Air traffic questions

[EGKK931]

After listening to airband at Gatwick for several days, I have 2 questions in general about ATC/airband.

These are:

1. I listen to most ground at Gatwick and would like to know

A. How stands are allocated? Does the ground controller randomly select a vacant gate/stand and allocate it to an arriving aircraft?

B. How are taxi clearances made and given? Does the ground controller have to make a route and a whole clearance for the aircraft or is there another way this is done?

Edit to add:
Are airband scanners permitted aboard flights? Such as are you allowed to operate them on a flight?

Cheers

[Impress to inflate]

Stands will be issued by the airlines ground handling agency so the outbound flight will be at the correct gate.
Taxi clearance are given in the form of the taxiways needed to get to runway threshold or to any holding points that may be required to get to the runway. The en-route clearance will also be given which would be the initial departure clearance, the first airway used and the squawk (transponder code). Hope this helps.

[Dan Air 87]

Whilst we are the subject, sometimes I listen to LBC on 97.3 (I know I am a very sad bugger but there's nothing else to listen to in the evenings) and I find that I am getting LGW ATC transmissions cutting in! Why is this??

Thanks,

DA87 -your man in the anorak at the end of 26L at LGW

[261A]

What are you listening to LBC through, such as car radio, portable radio, digital radio etc.?

[m5dnd]

EGKK931,

Your last question re taking scanners aboard aircraft and using them, try reading the info on the link below..

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=206063


Dan Air 87, (nice name by the way!!) (Dad worked for Dan Air)

Your radio is suffering from a lack of whats known as "Image rejection"... Not enough room or time to explain this deeply but its just the radio's inability to cope with strong signals. A better radio might help !! :)

Regards both..
M5DND

[Gonzo]

EGKK,

Not sure how it's done at Gatwick specifically, but at Heathrow T1 and T4 British Airways allocate the gates to each inbound flight and inform Heathrow Airport Limited (BAA) who then promulgate that information to the rest of the airfield including us in ATC by a system similar to teletext. In Heathrow T2 and T3, stand allocation is done completely by BAA, with input from each airline handling agency. In every terminal, the legal responsibility is held by BAA (it's their job to ensure that each aircraft can fit on the stand allocated, etc).

Taxi clearances are made up on the spot by the ground controller.

[EGKK931]

m5dnd,

Cheers for the link! Should have gone straight to ATC and seen that sticky :ugh: sorry.

Gonzo,

Thanks for your reply, always wondered how they do it can't exactly see all the ground handling and all the communication that you expalined about gate/stand allocation :p
Thanks for explaining though quite interesting!

Find it quite amazing how ground controller makes up clearances on the spot, particularly if most taxiways etc. are being used but then I guess thats what trained to do! :O

Cheers! :ok:

[Fried_Chicken]

Edit to add:
Are airband scanners permitted aboard flights? Such as are you allowed to operate them on a flight?

Cheers

If you fly United, the majority of the time, ATC is piped through to CH9 on the inflight entertainment system thus no need for a scanner :ok:

FC