Level bust?

[Bluebaron]

when is a level bust a level bust?

I overshot an altitude on a lgw sid by 100 feet yesterday, (amasing how quick you get to 3000' in an empty 763!

I would consider a bust to be in excess of 300' in either direction?

BB :\

[blackmail]

bluebaron,

correct, 300ft in either direction & half of that in rvsm airspace.
a helpful tip now that we all have tcas is to reduce the vertical speed the last 1000ft to avoid the "traffic, traffic" call, if other traffic is seen above/below

[AlanM]

Interesting to hear views on level busts.

I had an outbound go 200 feet above its cleared level whilst departing like a rocket (cleared to 3000 feet)

The inbound at 4000 feet had a TCAS climb and the STCA (Short Term Conflict Alert) flashed on my radar screen and the CAA SRG regulated SMF (Separation Monitoring Function) tripped as standard separation was lost.

Level Bust??!?!?!? :):cool:

[Vlad the Impaler]

Blackmail's reply is not entirely correct, or not in the UK anyway. An aircraft can be considered to be at a level when three successive radar sweeps confirm that it is at the level +/- 200 ft and so 300ft or more is technically a level bust, this is also true in RVSM airspace. As Alan M says it is more often than not a high rate of climb which makes the TCAS blow as it assumes you will keep climbing/descending at that rate. This is a big problem in TMA airspace when we are trying to achieve a lot of climb throughs in a small piece of airspace and therefore often ask for high rates of climb. Having said that, I have seen RA's between two straight and level ac very nicely 1000ft apart. I don't think you will get caned for 2 or 3 hundred feet as long as it is rectified swiftly and the one on top of you hasn't overcooked the descent by a similar margin !!

[Warped Factor]

For UK specific info on level busts, take a peek at NATS' Level Best (http://www.levelbust.com/) website.

WF.

[EFP058]

A few days ago I had the great fortune to spend a day at Langen Radar to look over the ATCO´s shoulders and ask questions. Highly recommended! Anyway... I talked to this one chap, and he told me about an F-16 of a certain european airforce he was working a couple years ago (as Rhein Upper I believe, but don´t hold me to that). He cleared the F-16 for FL270, and the F-16 climbed with around 4000ft/min. It approached FL270, went past it, kept climbing through FL280, 290, 300, 310, missed a 747 by just half a mile, kept climbing and finally levelled out at around FL340.

While the ATCO was still busy recovering from his heart attack, the F-16 pilot keyed the mike and said "ooops, sorry for that level bust".

Level bust?

Understatement of the year.