Dear ATC fellows
This is a laudable effort, wherever it came from, thanks for that.
Allow me to raise a weak spot, in my opinion:
Missed approach departure turning area
To facilitate independent departure operations and ensure seperation from any missed approaches from the parallel, the tower now have a section of airspace they can turn both the missed approach and the departures at low level to create the minimum ICAO/GCAA acceptable 30degree track seperation. In 12 ops , a missed approach off 12L can now be turned at 600’ onto a ‘track’ of between 090 and 120 and a departure off 12R can be turned at 800’ onto a ‘track’ of 120 and 150. In 30 ops, a missed approach off 30L can be turned at 800’ onto a ‘track’ of between 270 and 300 and a departure off 30R can be turned at 600’ onto a ‘track’ of 330 and 300. The key things being that it’s a track being flown not a heading here and that the level of turn is low but approved by the regulator for terrain clearance, hence the critical need for a track to be flown, also tower will not issue these turns prior to the missed approach crossing the landing runway threshold.
They way I understand these lines, is that we might face a late go around, with a low level turn (600') only advised after crossing the landing threshold.
- This will create problems -
As you certainly know, the major part of incoming flights are crewed by pilots who are fatigued to various degrees (especially the home carrier). A sudden go around at low level represents a high level of stress which more often than not creates an initial few moments of confusion that needs some regaining of all our exhausted spirits. After a few seconds the switchings, sop's and their extensive babblings are done with and the go around proceeds mostly smoohtly.
It should be considered, that such proposed low level alterations happen exactly during this initial critical phase. This will lead to regaining composure later and interfering with the supposedly easy and well trained initial procedures.
In my oppinion there are two critical flight phases where pilots should be left alone, letting them fly wings level and get full control of their aircraft to at least up to 1000 feet. Only then the need of a turn should arise. This is in case of
engine trouble after lift off and after a
sudden low level go around.
Any need to intervene in flight path during these segments is potentially dangerous.
my 2cts