CaptAirProx - BRS Ops
Greetings again, BE Capt! Answers to your questions (not flippant, honest!):
Why the continuous turn-on to the ILS?
1. ATCO has possibly misjudged the radius of turn for all manner of good reasons, especially if you have set the autopilot to fly one of those oh-so-wide & leisurely rate 1 turns, doing 230 knots, with the wind behind you. 2. ATCO has been trying to keep you inside the Bristol CTA, to avoid Filton/FIR/Cardiff traffic and you are still flying that oh-so-wide & leisurely rate 1 turn, doing 230 knots. 3. He/she is distracted by the need to co-ordinate an aircraft with an adjacent unit or a colleague and leaves it momentarily too late to instruct you to turn. 4. You do not react to the instruction to commence the turn, presumably because you are still running through a check-list/doing a cabin-crew PA/lost your pen/looking at the approach plate/running through missed approach brief/spilled coffee in lap/dropped last vestige of bacon sarnie on something vaguely important/forgot the heading given/watching trainee FO screw things up/wondering what Fms is telling you/talking about last nights footie score...5. ATCO is having a bad day. We all do, especially as we get older. Experience though can cover up for a lot, especially if you sound cool on the RTF.
Why use 27 or 09?
Surface wind is not the only thing we work on when deciding runway in use. We also look at the forecast 1000/3000 winds off the forecast. Physically, 09 has a slight downslope which can look horrendous from the flightdeck, I'm told, to those that don't know even though the LDA is slightly longer than on 27. Could be critical on a wet surface for some types?
27 has a much longer TODA than 09, important to heavily loaded IT jets here going long-distance. We don't play "runway-roulette" more than we need so if the biggies want 27 and the wind is 50-50 for either end, that's possibly the decision made.
From a noise viewpoint, subject to the tailwind, the preferred runway for jet departures is 27, to impact less on the local communities.
I did a shift last week when the wind was 160'ish and we asked several aircraft if they were experiencing any problematical tailwinds. One said "yes", (slight problem only said a A321 driver), others said no sweat at all.
Other factors: The ILS on 27 is Cat 3, but only Cat 1 on 09. Traffic flow for a given period may favour straight-in approaches on 27 from the east off ABDAL, whereas one hour later the arrivals may all be off EXMOR and BCN, favouring 09, to save you guys time and money. We aim to be flexible, if we can. The converse may work for departure flows and tracks after take off. That's the beauty of flying from a regional airport like BRS, at present - we can try to accomodate your requests for RWY etc. although not always.
Does that help? Last comment: You, not me, are the captain of the aircraft. You are legally responsble for the safety of the aircraft and its occupants. If an ATCO tells you to do something which you- or the the aircraft cannot- or will not do safely, then it is absolutely incumbent upon you to say NO. That goes for speed regimes on final; headings which may take you into bad wx.; descent profiles which are uncomfortable, at best, dangerous at worst (high,fast and unstable approaches - big issue); taxiing to stands which are unfamiliar, the route to which may take you into conflict with vehicles if you don't know where you're going etfc... I could go on...It's got to be a two-way partnership to keep everything working safely, and that has to be the primary objective above all else.
If you get a chance, talk to Pat Harris, one of your 146 Trainers, B'rum-based. He was an instructor here for years and knows the ATC personalities/quirks well... for good or ill. I'll get some decent coffee in if I know you're coming.. and biccies. Cheers.