Brisbane Centre/Melbourne Centre ATC'ers....

[planemad_bk]

G'day guys!!

Just wondering a couple of things....

Firstly, if we're on and IFR flight and outside of radar coverage, how do you guys keep an eye on us and what sort of information do you look at? Tis something i've never understood fully.

Secondly, say we're again IFR and flying through IMC where there are "ISOL CB 5000/30000" as per the area forecast, can you see the CB activity on your scopes and be able to vector us non-wx radar equipped aircraft around the bad stuff, ie. CBs? I hear theres a 10 min delay on what you see compared to whats actually happening, is that true?

Thanx guys!

[DirtyPierre]

if we're on and IFR flight and outside of radar coverage, how do you guys keep an eye on us and what sort of information do you look at?

In TAAATS (The Aust. Advanced Air Traffic System) which is a Eurocat 2000 made by Thomson-CSF, we have workstations with 4 screens. A large ASD (Air situation dispay) in the centre, to the right a smaller secondary ASD, on the left a touch screen for intercom and frequency management, and also a AAARDS (cant remember what all the As stand for) that includes RAPIC (the Met Radar info from the Met office) as well as other info for the controller.

If you're out of radar coverage, as an IFR flight we have a square symbol with your label indicating this. Your position info in the first instance is computed by the ATC System using GRIB winds and flt pln info. The system is updated by the controller whenever you give ATC a position report.

can you see the CB activity on your scopes and be able to vector us non-wx radar equipped aircraft around the bad stuff, Scopes, there's a word not often used these days. The RAPIC provides snapshots of the wx at tem minute intervals and is provided on a separate screen to the main and secondary ASDs. Hence we are unable to vector aircraft around wx. We can provide advice on the wx picture we recieve, but that's all.

for more info see this website.

http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aboutus/facilities/centres/brisbanecentre.asp

[SM4 Pirate]

Our Wx feed is the same 'radar wx' you can get by logging into the BOM site. It's subtly different; but really it's the same; it is not 'overlayed' on the main screen, but is available on a seperate monitor; it is delayed and not accurate enough for aircraft wx avoidance.

It more or less gives us a concept of where aircraft are likely to divert. Although often when convection is commencing; aircraft divert and we have nothing (no piants at all) on this feed. I think this is because there is no 'rain' associated with the cloud which you still want to avoid.

On a bad day we have no reference points as the 'rain', blue, yellow, red bits paint on top of the map; so you can see red but have no idea where 'exactly' it is.

We work bigger and bigger sectors, some may have as many as 9 relevant radar feeds, so the maps and scale keeps changing; it's impossible to remember the geography associated with the feed.

I often ask a bigger palyer with wx radar to give me updates when requests are received by lower level aircraft; it's more accurate and more relevant.

[DirtyPierre]

Further to what my colleague SM4 Pirate has said, the picture we get from the BOM paints rainfall.

The thinking being that the heavier the rainfall, the worst the turbulance/wx will be. This then means we aren't actually seeing where the cloud is as not all cloud produces rain. Hence aircraft may divert around cloud that our wx picture doesn't paint.

[En-Rooter]

In other words the weather feed is effing useless!

[dickluvva]

Clearly the radar is not useless. I can see at a glance whether to phone the missus to put the guinea pigs under cover...

[DirtyPierre]

dickluvva, agreed. I use it to tell Mrs DP to get the washing in.

[Tweety]

in a nutshell irrespective of the new hardware, you are still under procedural control when outside of radar coverage, once they get the ADSB full operative then it will be a different kettle of fish, we can probably then dispense with radar except for approach control.