing help, I listen. If no jumps in to help, I'll do so. If I hear traffic, I note what's going on, and if it's inappropriate, you bet I'll jump in to remind the traffic that they might be better off somewhere other than guard. That makes me a guard cop? Fine. I've spent more than a few hours running down ELT's and handling emergencies in which my own work was hampered by those who inappropriately used the frequency. I've had to lead increadulus and angered private pilots by their shirt sleeves to their airplane to show them that yes, it really was their ELT causing allthe ruckus, and no, I wasn't making a sweeping condemnation of their ability to land an airplane, and please, for the love of pete and all things suede, just shut the damn thing off and sir, have a nice day. Been there, done that...don't be in such a hurry to hang all that condemnation on those of us overhead listening to your call. It may be that one day it's one of us who recognizes the value of 121.5 that's saving your life.
You hear what's in your immediate area on the few occasions you go fly...and perhaps that does include some flight crew somewhere making ignorant calls on the emergency frequency. I make it around the world once, sometimes twice a month, in the air, regularly as clockwork, hear a lot more over a much wider area...and the inappropriate use of 121.5 for non-priority calls does get tiresome. It's very often two guys trying to sort out where they are, or arrange a formation flight, as they play weekend warrior in their Cessna or Maule. So when one of us happens to call out and suggest another channel, yes, we really do have your best interest in mind.
Even if you don't like it.
Since there is nothing like the UK D&D service in the US, American pilots (particularly ex-military ones) tend to view the frequency as sacrosanct and view any traffic, other than an obvious Mayday, as being on the wrong frequency. Hence the tendency to butt in with "You're on Guard!".
There surely is something like the UK D&D service in the US. Flight Service has been around for many years providing routine and emergency services, including airborne Direction Finding (DFing) services to pilots in need. In the US, the use of 121.5 is generally reserved for real emergencies or loss of communication situations, with Flight Watch being available on different frequencies (such as 122.0). Recent political changes in the administering of flight service in the US have damaged that, and DF capability has been gradually reduced in many locations, but it's something that many of us grew up with ages ago. Our own system has been far more advanced, and far more pervasive, than what you have in the UK, for many years. Simply because you haven't used it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and certainly for reasons already provided, you might do well not to assume pilots monitoring guard merely blurt out or butt in.
Guard is a guarded frequency for a reason.