Dallas (DFW) weather

[pax britanica]

In Texas end of last week and stranded at holding point for an hour or so while yet another thunderstorm passed by -I am afraid that there are 25 a/c ahead of us said the captain of BA2192 on Friday so as northbound departures are not allowed we will switch off the engines and wait.

Reason for post was toask any US atcos how you cope with the steady stream of storms all across the south and up the east coast in summer-do you ever get a normal day.

I think there was an added bit of local drama on Thursday with an AA MD 80 bound for DFW making a hurried -according to the pax -approach and landing to a nearby general aviation airport due to low fuel after a lengthy hold? I would imagine that notmal diversion fields are more significant airports than the one this ended up at and have proper pax facilities.

Anyway just curious as to how many days run smoothly in that part of the world in the summer
PB

[Scott Voigt]

Hi PB;

I'm one of those folks who is lucky enough to deal with the TRW+'s in the DFW area... With thunderstorms we just operate with the routes that we have as long as we can. When two pilots decide that they can not fly a route we then stop using the route. In DFW's case, we have four routes that go out each side of the approach airspace. We also have three arrival routes that come in the corners. When they can't remain on them, we start routing them onto other routes and start putting in trail restrictioins due to the aircraft also wanting to normally deviate around the weather that is out there.

A month ago we were pretty much thunderstorm free in the east and south sides, but the last few weeks we are making up for some of the lost rain that we were suffering all spring. We didn't get any major thunderstorms in the metro area but the east and south side of the airspace (enroute) was just plain crazy today. I am one pooped controller <G>... I wish that I could upload a photo of what it looked like today...

regards

Scott