Wx Avoidance

[max alt]

Airborn from Lgw on a Dvr Dep,turned east to see a wall of weather extending North/south range around 50 miles away ,transferred to london unit,very very busy due to a/c deviating ,got my request in to turn right,Negative,ok turn left,Negative,ok climb Negative, unable,now I am getting closer to the wx, which is looking intensive from the returns,another request I have to turn NOW,ok Right 5.not enough,I am turning to avoid,Atc exchanges non stop,skirting the worst taking the best path through,icing on,lights up,all strapped in,one stike followed quickly by another,cabin crew calling ,quick scan a/c all ok,clear area ahead turning now ,hdg received climbing now clear of the worst ,now effectively I am aog at dest as I have to have a stike chk by an lic engineer,all this has happened within 10 mins of dep,let alone calming passengers and crew.
Heres the pitch,Atc do not have w/x returns on there screens,unlike our Florida cousins,if a/c were deviating so much through this sector then why was I allowed to get airborne on this route when a flow delay would have been effective,or given a sid from Lgw that would have kept me south of the problem area ,remaining with lgw atc untill east of May to keep me clear of inbounds.In 25 years of commercial flying I have never had wx deviation refused,yet I was placed in the position of turning onto hdgs that had to keep the a/c clear of the worst of it without approval,this is a situationI care not to repeat and I was not alone in taking the action I did ,listening to the RT.
So before some bright spark comments,don't get airborne,this w/x was not evident initially, but further down the route.lessons here for me, or atc I might suggest, would be to hold present pos untill you can give me the clearance I require.
Thoughts and comments pls.
Max

[Right Way Up]

Maxalt,
Had exactly the same experience the other day. First time ever in UK airspace I was refused clearance for avoiding action. It was coming down on the Willo arrival from the North with the usual line of TS emanating from the SAM area. Our original track was just about clear of weather but we were then given a heading. When we asked for left or right 10 degrees this was refused. I am 100% certain that the controller was doing as much as he physically could, but I can only assume that not enough restrictions had been put on flow rates to deal with the poor weather.

[Arkady]

In Londons Airspace you will only be refused a weather avoidance turn/climb if that action will put you in real danger from other traffic as opposed to potential danger from the weather. Not much comfort I know.

As you say, UK ATC has no real time weather imformation, and that includes the supervisors who could have tactically delayed your depature through, what appears to have been, an overloaded sector.

Solution? Real time weather radar information for the London FIR available to (at least) the LASs at LACC and Group Supervisors at LTCC and training to use it properly. We've been asking for it for years.

I hope you submitted a MOR or at least a CHIRP on this. Going into writing seriously strengthens our case for improvement in this area. Failing that, try sending the engineering bill to NATS.

[Captain Mercurius]

Dear max Alt

I agree with you.

It would be better to give you a hold meanwhile ATC could work and clear the Approaching flow.
It is their obligation to have WX radars giving them a clear picture on their screens, so they can plan ahead, and in fact even delay departures until that sector is clear.

WX must be avoided for the sake of flight safety.

I have the impression with the amount of traffic increasing constantly; it is possible that we are to suffer situations like you experienced, if proper measures are not taken. :{

Safe flying to all

Mercurius

[Widger]

Trouble with imposing restrictions is that civvy ATC will get blamed for it. NATS is a profit making organisation these days...can't have huge Cbs impacting on business can we?



Here fishy fishy!!!!!:E :E :E :E

Max Alt, I think if I was put in your situation I would have squawked emergency and got on with it. That would get noticed. It certainly sounds like the safety of your aircraft was in doubt.:

[Captain Mercurius]

Regarding about NATS, this was discussed here in this forum, and several people displayed support for NATS privatization, which in my humble view this is dangerous.

If this is what’s going on, this is the price of “privatizing” services which it is the government obligation to run. :hmm:

If aviation safety is nowadays “hanging” on the eventual profits of very greedy individuals, better stay home, because if someone goes trough some heavy hail, possibly only pieces of an aircraft will emerge from the cloud base, for the sake of their profits, of course. :E

Mercurius

[Arkady]

Wx is not NATS attributable, a fact that was exploited to the full after the last NAS failure co-incided with some less than perfect conditions.

If you decide to make "an unapproved heading change" in bad weather keep in mind that the clear patch of sky you are turning towards is the same patch every other A/C with wx radar is making for. There are no winners in this situation but if you feel you MUST turn tell ATC what you are doing immeadiatley, so, at the very least, traffic can be passed and a small prayer offered up.

[max alt]

I did submit an MOR, and I did tell ATC what I was doing,when I could get a word in,however the controller was working flat out and physically could not talk ,or process any faster dealing with an increasing workload.Heres the rock heres the hard place,my choice to make a decision that I am fully accountable for.If anyone needs a reminder then have a look at the damage sustained by a 757 coming out of palma recently.No damage,to me this time,other than a few more grey hairs!,and an engineer dispatched on a later flight to do the chk at dest.
I only offer the hold untill onward clearace or w/x deviation can be approved as a possible solution,other than keeping me on the ground for 20 mins.
Regards Max.

[Widger]

when I could get a word in,however the controller was working flat out and physically could not talk ,or process any faster dealing with an increasing workload

Even more of a reason to Squawk Emergency. That gets everyone's attention including the Supervisor and does not require that you speak to the controller concerned.

Military aircrew are regularly taught to use this procedure for inadvertant flight into IMC at low level where a climb would involve penetration of CAS.

An emergency Squawk would presumably be see by others on TCAS as well (I stand to be corrected)

[frostbite]

Interesting (and rather worrying) thread.

I was listening to the provincial and relatively poorly equipped Southend Approach yesterday and they were identifying weather problems and carefully routing their traffic round them!

[Diabolo]

Never request a HDG change for circumnavigation purpose.
Just fly that HDG and inform ATC.

Bons Vents

[VectorLine]

Diabolo
Never request a HDG change for circumnavigation purpose. Just fly that HDG and inform ATC.
So, you'd rather avoid a bumpy cloud or lightning strike than another aircraft? What an idiotic and unprofessional attitude to flight safety.

ATC will always approve a turn to avoid weather if traffic permits. If not, we can suggest alternatives. Unfortunately the only alternative that could be offered to Max in this instance was to continue straight ahead.

The problem in this type of situation is that weather avoidance can kick off when you already have several aircraft in the sector, leaving the ATCO horribly exposed. Sometimes there are already flow rates in place, but bunching from several TMA airfields can cause a real problem, particularly in a very narrow and short sector like Sector 15/16 (DOVER).

For example 1 departure each from EGKK, LL, SS and GW. A high level aircraft needing to descend into Brussels. Slow climbing Paris - Oceanic Deps. EGLC inblound via Sandy and TMA/EGBB traffic all avoiding Wx. That's 7 aircraft in DOVER sector and some infringing from sector 17 (LYDD).

The TMA departure traffic may be complying with CTOTs but all end up at DET at the same time wanting to go the same way around Wx cells - into the face of TMA arrivals.

Providing 1000ft or 5 miles separation becomes very difficult. As Widger says, If you have to turn without approval, Squawk 7700 and accept the responsibility for your own separation. In this way, the ATCO can accept 500ft emergency separation and keep his/her licence intact.

As for the Southend situation. Wx clutter on their display probably necessitated them vectoring aircraft around it to avoid the radar return disappearing into the mess. In an enroute environment, very little would move if we had to do that. Even if aircraft were above or below the weather, we would have to vector them around it to keep ident. The clean radar displays that exist in modern ACCs are much better for safety and traffic movements than a cluttered mess. The best Wx radar we have is pilots eyes and the stream of aircraft radar returns outlining the Wx on the display.

Good Luck Folks
VL

[Gonzo]

Just a (not so) innocent question.......

How long would it be, if a/c were being held on the ground due wx in the TMA and conditions at the airport were fine, before we started getting complaints from crews asking why they were being delayed. Many times we have had the situation where a/c ask to depart on a different SID, or they say they can accept radar vectors rather than a SID, or that they have had a look on their wx radar and 'it doesn't look that bad really, so can we go?'


Seems we can't win sometimes.

[055166k]

I think you and your colleagues are beginning to see the result of truncated and absolute minimal ATCO training that is the modern NATS. Additional factors have been touched on over the years:-
1. no fam flight scheme in contravention of a CAA directive
2.reluctance to impose flow restrictions when bad wx forecast
3.interest in aviation "things" no longer a job qualification
4.shallow experience/awareness base leading to inflexibility
If you are sufficiently concerned for the safety of aircraft and/or pax make a PAN call and request immediate turn for weather......this may result in a better service delivery for following aircraft. If the controller gets away with it to-day then he/she will do it tomorrow....balls in your court.....never forget that YOU are the customer.

[Giles Wembley-Hogg]

Widger

The mode A squawk worn by a particular aircraft has no impact upon the TCAS display. Thus an aircraft squawking 7700, 7000 or 0000 will appear exactly the same as one squawking 1066.

Gonzo

The requests you get for the use of other SIDs or radar vectors probably stem from the fact that they can be requested and granted at other airfields around the world. The "freeflow" nature of Heathrow mean that these methods don't really work at LL easily. But whilst this is blindingly obvious to an ATCO, it is not so obvious to all pilots.

On this subject, I think there is some scope for the INT director to provide headings for departures that want to start out going the wrong way to avoid a distinct cell. (eg off westerlies a heading of 120 degrees for a BPK dep to avoid a cell to the NW, then direct to BPK when clear). The coordination required at the moment is quite onerous LL INT N, INT S, SE DEPS, OCK and NE deps would all have to be involved (IIRC), but since the scenario seems to present itself fairly regularly I am sure someone could come up with a streamlined process.

G W-H

[Arkady]

I'm not sure that squawking 7700 is the best solution. You would certainly get the undivided attention of the controller concerned and any turns, climb or descent that you wanted but at the expense of every other aircraft in the sector.

An emergency does not have to be declared for ATC to use emergency separation but is 500' enough in bumpy air? Me, I'd rather aim for a couple of miles of lateral separation than rely on 500'.

Max

It seems you did the best you could and I have no doubt that your actions were appropriate to the situation. I just have to stress that there may well be several other pilots thinking along exactly the same lines as you and all inevitably aiming for the same bit of sky.

[Diabolo]

VectorLine,

Let us do our job and watch your screen carfully.
Please tell me what do you know about Bumpy clouds ? I am just curious.

We take with us time to time one ATCO on jump ride. They are ussually very suprised about what is going on up here.

Ask one day to have a ride and open your eyes and try to look out for some bumpy Clouds when the sky is obscured. Good luck.

Bye :)

[Northerner]

Hi All,

I was working yesterday, it was crap. Planes everywhere. Rest assured when it was getting difficult we did stop/restrict departures. We have been known before now to only allow aircraft to depart if they assure us they will follow the SID, otherwise it erodes separation everywhere. But we don't know, until a few have had to avoid weather, then we get some idea as to what is likely to happen.

A couple of points. I am a service provider, and I do my best at all times to provide a service to all the aircraft I work. If you ask for weather avoidance I will give it if I possibly can do, only refusing when it would be dangerous to do so (ie when there is another plane near you.) In this specific case (although I wasn't working that sector yesterday) on Dover departure off of Gatwick, you get airborne and above altitudes you conflict with the BIG and OCK holds for Heathrow, at altitudes you conflict with SIDs off Heathrow, and if you try to turn right you are heading straight over the final approach. Then be aware that all of that traffic may not be working the same controller.

A wizad sid, which would take you south of the airfield, is another option, and one which was suggested yesterday. Then the problem becomes the inbound holding traffic for Gatwick (and there was a lot of that yesterday too) and the workload of the Gatwick approach controllers, who were also dealing with weather problems. Several people have the right to refuse that option, and someone did yesterday, although I'm not sure who.

And you guys have pressure to get airborne on time and get your pax where you want to go! IF we say there is weather en route, how many of you would decide to give it a go anyway? Also bear in mind that weather avoidance is very dependent on pilot and airline, some will go around anything, some will fly straight through it....

We sorely need weather radar, then we could make some informed decisions. I believe we do the very best we can with what information we have.

Finally Diabolo, may I respectfully suggest that you let us do our job, of keeping you guys separated. I have been in a flight deck many times, not that I can't learn more, of course I can. How many times have you visited an area or approach unit? TCAS is not infallible, we have something that will tell us the full traffic picture in front of us, which I might suggest means we know more about your traffic than you do. To blatently disregard ATC instructions is downright dangerous. If you really really must turn and we have said no but you conceive there to be no other option, at least give us the courtesy of telling us so we can provide emergency separation from any other traffic, bearing in mind you are not the only plane in the sky! Arkady has a very valid point, everyone aims for the same bit of clear air. All we can do is try and make sure that that isn't at the same level as someone else.

I will go to work this afternoon, and again do my best to provide a safe, orderley and expeditious air traffic control service, as I do every time I work. I trust you pilots an awful lot, I believe you to be a very professional set of people who are doing your best in often difficult situations. You have to look after your plane: so do I, along with the 10- 20 others who may be near you at the same time!

Fly safe.

Cheers,
Northerner

"Keep smiling, it makes people wonder what you're up to..."

[fly bhoy]

055166k

Sorry if this sounds a bit facetious but there is also the extreme outside chance that the controller involved could have had 20 years experience and been trained on the old style courses at the college and been a very talented controller, but just physically couldn't give any turns or climbs. I think that to instantly assume they were inexperienced and poorly trained is not only jumping to conclusions, but is downright condescending and insulting to the controller involved.

Diabolo

Not a terribly professional attitude. Thankfully not every pilot has your disregard for ATC and others safety. As has been mentioned previously, you are not the only aircraft in the sky and by casually picking your own headings you're putting yourself and the aircraft you've just pointed yourself at in danger. Believe it or not ATC don't deliberately try to send you through wx on purpose and if its possible to send you round it then i'm fairly certain the controller will do everything he/she can to help you. And given that part of our training is a met course (at least it used to be!!! Not sure anymore:confused: ;) ) i'm sure VectorLine knows a fair bit about "bumpy clouds"!!!

FB:ok:

[millerman]

Diabolo

Does your name derive from the word diabolical? Because that is what your attitude to ATC and professionalism is!
If you ever grace an ATC unit with your presence ask for a go in the simulator (if they have one) and you might get a better idea of the people who are so obviously the bane of your life:hmm:

[Caudillo]

Diabolo

We take with us time to time one ATCO on jump ride. They are ussually very suprised about what is going on up here.

Would that be that you chaps speak english on the flight deck and reserve your use of French for your radio transmissions? Again, further enhancing flight safety!

Hip hip hooray!

[Diabolo]

Just to clarify this,

I do not have any problems with ATCO's.

;)

French RT !!!! This is out of the subject

Libérté Egalité Fraternité

[055166k]

WX conditions are forecast, detail print-outs of actual situation are available[ in colour at Swanwick], and of course pilot reports are invaluable.
With all this information a controller can be prepared and anticipate.....and can be ready to allow the "avoid turns" by making space.
You make space by restricting traffic using methods appropriate to the type of airspace you work with, whether that is increased departure interval or sector flow reduction or whatever....but some-one has to be big enough to make the call and justify the reasoning. One problem for the controller is that if all the measures necessary are in fact implimented the WX problem becomes a non-event and the skill and expertise that made that non-event possible brands said controller as less than efficient.
Hindsight is wonderful isn't it?
Back to Max's situation .......was it or was it not acceptable?

[Topofthestack]

Seems once again, that there are too many pilots who either haven't visited the major ATC centre they fly through and don't have a clue what problems ATC have in normal, let alone bad weather conditions. As one poster has said, we've been after active wx radar, available on the displays, for years now and still another year goes by without NATS providing it. Why? Cost! And with the new CAA reductions in our charges how would we pay for it?

Please, please, please file MOR's (both ATCOs and pilots), submit safety reports to your company, complain to your Chief Pilot, complain to the NATS CEO, complain to the Airline Group, complain to BALPA, write to CHIRP, complain to SRG, complain to Mrs Dunwoody & Mr Darling. Complain as loudly as you can. Do something about it!

Perhaps one day someone will listen and we won't have to watch airplanes hurtling towards each other, both trying to avoid weather.

[West Coast]

This thread was going well till the inevitable turf pissing match started.

To the poster who said that we we now suffering from an underfunded NATs. Don't fly in your neck of the woods, and can't reply to the larger issue of funding. What I can say is that airline pilots should never have to rely upon ATC for the WX. Its nice to glean a bit of tactical info from you chaps as to the larger picture, but no pilot should rely wholly on ATC.
As to turns around WX, you are the PIC and sometimes you need to make a turn in the absence of ATC approval. Make sure all other options are pressed first. Remember that ATC at times has operational priorities that are sometimes not the same as ours.

[Jerricho]

Very well said Westy :ok:

[fly bhoy]

055166k

The reasons you give this time are a lot more relevant than your initial ones, where you seemed to be blaming what appears to have become the "fallback" excuse for anything nowadays - the training scheme. That's another debate altogether though, but I feel that immediately pointing the finger of blame here is jumping to conclusions.

As you say, someone has to be big enough to make the decision to impose flow and i'm not sure, but is it the supervisor's decision to make or the controller's? Either way, by the time the decision has been made it could've been too late and too many aircraft could have been committed to the sector. It therefore could turn out that its got nothing to do with "truncated and absolute minimal ATCO training", "interest in aviation "things" no longer a job qualification" or even "shallow experience/awareness base leading to inflexibility". Don't get me wrong, it could very well be the case that inexperience played a part here, but until specifics are known I would say that its wrong to point the finger at anything!!!:ok:

For what its worth, I would say max probably shouldn't have decided to accept responsibility for his own separation as it sets a dangerous precedent, albeit in exceptional circumstances, of pilots turning without consent and if they all decided to do that there's a fair chance there'd be carnage. On the flip side however, he/she has only one concern and thats the safety of his/her aircraft so I can understand why they did it. If weather radar was available to the controller then it could all have been avoided as it would've been obvious to them long before the requests for turns started coming in!! As you say though, hindsight is wonderful!!!:D

FB:ok:

[max alt]

Many thanks for all that have responded.I have no doubt that the set of circumstances were unusual to say the least.I have visited west drayton in the past and have a good respect for controllers and I think that was the main reason for my post that I had to manouver, albeit without consent so the confliction is not lost on me.If any lessons can be gained by interested parties then it will continue to be debated as a what if scenario.
Regards,Max.

[BDiONU]

Weather radar is actively being looked at by NATS but there are VERY few COTS examples out there. EHAM has one which is displayed on the radar screen and on SIS. However that type of display may prove very difficult to implement because the regulators will undoubtedly take a keen interest in displaying something which could potentially mask the primary function of the radar display, to show aircraft targets.

The other difficulty is what exactly do controllers think that a weather radar will display? Yes it'll show a grey area where there is bad weather but what does it mean? Is it simple precipitation? Is it huge CB's? Can aircraft fly through it? There is (AFAIK) no simple way to determine exactly what the 'weather radar' is showing you.

Lastly, other posters have touched on the point that some companies and pilots may disagree with an ATC implemented restriction on where they can fly due to 'weather'.

BD

[Jerricho]

The Wx we have displayed on our radars is a digitised blue overlay, which doesn't hinder or mask any of the aircraft returns on the screen. The information displayed is at best, average and is useless if the weather is fast moving.

We also have a component that shows real time lightning strikes, displaying a little lightning bolt in the position of the strike. I pay far more creedence to that one, as it does seem to be accurate, especially when you can see a grouping of strikes where no blue "weather" is being displayed.

[dolphinops]

Pilot requested turn for Wx avoid.
Checked it was safe. (high terrain in area)
Background radar on for one sweep.
Looked at Wx returns.
Gave advice to pilot for good heading.
Pilot happy with advice and once away from the CB's said thanks very much and went enroute.
Job done.
Happy.

[Diabolo]

My experience;
They are very good in Singapore ! I do not know witch systems they are using but last time they interpreted and gave me R-Vectors exactly the way I wanted to avoid the CBs.
Good job. I can rely on such well equiped and competend ATCO, when only my Radar is swtiched ON Off course.
Never forget who is the PIC please,

and I repeat one more times that I have no personal problems with ATCOs even if they are British gentelman or ladies.

So please do not start of discussing with me about French RT, it is out of the subject.

Thanks

Salut