push back red?

[pilotho]

i have just watched a cockpit dvd featuring cargo ops in HKG.

on one of the radio calls, i noticed a reply as "ocean cargo 903, push back red"

i have never heard of a push back clearence given that way...what does it actually mean?

[cpdude]

i have just watched a cockpit dvd featuring cargo ops in HKG.
on one of the radio calls, i noticed a reply as "ocean cargo 903, push back red"
i have never heard of a push back clearence given that way...what does it actually mean?

Push back clearance from the cargo ramp with the nose of the aircraft pointing towards China. No, I'm not kidding! ;)

[pilotho]

thats abit weird, i would have thought they would just say push back face north or something!

what if the nose is not facing china?

[cpdude]

thats abit weird, i would have thought they would just say push back face north or something!
what if the nose is not facing china?

Then it's "blue"...towards the sea.:)

[Bedder believeit]

Virtually all push back clearances in Hong Kong are colour coded, whether at the Cargo bays, or the Pax terminal. The only non colour coded pushes are at the maintenance bays, and there would be less than one aircraft a week pushing there (ie, recently serviced aircraft to depart for a test flight). There is a full description of the various interpretations of push back directions in the HK AIP. Push back can be "RED", "BLUE" or for Cathay and Dragon Air aircraft there are a limited number of "GREEN's". The green's are only used at the Pax terminal. At the pax terminal, a rough guide is that a "RED" bush back will leave you with the PORT (ie red) wingtip against the terminal, however this does not apply at the Cargo apron. The only reason that I can think of for doing the pushes this way is to keep "pilot to ground" (I mean the guy plugged into the nose wheel area) orders fairly simple. Many of the tug crews speak little or no English, so a "Keep it Simple" method was instituted. Well. that's what I believe. When aircraft are being towed around the airport (and now there are many) they are not in direct communication with HK Ground (Tower) Control, unless they need to cross a runway. The towing crews work a discreet frequency (called TMR: Trunk Mobile Radio) and the Ground Controller in the tower issues instructions in English to a tower assistant, who in turn (hopefully) re issues the same instructions to the towing crew in Cantonese. Because of the English to Cantonese issue, delays and stuff ups can happen. The alternative is to kick all of the non-Cantonese speaking Controller's (like me) out of Hong Kong and all instructions to towed aircraft would then be done directly from Ground to the tug crews in Cantonese.

[The Messiah]

pilotho

Quite simply at each gate there are 2 arrows (pointing left and right) painted on the pavement at the stopline, one red and one blue. 'Pushback red', means pushback and turn the tail in the direction of the red arrow, simple as that.

Obviously to minimise confusion between cockpit/ground communications.

[Aussie]

Is this just a Hong Kong thing?

Aussie

[Bedder believeit]

Sounds like it. The apron area at HK is very congested as the parking areas are built in a concave manner. So one push back can block up to four other bays. If you are ever asked to design an apron area for a new terminal, just say "I won't have one like HK".

[throw a dyce]

All you see with GMC controllers is a constant flipping of the pushback chart.Then CPA want to push from E1,E2,E3,E4 at the same time.:ugh: :ugh: I'll be smart and mix them,Bit of red,bit of blue,smidgen of green.Result.GOLDEN TOWBAR AWARD.:D :D

[pilotho]

so just to confirm:

at the PAX terminal, push back red means after push back the port side would be facing the terminal and vice versa with green.

however at the cargo bays, push back red means the port side facing china i.e. port facing north?

i think this is quite a good idea and should be introduced to the rest of the non english world. just funny i have never heard of this

[Five Green]

Actually IMHO, if you are going to teach a non-native english speaker the words "green" "red" and "blue" then how much harder would it be to teach them the words North South East and West ? Then on top of that you have to teach them what procedures green red and blue entail.

The local tug driver/ ground crew may even know what North and South etc. mean once translated. It would then be alot more obvious what direction the aircraft was meant to face. There would be no problems for anybody, whether local or transient.

Just my two cents worth.

[throw a dyce]

Red is push one way,blue is generally the other way,and green is push and a tow forward on a limited pax stands.If the controllers says pushback red,blue,or push tow forward green,then the tug crew will push you to the tug stop point on the push back chart.On occasion you may get a, for example, pushback blue and extend the push to abeam Stand xxx.I used to use that so you could escape out of H8 for example,and get another push out of the Echo stands.The system basically came in when the airport opened on a single runway,and we had a stick to a ridged flow system on the taxiways.
The apron is a very bad design.Lord Foster may have made a nice terminal but the push system is the way it is because so many stands are crammed into the space.If you get 3 or more wanting start at the same time from adjacent stands,then the delays can be 20 plus mins as each a/c has to push to the same tug stop point.How I didn't get a nose to nose on that apron,was more luck than judgement.Then there were the Tows....Ahh:ugh:
Ps Five Green,
The red ,blue can end up facing all direction depending where you are.The system was on the North,South,West,and Cargo aprons.Each stand had a specific tug stop point depending on the type of push.Very easy system which hardly went wrong.Just had to get the pilots to READBACK.:ok:

[Five Green]

Throw A Dyce

The red ,blue can end up facing all direction depending where you are.The system was on the North,South,West,and Cargo aprons.Each stand had a specific tug stop point depending on the type of push.Very easy system which hardly went wrong.Just had to get the pilots to READBACK.:ok:

That is why they came up with the compass. it has all the directions right on it !!

I feel for you having to deal with the design. Believe me that us in the flight deck continually marvel at the awful layout. Especially having been to the occasional "other" airport !

By the way your handle "Throw a dyce" is that how you determine the delays we get ? (tounge in cheek tee hee)


Chin up !

[Glass Half Empty]

I always think of pushback Red as facing Wanchai with all its red light memories!!!!!!!!!!!!

[throw a dyce]

Well when this ''Dycer'' used to do GMC at Honkers,I would always try and get a/c off stands as quickly as I could.In fact I got criticised for having too many at the hold on my check out.6a/c wow.
Blue reminds me of busses in HK,and Green is the 3.30am DB ferry after an expedition in the Red zone.Eh happy days:ok:

[jtr]

Pushback red = Tug driver turns toward red (port) wingtip to initiate the turn.

Pushback blue = Tug driver turns toward blue (stbd) wingtip to initiate.

Why is it not green iso blue? It's an asian thing.

[Five Green]

So is the port side the East or West side of the airplane ?

[Bedder believeit]

Pilotho.

No. After a "RED" push at the Pax terminal, your "PORT" or RED wingtip will be nearest or adjacent to the terminal concourse. A push "BLUE" will be the opposite. "GREEN" can go either way, but are only available for HAECO tug crews pushing CATHAY/DRAGONAIR aircraft. So, forget about them. At the CARGO apron, a "RED" push from bays 10R through to 23 will have the RIGHT or effectively the Starboard side of the aircraft against the freight terminals, and pushes from bays 24 through to 33L will achieve the opposite. It may sound complicated, but it works. As for those suggesting "Compass points" I would say that with the design of the terminal parking bays, then we would have just about every compass direction covered. I did suggest in my post 5 that the "RED equal wingtip against the terminal" was only an easy way for the directions to be remembered. Forget c**p about "then why isn't "GREEN" the opposite, because in this case "BLUE" happens to be the colour selected. At Kai Tak, there were only 8 bays that had aerobridges, and there we used to say for all bays, either push back facing Runway, or Push back away from runway. There were also quite a few "drive through" bays at Kai Tak If I recall. Here, the only "drive through" are W126 and V131 to V135 which are only used by A320 and smaller LCC (JetStar, HK Express etc) aircraft. Your head may be spinning after reading the above, but if I can undertsand it, then you should be able to. Anyway, just be good boys and sit there and go for the ride.

[throw a dyce]

jtr,
No it isn't an Asian thing.The original push backs when the airport opened on single runway they were always red/blue.Generally we had red push for one runway,and blue for the other.We soon discovered that a little mixing could improve the capacity off stands.The Green only came later and it was a push and tow forward.I think the idea was it was for CPA/Dragonair so green was appropriate.The hardest problem was getting pilots to readback the colour.I've had push two,push approved,push when? But it does really work.:ok:

[Phlaps 40]

Here, the only "drive through" are W126 and V131 to V135 which are only used by A320 and smaller LCC (JetStar, HK Express etc) aircraft.

Ermm...HK Express is not a LCC in any sense of the term. Allocated seating, free food and alcohol, blankets & pillows etc etc. Don't know why people say that. They're a full service regional.

And how an itinerant airline is supposed to know what "follow the shuttle" means I do not know. It's an Embraer...."Emm-bray-air" I won't be putting my money on the ATC table at the next HK Aviation Quiz Night. :P

Phlaps 40

[cpdude]

Ermm...HK Express is not a LCC in any sense of the term. Allocated seating, free food and alcohol, blankets & pillows etc etc. Don't know why people say that. They're a full service regional.


Oh the narrow line drawn between the enhanced services of some LCC's and the diminishing service of our full service carriers. These days, if you don't have 3 classes, you must be a LCC!:)

[Bedder believeit]

Sorry Phlaps (but don't get them in a knot). It was a slip of the typing finger that dared to refer to HKE (Shuttle) as an LCC. Unfortunately I misinterpreted our paper work that the new drive through bays were basically for LCC's, and I lumped you in with those. As for your complaint about tower people refering to you as "Shuttle", I agree with you. The only way you (might) get it changed is to put in an letter of complaint. No one is going to listen to you here. Sorry that you won't be putting any money on us at the quiz night, I can understand that, but you also must understand that a fair whack of the Controller's and students that we are training here can barely tell the difference between a B747 and a Tiger Moth...not quite, but you know what I mean!

For cpdude, if I recall the boss of (your airline) some time ago when asked if C# would start up a "LCC" a la Qantas with JET*, his answer was "We already have a LCC, it's called the back of a Triple Seven". So the wheel keeps on turning.....

[Phlaps 40]

BB,
Ok they're all unbunched now. I've had my cuppa tea, two Bex and a good lie down. :P Jokes aside, not too stressed. Just gets a bit repetitive sometimes.

CPdude,
Schaaa right. There's no such thing as a premium LCC. Their entire business model is based on min service for min cost with all other goods/services available at a premium. Ryanair, Easyjet, Southwest, et al. Those who have tried to straddle the divide have failed (remember BA's attempt with GOing GOing, GONE??).

Perhaps the point you were trying to make was the first tier carriers have been eroding their services for some time to get closer to LCC's. On that point I can agree with you. Qantas and their meal boxes (although they finally admitted defeat on that particular one) and CX and their unwavering enforcement of baggage allowances are but a few examples. Even SQ has cut back (most notably on catering) *sob*

Phlaps 40

[cpdude]

CPdude,
Schaaa right. There's no such thing as a premium LCC. Their entire business model is based on min service for min cost with all other goods/services available at a premium.

Not true!

Look at Jet Blue, WestJet and a select few others. Leather seats, PVT's, Sat TV, free snack/drinks. Years ago LCC was an aluminium tube and a seat, now with some there is plus, plus!:)

Then on the first tier airlines we have seen cuts after cuts. AC is charging for drinks and pillows! So tell me where the line is drawn between a cheap major and a good LCC?

I stand with my definition...if you don't have a 3-class service you are a LCC or LCC like!:uhoh: