Step climbs through DTY.

[Hand Solo]

I've recently noticed that whilst routing out of EGBB on DTY departures we'v been geting an awful lot of 1000ft step climbs. Any particular reason for this new trend (apart from it's really busy, crossing traffic from EGBB is a pain, military traffic etc etc.)? The reason I raise the question is that a 1000ft climb is about as much use as a chocolate teapot to us, and succeeds only in spinning the engines up to climb thrust for about 5 seconds before they drop back to idle, with the resultant pitching making all the pax sick! Is it feasible to just point towards POTON around FL120 then go straight up to 190 when we're clear of the other traffic? Or am I being far too simplistic.

(And before anyone asks I haven't been to LATCC, but only because I keep getting rostered on your famil days!)

[5milesbaby]

Without being sarcastic and hopefully not being rude either (quite rare for me) we give you what we can when we can, just to stop you calling 'levelling FL***' or 'approaching FL*** looking for higher'. We do have Mode C readouts and are fully aware of this. A solution is to slow down the rate of climb so we call out the next level before you need it. If its not too busy, even ask for the climb rate of the other a/c. You may not get an answer, but sometimes I try to help, even if its just an a/c type, expecting you to understand the poor performance we are getting. I dont do DAV so am only guessing, but I would say you are stuck under either MAN slow climbers, or East Mids, seem to be many at the mo not performing great.

[Not Long Now]

BB DTY deps. are a pain. 95% of the traffic on TC Midlands(130.92) is going North either off the London TMA or into BB/NX, and the DTY's are going East towards B317/R77, effectively head on to all these.
The outbound agreement is climbing to FL 210, and FL 180 or above by the Eastern edge of B4 (about 10 E of GW).This is to avoid TC Northwest, TC Northeast and TC Capital, who don't know about you and don't want to know 'cos they've got plenty of problems of their own. So we can't just leave you down til later.
Unfortunately, the DTY CTA is only about 45 miles across, so after DTY, the Eastern half has just over 20 miles to put every TMA departure in to, Northbound, 5 miles apart, so it's very difficult to pick a heading to deconflict you from all these guys, hence you climb underneath them, and if necessary, 1000ft a time. We have to keep inching you up, because naturally the next lot of TMA departures are trapped under you, and they too have level restrictions to meet to avoid Manchester's airspace.
Yes, it's crap, but until someone decides commercial aviation is important enough to give us some more controlled airspace (how many PPLs are mooching about above FL 100 anyway?) that's the way it is.

Please please come and have a look at LATCC, it might be an eye opener!

[roger]

Hand are you saying you would prefer not to climb unless it is a clearance of say at least 3000-4000 feet? Next time you're flying make the request and we may be able to accomodate this... ;)

[Hand Solo]

Thanks for the replies chaps. Might just do that next time roger, means we can go fast in our Wonderbusses then zoom up at 6000fpm!

[Expeditedescent]

Hi Hand solo,

As one of the poor sods who does TC Midlands, your problems are caused by the volume of traffic generated by the Welin sector.

There are many problems with DTY departures and I will try to list them and explain them here as best I can.

1. We get TMA outbounds climbing to FL90 (NX), FL120 (SS and GW), FL140 (WU, LL, LC) and FL190 (KK). You come to us at FL60 which means straight away you are below the job lot.

2. The airspace may be 20 miles wide, however when you consider we may have 3 or more outbounds we are positioning for AC DTY (ie getting Ireland traffic West of Scotland traffic etc) and are running them parallel and have NX inbounds and BB inbounds not to mention overflights and you can see that often we simply have nowhere to vector you. (This is also why sometimes you will get a lot of vectors on a DTY SID as we are trying to knit you into gaps to keep you climbing).

3. In the old days before TC Capital AC DTY used to work fast climbing DTY departures and it was easier to expedite you through other traffic to get you up and away.
Now DTY are far less likely to work you and that means you get stuck at FL210 for ages anyway, which then causes us problems because we have to give KK LAM deps to DTY at FL210.

4. Military traffic......If the DTY corridor is in use you are likely to be stuck at FL90 or 100 for some time. Sometimes we are just too busy to whizz you all over the sky and bust you through the Tornados etc. If the workload is high I'm afraid the easiest option is to level you off and wait for the cross.

5. NX inbounds. BB seems to have an annoying habit of launching DTY deps when there are NX inbounds. We have to get them to FL100 by SAPCO, which again limits our options with giving you climb. As Manchester often have crossers at FL110 in the Lichfield corridor 100 by SAPCO is not a good one to miss to high.

6. When we get you from Brum has a large effect. If they pick a good initial heading and hand you over early we can often get you going.
If they hand onto you and you level at 60 for a while you are more likely to get stuck under outbounds. Also as the inbound route is WELIN-HON the DTY SID track places you nicely under the inbounds (hence the occassional 080 heading). As the inbounds will often be talking to Brum at FL80, we are stuck in giving you climb until you are clear of the inbounds.

7. Aircraft performances. Other TMA departures are often 146s, Dornier 328s, A340s, 747 Classics etc. As they come over to us already much higher than you are, if we cannot vector you clear then sadly you are going to be stuck, it just isn't possible most of the time to jump you over them. To give you an example a 146 off Gatwick can often pass abeam DTY at FL210. We also get a wide range of traffic from ATP's cruising at 140, Jetsreams at 180 and training flights at 70, 80 or 90. All these often conspire to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

8. The SID is pretty much unanimously hated by Midlands controllers, it causes us loads of grief, as basiccally you are teeth on into outbounds and inbounds. We are very aware of the climb performance of the minibus and I personally try whenver possible to get you up and away. I know what you can do (infact more than once a ROC of 6-7000fpm has solved many a problem for me !) and we do try, sadly our hands are often tied by circumstances outside our control.

I hope this has helped you understand some of our problems, please do feel free to make a visit whenever you can.

Cheers
XD

[Rad1]

Not Long Now, aren't you being a bit unfair on PPL's - even though the GA community might argue against it, just about every proposed extension to CAS that I've come across has been scuppered by the mil!.

[Not Long Now]

Rad 1, quite correct, it's the mil., the ppl's, and even the NIMBY's on the ground! We don't want an airway/hold going over OUR neighbourhood, think of the noise/decrease in property prices/visual pollution!!(I kid you not)

So we'll still keep cramming the fare-payers into narrow little bits ignoring the wide open spaces on all sides. :eek: :eek: