preferance for commercial traffic

[Homer_J]

So heres my basic question?

(Im sure the answers no, but Im wondering if theres pressure from managers behind it)

Does ATC give preferance to larger commercial(anything from a dash 8 upwards) traffic over smaller "GA" traffic when deciding the order in which they approach?

By smaller GA, I don't mean 172s or pa28s but golden eagles or pa31s?

I work at a regional airport which has mostly turboprops, and I fly a pa31.

Time after time I am told at 20 miles out I am being overhauled by faster traffic. By the time we get to 12 miles theyve slowed down and positioned onto a 6 -8mile final, and im still maintaining anything up to 170 indicated and positioning for a 1 mile final.

I was vectored (vfr) behind a dash 8 the other day(as he was overhauling me!?) only for him to slow down to about 110 from 6 miles........i was really struggling not to catch him up.

I was sent to the south of the field and then vectored onto a 12 mile final so an atp(who was faster!?) could get in!! We were both under IFR. We were level at about 20 miles out.

A classic.
I was told to position number 2 to an atp in liverpool. We were both downwind but i was inside of him.
1 minute later i was given the instruction....it made us laugh...."can you reduce speed to give the atp a chance?".

somtimes it seems that we are not given a chance as we dont pay as much to the airport in landing fees.

This doesnt happen at every airfield. But at my home airfield where atc have seen what we can do it just appears so obvious.

maybe im missing the point......but any comments would be appreciated.

[squibbler]

Preference to "Larger" over "Smaller"? NO

Preference to "Faster" over "Slower"? USUALLY

We work on the principle of maintaining a "SAFE, ORDERLY & EXPEDITIOUS" flow of traffic. The order of those criteria is not negotiable.

Chances are therefore you will usually find yourself at the back of the queue in a PA31. The fact you are a light twin is in itself enough for an ATCO to subconciously think you are going to be slow, notwithstanding the fact you're flying a fairly sporty aircraft.

Why not advise the controller what speed you can do when you come on frequency? It might help him/her to make a better judgement to which YOU may benefit!

If conditions permit why not request a visual approach? Might help both YOU & the CONTROLLER.

Why not cancel IFR and continue VFR? Join the circuit and fit yourself in, could save you oodles of time / track miles / money etc.

To put it simply - if you don't ask you won't get......

Hope this helps.

[Fox3snapshot]

From the situations you have described it seems more like a lack of understanding of aircraft performance, rather than a priority system.

We had/have similar problems here when ATR42-500's were introduced to the local fleet. It has been a real culture shock to the local ATC operatives as Jet was the norm and the performance characteristics of some of the light GA and turbo traffic has been under estimated. Inside 30-40 miles with ATR versus A330 for example the ATR will always win, able to hold 250 KTS into about 3-4 miles if you want them to.

The other issue, and a very important one, is how the aircraft is flown. The variation on this theme is such that it can really burn you with some pilots flying like they should have starred in "Driving Miss Daisy" and others who seem to be conducting envelope flight testing on every sorty, which leaves us scratching our head on what is the going to be the right thing to do in that critical 50 mile arrival period.

:8

[vector4fun]

Homer, Speaking for myself, I certainly wouldn't expect 170 kts from a PA31 to a one or two mile final, unless it was a trashed out midnight box/check hauler. Because sure as heck I asked a typical owner to do that, I'd get a three minute lecture on the causes of Cylinder cracks and the current replacement cost thereof. I don't work any DH-7s or 8s around here, but even the Caravans I work will generally do 150 kts or better till short final unless the vis is really bad. And they think we give too much priority to the jets. Perhaps true at times.

[Spudmonkey]

Homer, you're gonna hate me for this - but here goes anyway.

As an ATCO I can offer you a number of options to your "classic" event at Liverpool.

1) Consider how many PA31 aircraft ATC deal with during their daily function- how many fly at 170kt to 1 mile?
Although YOU can do this, how many others DON'T!
How wide was your circuit? From experience, I've seen PA31 turn downwind inside 1mile of the airfield and final inside half a mile. But other have flown 4 miles north of the airfield for a four mile final even when they are number one.

Knowledge of aircraft performance IS a big factor when deciding IF that VFR PA31 can get in Number 1 or not compared to other types BUT at the end of the day it sounds like you were made NUMBER 2 for some reason - not number 4 or 5. AND your safety and the safety of others was not compromised.

2)Situational awareness. Were you totally aware of the surroundings (I appreciate I wasn't there at the time) and other types of approaches being made by the other traffic? You describe how you were made to position behind a number of different aircraft at different airfields then catch them up. Why must you maintain 170knots? Can you slow down, fit in the sequence and make life a bit easier for all?

3)Although you believe you were hard done by, try appreciating what the ATCO has to do. One man in ADC with Tower, a cross-coupled UHF vehicle channel, intercoms, phonelines, co-ordination and an attention demanding area from the end of his nose to 8 mile final in a 360 degree arc!!!!

It can take upto 5 phone calls/intercom calls via 3 or 4 people to depart ONE IFR aircraft from Liverpool due to the complexity of the airspace(nearly 120 departures some days). You probably don't know this and won't hear this on the RTF, but the ATCO can be busy with only a handful of aircraft.

4)We can't make everybody number 1!!
ATC make the decision and somebody has to be number 2. on this day it was you, another day it may be the ATP.

5)Your home airfield will be alot more familiar with you as a pilot than the airfields you visit. Away from the home base every visitor is treated with more care as quite often they are not be familiar with their surroundings.

Perhaps in this case the crew of the ATP were familiar to ATC and their actions could be second guessed as they fly in and out every day, yet you weren't so were given more time in case you were not familiar with the airfield?

6)Do I detect a hint of commercial pressure here? Were you late already for reasons out of your control on the ground?
We all know it happens and how frustrating it is.

Basically, I'm sure you are a very capable, experienced pilot who does well for your company. Yet although you fly your aircraft in the manner that you do, others fly theirs in a different manner. We must be flexible yet cautious.
ATC Provide the safe, expeditious and orderly flow of traffic based upon what's presented to them at the time and positive control must be applied by the ATCO to prevent collisions and give a landing order.

We all need to work together to achieve the best results. Possibly a bit more communication with ATC in what you CAN do would lead to an easier life for all.


:ok: :ok: :ok:

[av8boy]

Not to mention a sacred tenet of ATC... get rid of the aircraft. A challenging mix of aircraft types at wildly varying speeds is, well, challenging. The last thing any sane controller is going to want to do is to prolong the game.

And the old guy’s sermon begins…

One evening while working in my very first tower one of the Goodyear blimps (no, not the Graf Zeppelin... not THAT old) called for transition (not uncommon). Traffic was light and the airship was returning from providing TV coverage at a golf tourney, so, just for grins I asked him whether he'd like a low approach (figuring it'd be interesting for us at the airport as well as something a little different for him). He thought it was a good idea, so I set him up for a long straight-in. Well, 10 minutes later it was becoming obvious that this was going to be problematic... I was sequencing VFR traffic using the blimp as a geographic landmark ("Cessna 22PP follow the Bonanza turning final a mile southwest of the blimp. Cherokee 2AL your traffic is a Centurion on a wide right base two miles west of the blimp..."). All this time this blimp is tooling down the final at a blistering 20 knots or something. By the time he did his low approach it was dark and I was beat to hell.

Probably not a good example, but I felt like indulging myself. Anyway, this is not something we look forward to. Witness a mix like a flight of 4 F4s broken up for individual ILS' and thrown in with a couple of DC10s, an MD80 and a bleeding motor glider on the downwind (go ahead... YOU work it out. Make a hole and turn the motor glider in ahead of the fast traffic, just to have them run up his tail, or extend him downwind and have to deal with this issue on an even LONGER final?).

What I'm trying to point out is that while there may be a better way for ATC to take advantage of what you're offering, the controller would be betting a lot on your abilities. If the plan fails, the workload skyrockets. If somebody--anybody--has to go around, guess how far downwind they're going to have to go to get back into the sequence? Waaaaaay downwind. That's how far. Not to even begin to mention the potential for having to answer questions from the accident investigation team like, "what in the name of all things holy were you thinking, telling that Navajo you needed 'two-ten to the marker, faster if you like?'" :)

Now, out of respect for the elderly you young turks should refrain from flaming me. It's whatchacallit...an object lesson. Thank you and good night. :O

Dave