Lookleft- That Skygod thing stung, huh? In the interests of fairness, I’ve edited my previous post to widen the range of aircraft involved. I didn’t coin the term “Skygod”, BTW. I got it from my more or less regular flying buddy who flies A380’s (he hand-flies my plane in IMC beautifully…but still flares a little high, for some reason).
To be serious: Ballina has no parallel taxiway. When an RPT arrives or departs, the runway is unavailable for 5-10 minutes due to the associated turn and full length runway taxi time. If multiple RPT arrive or depart closely spaced, then the runway is not available for a commensurately increased period of time. So you can see that timing and cooperation is important for all.
Things that don’t help trust of the inbound RPT’s (and other jet traffic’s) calls or can otherwise cause problems are:
Announcing an ETA that is 5 or more minutes earlier than real ETA to try and keep “the circuit area clear” – inbound GA aircraft try to be understanding and will elect to hold clear of the RPT/jet approach if their ETA is close to the RPT/jet ETA. Pilots of aircraft who do thus to accommodate get pissed off when the ETA comes and goes and a further 5 minutes pass until actual arrival time of RPT….. and the GA could after all have landed and vacated well before the RPT actual arrival time and now will have to hold for what will be a total of 15-20 minutes - for no good reason.
Making a radio call that makes no sense to the non-IFR initiated, as per my previous post. That an “inexperienced FO” in an RPT operation makes the call is no defence – they have an experienced captain beside them and Jetstar ops have been notified of the problem previously. Experienced captains are there to pass on their experience to the inexperienced….
Directing traffic – a call like this on the CTAF to: a VFR GA aircraft on long downwind from an RPT 25 NM mile out: “Hold north of the field until after we land” or to: a GA IFR in IMC on 5NM final “Maintain 2000” etc. Really?
Arriving and flying a left hand circuit on RWY 06 – it’s a right hand circuit according to the ERSA….
It is only a small minority who do the “Skygod” thing out of ego or ignorance – but they need to remember that the folks flying around them are often very experienced ATPL’s in their own aircraft and it reflects poorly on them....
Just do the right thing and the system will work.
As for a tower or ARFF at Ballina – a WOFTAM, IMHO.
Last edited by NOtimTAMs; 2nd Jun 2015 at 04:00.
Reason: grammar