Super Cecil holding at AMB
I can field this one....
A month or so ago I was held for half an hour outside Amberly, I was trying to operate about ten miles to the north of AMB up to 500' above ground. AMB were notified the day before, I was told on the phone half an hour before I took off AMB was not active then as I approached I called anyway and was told to hold. There were two 111's landed after the half hour holding then AMB shut down, I had a transponder with appropriate or allocated code. I was no threat to inbound traffic and was operating 1500' below their path.
10 miles north of AMB puts you on 10 mile final for RWY 15, the most common rwy in use and the only one with ILS. To operate at 500ft AGL in that area, most AMB ATC's would give you a clearance of NA 1500ft AMSL to allow you to avoid terrain and us to use + 1000ft to separate with other acft on QNH. (Can't apply the vert standard between AGL and AMSL) At 9nm on the ILS the descent profile dips below A025.
Without knowing what the weather was like on that day, I'm guessing that the pigs wanted an ILS (either due wx or for currency) or wanted a type of tactical approach - low and fast usually - again either due wx, or for training purposes.
If your area of ops had been elsewhere in the zone, I doubt you would have encountered any delay (there is often fire ant spraying, parachute ops and local photographic work taking place around the zone while mil flying occurs). But being on final puts you in the way.
With a C17 you could easily be given see and avoid (caution lotsa wake turb!) but the pigs moving quickly have no chance of seeing you and by the time you see them, we would have lost sep. So using radar or some form of procedural (vert, you nth of the hwy, them a mile sth etc) sounds like the only option.
Also, it sounds like an out of hours move, which means minimum staff for normal airspace (2 controllers covering 4 frequencies and relevant coord with our brissie neighbours) and using the TWR equip rather than the big screens downstairs. Given that you needed a 10 minute window, based on the pigs estimate I guess the guys on decided to hold you out rather than disturb you during your ops (also, we do get bitten occassionally by acft not being able to manouvre quickly enough to get out of the way when instructed).
Kudos to you for checking the AMB status (as ERSA says - the published hours are just a guide - even to the duty controller sometimes! So always check first!) Unfortunately AMB's published priorities start with mil acft and a couple of pages later get to VFR civil ops. Not my call, just the rules, if the mil guys want exclusive use (as a visiting C130 did a week or so ago, taking over the whole CTR and forcing the AF guys to go the long way round) there's nothing we can do unless you say the magic words (not "please" - declare those emergencies guys!)
As for rules, we recently tried to implement a local procedure so that we wouldn't have to apply a normal sep standard between IFR acft and extremely low level ops (eg fire ant chopper/ power line surveys operating at below pwr line/tree top height).
Because the low level guys are often not able to be seen by the TWR (tress in the way!) and are operating too close to the field to apply either radar or vert, in order to facilitate a dep/arr, we have to get the choppers to either land, go away (to establish a 1nm procedural standard) or climb to a point where they can be visually separated.
We wanted to create a local rule whereby we could just pass traffic (on the grounds that before the IFR acft hits the chopper - he would have already hit the treetops/ pwr lines!) This was rejected by a pilot (most agreed, but there was one dissenting squadron).
Rules and procedures govern everything we do and they (more frequently than incompetence) are the reason why you don't always get what you want. Most of us (particularly those with joint user base experience) try really hard to accomodate civil traffic - after all you have to pay for your fuel! And some of us are more creative than others in the way we apply the rules, but there are some points that just aren't up for negotiation.
Thanks to those who've posted positive feedback (it's rare!) and I've posted this before and I'll post it again - if you ever have any concerns, worries or gripes about the service provided to you - please contact the relevant ATC unit (numbers are in ERSA) and talk to a supervisor. We may be able to explain things to your satisfaction, or you may be able to convince us that we can do better for you next time. But we don't know if you don't tell! Happy flying!