Unable to contact ATC over Africa

[ETOPS]

Just operated from South Africa to LHR and had no contact with any ATC unit from Gabarone to N'Djamena - a distance of 1300nm :uhoh:

Not for the lack of trying. Used every VHF and HF frequency I know (vielen Dank Gerd) Could hear Kinshasa but they never answered. The result was I was stuck at FL310 for longer than necessary which made the fuel remaining look a little thin for a while :{

Due to tech problems, I was about 2 hours behind schedule and just wondered if that was a factor. There was very little other traffic around - which was apparent from the IFBP freq. Is 3am bedtime for Brazzaville? Is it cocoa time in Kinshasa?

PS Thanks to VS for the relay attempt.........:D

[FullWings]

Did you have satcom? If you talk to Joburg they can set up a CPDLC link and relay your position reports to the ground controllers in central Africa...

[putt for dough]

Ah the controllers from central africa.....
Doesn't surprise me at all. Sleep, coffee breaks etc was most probably
on top of their agendas , as opposed to
doing their actual jobs and controlling the air traffic. :{

[L337]

JNB Oceanic on HF has always been my last port of call. it has always worked. To date....

l337

[dontdoit]

So what.... lights on, TCAS on, 126.9 on, R1 offset on; their ATC is little more than a Flight Information Service anyway...flight safety is, in reality, not affected at all by not speaking to them over the middle part of Africa.

[chevvron]

Controllers were probably all outside loading baggage; they get more money for that; (thats what a controller at Banjul told me anyway)

[IFixPlanes]

Squawk 7600 :}

[yetanotherdawn]

It's a bit worrying when you think that they are talking about introducing RVSM in Africa. It's a shame that all that money paid in overflight charges doesn't reflect itself in more noticeable improvement in ATC across the continent; there are small advances such as Khartoum's increased VHF coverage but the huge voids as experienced by ETOPS are all too common. Does anyone know why we have several different control centres fighting for space on a handful of HF frequencies when individual airlines seem to be able to pick up a handful for their own use?

[ETOPS]

CPDLC link

Not fitted to the jet - sorry.

[Stoic]

Plus ca change!

[Huck]

Wait 'till you have to divert around thunderstorms in that situation - gets pretty spooky....

[newt]

Thats why you broadcast position reports on VHF!! So the people you might bump into know where you are!! The guys on the ground will be asleep or somebody has nicked their aerial again!!

You could also fly a greater offset for added security!! Its been that way for years and is never going to get any better. Just part of the fun in flying over Africa!

[Bad-Man]

dontdoit:""lights on, 126.9 on""

You are right.
Same procedure as we used in the late 70's and 80's, however we had no TCAS and the R1 was not used then.

any problem?

B

[Huck]

I just want to know why the controllers there all talk into the wrong side of their microphones......

[latetonite]

First time over Africa? And 3 hours NO comm? Tried Dakar, Bamako, Brazza? Hard to believe .:=

[ETOPS]

First time over Africa?

Hardly - been at this game 32 years. At least not long to go now :ok:

My point (made badly) is that when operating to schedule I normally do get some response but on this occasion I was over 2 hours late. It just seemed so odd to get zero response from ATC and the thought crossed my mind that as it was so quiet they had nipped out for some "R & R" .........:zzz:

[411A]

Put on more fuel, flight plan for a lower altitude, and let the low fuel guys duke it out for the cruise altitudes desired.
Works for me...:E

[wotan]

last time i was down that general direction tcas didnt help us detect a kenyan airways twin passing us two thousand below as he was not squawking. (or else his box wasnt working, but unlikely) either way SLOP would have saved us should anything have gone wrong. A good listen out on 126.9 also helps. For what its worth our route cairo - dar es salaam had good VHF all the way down.

[nikko100]

I dont believe that Africa exists!
They have no ATC, coz everyone is out of the office fixing cars!

[MrBernoulli]

From IFixPlanes, above: "Squawk 7600."

I hope your joking pal - vast swathes of Africa don't have radar cover so squawking 7600 would achieve absolutely nothing. Zip. Nada.

[Carnage Matey!]

Put on more fuel, flight plan for a lower altitude, and let the low fuel guys duke it out for the cruise altitudes desired.
Works for me...

Doesn't work in an airline where you'll be offloading cargo and pax in order to add that extra fuel, just in case you couldn't contact ATC.

[ATC Watcher]

" Expecting a lot from nothing is generally a frustrating experience.."
(Oscar Wilde I believe )

A bit of ( central ) African ATC explanations for those that still believe there is a " lot" down there. ( These are bits from existing facts , taken from various African countries )

Average salary of a Controller 150 USD / month , with lows a far as 45 USD/month.
Everyone has a second job to pay the bills,.
Often the second job is more important (i.e brings more money)
The only ATC training received is often the initial one, sometimes 30 years ago.
Civil war or political unstability change some priorities in life.(e.g. if someone is shooting with real bullets on your street at night, you might skip going to do the night shift )
Salaries are sometimes not paid for up to 6 months .
Controllers that do complain about either social of technical issues are simply fired.
Technical equipment fails, and there is no spares or no technician to repair it.
When air condition fails, most electronic equipment fails. Sometimes remain inop for years.

I can go on for a page more , but you get the picture.

Now your Airlines pays a lot of $$$ to overfly those countries . Maybe they should put pressure and ask where the money goes. Because it is certainly not going to ATC .
The only things IATA has done visibly so far , was to establish the Broadcast procedure and the lateral offset.
An attempt to cure the symptoms , but leaving the main desease untouched : corruption .

Flying above Africa today , is a bit like buying a diamond : enjoy the magic moment but do not ask too many questions.

[latetonite]

If you cruise that long without comms, surely you had 126,9 in your second box, you must have heard traffic. Did you quiry any broadcasting station if they experienced the same problem? If yes, that would mean a black-out of black africa:hmm:

[islandhopper]

Just arrived in Capetown(bit wet & cold) no problems with coms all the way.........

[lowlypax]

It's not just in Africa that antennas get nicked. When I was a junior engineer working for Decca many years ago I rolled up at our development DVOR transmitter at Biggin one morning to find it shut down. Some cretin had shinned up the mast for the nearfield monitor anntena, hacksawed through the U bolts and made off with the antenna and about 20 metres of cable. Luckily it wasn't the official transmitter for the field. The same mast held one end of a back up NDB antenna which has this been running and they grabbed hold of it would have given them something to remember.

[Atcham Tower]

I hate to confirm a stereotype, but it happened to me as well at Liverpool in 1982. Somebody stole the receiving antenna off the roof of a building on the perimeter. It was late at night and quiet. First we knew was Manch on the phone saying that the Air Bridge Merchantman was calling tower and getting no response. He was, by the way, out of sight on the north airport, then still in use for cargo and pax handling.

[merlinxx]

Many years ago a very good chum of mine, and a Regional (Africa) Lead for the largest BIZAV association (NBAA) was one of my speakers at our NBAA Int'l Operators Conferences. He started by saying

"Ladies and Gentlement, Africa and Air Traffic, it's not all the Dark Continent, we have airways, we have airports, we have navaids, we have radar, we have radio, they may not work, but we have them!.

I have been in and out of the Dark Continent since 1969, and diddly squat has changed, just more folks airborne talking to more folks. Even ASECNA can't seem to get thier act together.

IATA will do nothing. Just look at the mess (bottomless) pit of money that is MMA in DNMM

[discountinvestigator]

I was in a tower in a well known oil rich nation in Africa doing an inspection on behalf of a well known airline who wanted an opinion of the airport that they had just started operating to.

I wanted to check the conformance with an Annex 10 requirement for ATC monitoring of the navaids as one part of the inspection. Did they do it? Yes of course, er, well can I hear the tones please. Lots of dust on the switch and in the off position made me suspect that it had not been used for some time.

When the radio gave a great big flash, and the cables caught fire down the main cable duct in the tower, I concluded that sometimes it is best left in the off position.

Not the biggest issue in the inspection, the usual stuff of keeping the bovines off the runway, trying to get the ILS at the right end of the runway in the AIP, requesting that they did not use yesterday's QNH and so on.

[merlinxx]

Hope you enjoyed your stay DNMM

[Sir Osis of the river]

On a recent flight "into Africa", I was told by my collegue the captain, that IFBP on 126.9 was quote" for the olden days, before TCAS". (This is a guy who is a Cpt on a long haul scheduled airline.) I mentioned the amount of traffic over HSSS and did the calls myself. ( We listened to and watched on TCAS a near miss that day over Port Sudan.

The moral of the story is don't think that everybody is going to make 126.9 calls, even your five star airlines, and don't trust African controllers.

[ATC Watcher]

I was told by my collegue the captain, that IFBP on 126.9 was quote" for the olden days, before TCAS".
...and you can tell your Capt that he he thinks that TCAS is fool proof he should perhaps read again the manual. A disabled or out of tolerance xponder, (like the many Russians types flying over Africa today often have ) will cancel your protection.
Look at the recent 737NG Collision in Brazil, or the Hawker jet collision last August over California.
The "Good old days" are in fact exactly what you have today over large parts of Africa....

[galaxy flyer]

Last fall, inbound to Brazza, overhead and talking to Kinshasha Control, I counted 8 flights on frequency and nary a TCAS symbol. At FL100 and TCAS looking BELOW! No transponder, no TCAS, and the locals seem not to like transponders. Or cannot get them fixed.

That said, we had no problems with contacting various control agencies, not that it mattered, IMHO.

GF

[screwdriver]

No ATC over Africa.....And your point is?

[Billy Preston]

We certainly know of "agencies" pushing for the introduction of RVSM in this region, however, IFALPA are insisting on the full compliance of ICAO Docs 9574 and 7003 before it will accept this being implemented here. One requirement of "reliable two-way comms" we know will take ages to sort out in this region so I doubt whether we'll see it implemented here too soon.
Billy

[Puritan]

Always makes me laugh when certain African ATC want to know your aircraft's registration... I suppose that's so that they can send your company the bill for the fine service they've been providing to you ?! :E

[poorwanderingwun]

1300 miles and lucky enough not to talk to ATC... believe me.. that's as safe as it gets... stay a couple of hundred feet high/low... a mile or two right of tack.. broadcast on 126.9... avoid the build ups... you have TCAS... if ATC start giving you cr#p about what to do...talk to the Russian a/c directly... don't believe anything he tells you... and work around him... welcome to the dark continent...

[bfisk]

Surprises me that someone would want to solely rely on TCAS or solely rely on ATC, for that matter. Use everything you have - your own common sense, a pair of good ears on the right frequency, tcas and ATC, and most importantly your eyes. Isn't that pretty basic airmanship? No matter how fancy the equipment or stringent the procedures, let's never forget the basics...

[Alternate Law]

Situational awareness over Africa (while in cruise) is something that dog-tired crew sometimes let slip. ATC will be of little assistance at the best of times, and will have NO idea if anything non-standard occurs as the language barrier is huge. We all duck around weather without (sometimes) even informing the irritation on HF that we loosely refer to as ATC, and thus have to have a firm picture of weather, traffic, adjacent airways, terrain etc.

We frequently end up talking to no-one except ourselves, and as Billy says, thank goodness for the requirements for the introduction of RVSM...

Review collision avoidance procedures in the IFBP area as detailed in the Jepp text pages (different to that detailed for oceanic areas), drink lots of coffee and make the 126.9 events part of the crew's IFE. Play a game called "I know who's lights those are that's approaching" as opposed to "who the hell is that?"

[BOAC]

...............and then you get the French speaker who communicates in French to ATC and does not broadcast on 126.90:mad:

Where do they find these people?

[haughtney1]

Where do they find these people?

I used to find them getting radar vectored infront onto a 6 mile final at CDG....:ooh: infront of us:hmm:

[hawk37]

Can any ppruners with African experience comment on when in this situation they would follow ICAO lost com procedures? And I'm thinking here of the 20 minutes outside of radar then climb to flight plan altitude portion of the procedure. Or would you basically never adhere to the altitude change part of the lost com proc?

Hawk

[Billy Preston]

At present it's only JNB and NDJ that are active with Algiers under test.. How much longer before others see the light???

[icarus sun]

I always treat africa the same as overwater flights,except with less radio. If you have a problem you are on your own. At night even worse very few lighted airports. Nav aids inop,poor radar if any, poor notams etc. A few airports meet icao requirements.

[Chris Scott]

Sounds like little has changed in 40 years, other than the introduction of 126.9 and SSB. In the Africa Corps, getting climb "clearance" was always a nightmare, particularly if dawn was on the way (with or without the horn), ;) particularly in HF-AM (pre-USB) days. It was a case of listening for the next point-to-point ATC transmission ("Adees, Adees, Adees; Azmurra on eight-nine...") and hoping they might relay your request to Tripoli or Khartoum. They never did, though.

Then there is the basic problem of various semi-Anglophone pilots, of divers levels of ability and experience –
ATC: "Beadvize the veeseeten now in your three o'clock, call when you hev it in sight."
Military jet pilot: "Iz thet localtime, or GMT?"

Happy days...

[Bora Bora]

Niamey asked us the other day to try to log on to their CPDLC. In this case it didn't work (from their corner), but I guess it should be on the way soon.

[merlinxx]

Chris,

That's why Navs were still carried on the BUA 10s through East Af. Where is 'Drunken Duncan'?:E

[Chris Scott]

Yes, merlinxx,

In the sixties, with the introduction of Doppler "navigation", BOAC decided to sack all its specialist navs; to be replaced by bright young third-pilots from Hamble, who would spend much of their time practising astro for their Nav Licences. Maybe Rainboe can confirm? Some excellent redundant BOAC navigators found their way to BUA and Caledonian. BUA (later Caledonian-BUA/BCAL) realised that Doppler is useless over smooth desert or smooth water, so we copilots were full-time P2s.

But no specialist navigator would ever have stooped to working HF, if he could possibly avoid it! 'Drunken Duncan' was, I think, ex-merchant navy? Sadly, I can't confirm his whereabouts...

Niamey never used to be in the forefront of technology, Bora Bora. Promise not to laugh: what is CPDLC?

[ph-ndr]

I'll stay out of actual discussion and only offer a small quip since I'm an SLF.

Seeing that noone seem to know that you overlfy various parts of Africa, and that noone gives any service, would it not be a good idea to tell your bean counters that there's likely money to be saved in overfllight fees, since noone can prove you were there in the first place? ;)

-A

[Billy Preston]

Hi Chris - not much has changed except "authorities" insisting on the implementation of RVSM in this deficient region. ICAO guidelines are published for this, however, not too many of these are ever met! Efficient/reliable two-way comms being just one of them - how often are carriers unable to raise Kinshasa on HF for a few hours and this region lies within the ITCZ! Turbulence will/is going to cause unnecessary RA/TA's with no one aware that should suspend RVSM until it subsides. Just what percentage of over-flight charges are ever put back into the necessary resources???

[Sir George Cayley]

And ICAO's take on this dismal inability to meet their SARP's?

How long should I hold my breath?

Sir George Cayley

[chuks]

There is one very large problem with "lost comms": It will often be the case that your flight plan details have not been passed to the next FIR!

The normal "lost comm" procedure assumes that the ATC facility has your flight plan details. Not usually so over Africa, I am afraid. This is why you are required to call ten minutes before entering the Lagos FIR, for instance; they need to get your details. Essentially, you are air-filing your flight plan then and there and never mind what you did before departure!

I had a trip from Gao, Mali to Marrakesh, Morocco where we were out of contact on all frequencies for most of the trip, and don't ask me why. It was a quiet time of day so that we couldn't get a relay on VHF, no one was answering our calls on HF... we just went motoring along at F350 or whatever it was until we finally managed to make contact on some odd frequency I picked off the chart, with another aircraft way off towards Dakar, nothing for our route of flight at all, when they were kind enough to pass our details.

The other aircraft told us to call on some VHF frequency that wasn't listed, when we were using current charts of course, and then we were back in business. It is just... Africa. Relay stations don't work, frequency changes aren't notified, "everybody" knows to call on XXX, well, everybody but you!

One thing I would always try to do is get cleared to my cruising altitude as soon as possible so that if I did lose comms at least I was up there getting good fuel consumption. Being stuck down low is double trouble with poor line-of-sight and lousy fuel consumption. That can feel like torture.

Another thing is that if you are communicating with a basically non-Anglophone ground facility make your calls slowly and clearly. I had one FO who just had to rap everything out at a rapid pace speaking to Libreville when he would get... nothing. I often had to give him the airplane and put on my friendliest voice to get them to reply in English. They were there all along; they just didn't want to answer! Hey, it is just human nature; no one likes to be made to look stupid.

It is a big, empty sky over Africa but it sure does pay to call on 126.9 and to keep a look-out. That much we can do for ourselves, when the rest can be problematic, yes indeedy.

[arem]

<< bright young third-pilots from Hamble, who would spend much of their time practising astro for their Nav Licences. >>

As one of those bright young pilots from Hamble - I am tempted to ask just what, other than astro, would one have used? I don't recall much Loran over the Eastern Sahara - NDB's were almost non-existent and those that were available were bugger all use - the wx radar would paint up Nassar's corner - but only then when we could overfly Libya - after that it was over Egypt and that was a beacon crawl using the famed NDB's and occasional VOR's

Ah the memory of circum-zenith fixes over the desert!

And by the time I crossed the Western Sahara for the first time - it was all triple IRS's

[manrow]

It seems we all bellyache on here to no effect apart from feeling elated that we have shared our concerns.

Wouldn't taking up the issue with IFALPA be more productive or is that organisation ineffective too?bb

[hawk37]

Question for you, Mr. Chuks. Or anyone with Africa experience. Being out of coms (HF and VHF) for such a long portion of your flight, and had your filed flight plan included a climb to FL 370 at some waypoint in a FIR, would you have done so without atc clearance, and if so would it have been at that waypoint? Or remained at last assigned altitude, and perhaps requested the altitude change some time later when coms established? Just trying to understand icao procedures, if anyone at PPRUNE has some thoughts.

[chuks]

As far as Nigeria goes there was a big push to get SATCOM for ATC. Huge white antennae sprouted alongside the AIS facilities, meant to keep everyone in touch with everyone else. Nothing much really seemed to change, though.

I have been flying in Africa for over 25 years now and I get the definite idea that many folks just don't give a damn. That might just be me though.

The odd thing is that some of the really poor countries give really good service. You get to Bamako and the man takes pride in handing you a complete sheaf of weather information, satellite imagery even, something that I seldom saw in relatively wealthy Nigeria.

Visit AIS at DNMM, Murtala Muhammed Airport, Ikeja, Lagos and see what sort of weather information is available. Maybe it has changed but I doubt that and it should be an eye-opener to see this AIS in a major airport.

The sort of stuff we were up against, just for one example: We would call Abuja on the telephone from Lagos to get the weather, when we could get them to answer. For a little while we could get a weather report, one that was mysteriously unavailable in Lagos. Then they refused to give weather over the phone. We had to appear in person. So we sent our Abuja service representative in person to get the weather. That worked for a few days. Then came the order that only a pilot could get the weather in person. We ended up just getting our service rep to give us a good guess at the weather, the best we could do! You found out what the official weather report was when you got line-of-sight. Note: You did not find out what the actual weather was, you just got the official weather report! You found out what the weather was when you shot the approach. "Are you feeling lucky, punk?"

Another good one: In Port Harcourt we couldn't get a special Met report for love or money, when rainstorms could sweep through and cause rapid changes. I looked into this to find that the Met man had 24 little slips of paper, one per hour, to pass his official reports to the Tower. If he gave specials then he was one little slip short per special! And, no, only the official little slips from the government Met Office were acceptable: no making duplicates and giving them to him so that we could get specials!

Just a story because I know nothing: Radar: they bought clapped-out, discontinued radars for the price of new ones and then took big kick-backs. When the radars broke down the manufacturer told them to get lost; that model had been discontinued.

At every turn you found some daft obstructionism meant to build some shaky little African mini-empire for some little toad tucked away in a sweaty little office somewhere out of sight. Grand initiatives from ICAO would sweep overhead and promises of reform would be trumpeted in the papers but down where it mattered things did not change because people did not WANT them to change.

Algeria is an oasis of sanity by comparison so that I feel as if I am on holiday here. It's still Africa but the daftness is within proportion.

To answer the question above: If I were still in the same FIR then I would follow the lost com procedures to the letter. (I used to review them faithfully. There were some things I might have been a bit vague on but I was the Ace of the Base when it came to Lost Comms! That stuff can get you killed!) That said, the Dornier 328Jet was a good climber so that we would be able to go to F350 if appropriate right away. We didn't need to step-climb so that we could try to get cleared as high as we wanted right away. I don't know why but once I was up there I felt as if the odds were now on my side.

We would often get a climb enroute and then find that the level change had not been transmitted to the next controller. No problem with our comms, just some guy not passing the word down on the ground.

I really don't have a good answer to that question because it depends. I guess you would have to ask yourself, "What does that guy on the ground expect me to do?" and try to match that expectation rather than follow the rules necessarily.

For instance one day we had Lagos lose their comms when we were inbound to the VOR. I did exactly what the rules said, holding until my ETA and then descending for the approach in use. The comms came back and the controller LOST HIS MIND! I was doing WHAT!? I never did figure out what he wanted me to do; hold for a however long it took while they sorted themselves out? Just don't do what the rules said to do, okay?

[tonyryan]

Ah Chucks,

You descibe the place so well - brings me back years.

I remember climbing out of Enugu late one night, heading back to Lagos. Ahead of us, coming over the ridge towards us we see the lights of another aircraft.? Shouldn't be anyone else around here at this time.

Next thing, on Benin Frequency pipes up: "This is WT001 inbound for ILS training".

Controller asks him to repeat.

"WT001, inbound to you for ILS training, estimating your field in five minutes."

The controller replied "That is Negative. I have been here since early this morning and I am now going home."

With that, the VOR went off the air!

Class.

[beerdrinker]

CS

"the sixties, with the introduction of Doppler "navigation", BOAC decided to sack all its specialist navs; to be replaced by bright young third-pilots from Hamble, who would spend much of their time practising astro for their Nav Licences. Maybe Rainboe can confirm? Some excellent redundant BOAC navigators found their way to BUA and Caledonian. BUA (later Caledonian-BUA/BCAL) realised that Doppler is useless over smooth desert or smooth water, so we copilots were full-time P2s."

That might have been your perception but it is incorrect.

Africa was a mandatory Nav Area, so the third pilot was in the RHS co-piloting whilst the Flight Nav qualified P2 was navigating (using all resources he had - including Astro and the wx radar to locate "Nasser's Corner"). In those days, pre INS, to be a P2 in BOAC you had to hold a Flight Nav Licence as well as your ATPL. The Third Pilot had a frozen ATPL with a full P2 rating on the aircraft. The only place a "bright young third-pilot from Hamble, would spend much of their time practising astro for their Nav Licences." would be a non Nav Area.

[.86]

Go offset for a mile ( or 2) ( fms/gps capable aircraft)
Just like remote/oceanic s.l.o.p.
Might save your/our lives.
They won't notice/mind.
I swear by it.

[Chris Scott]

arem and beerdrinker (mine's a Tusker),

You refer to the 'Seventies, as I was. Sounds as if you guys had it even tougher than we thought: a rookie co-pilot in the right-hand seat; and an inexperienced pilot-navigator trying to anticipate the drift and GS changes that were occasionally available from Doppler. Particularly interesting over SE Libya in January, I imagine?

We had it easy. No wonder we didn't always hear (or raise) you on 126.9.


.86,

Definitely. Can't remember exactly when we first started flying offsets almost as an unofficial SOP. Possibly on INS-retrofitted 707s in 1976; definitely on the FMS/IRS-equipped A310 in 1984.

The trouble with (DME-DME-updated) FMS/IRS was that, once many had it, opposite-direction collisions became all the more likely on advisory-routes; particularly near the coast where 2 DME stations might (rarely) be simultaneously available. With GPS updating, it applies everywhere, I guess.

Safe flying, guys,
Chris

[Wiley]

I know... I know... "It doesn't protect you from crossing traffic" (just to save someone the effort of posting).

However, if there's someone out there who flys in African airspace in an IRS/GPS-equipped aircraft who doesn't fly offset, he/she has an extraordinary amount of faith - or a similarly extraordinary lack of imagination.

However, judging by the many aircraft I pass in African airspace that are quite obviously NOT flying offset, it would appear that we have a very large number of pilots amongst us who have "an extraordinary amount of faith - or a similarly extraordinary lack of imagination".

[galaxy flyer]

chuks

I have only 3 trips down thru AFI, but aren't most of those routes either Class F or Class G airspace? In which case, climbs can be done at anytime, as no ATC clearance is available. Correct me, if I am wrong. We usually travel above F410, so a bit above the problem

GF

[adnams]

The sad thing is that you could run the whole off Africa as CPDLC from a beach hut in Brighton !

[finncapt]

Chris - I know you well and I am ashamed of your suggestion that we were inexperienced pilot/navs with rookie copilots in the right hand seat.

I was a non - Hamble (Oxford) bright young thing.

I, and the others, held a full nav licence and you must know that the CAA didn't give them out easily.

There was considerable under supervision training (about six months in all parts of the world) and the exams were the ATPL exams with a couple of additional nav papers.

Most of the instructors were ex-straight navs.

What I do remember is the satisfaction at "being in command" of the navigation at the age of 24, the other guys would go anywhere you told them..

As for doppler over the desert, I don't recall it being a problem on the VC10 - maybe we were better than your straight navs!!

Africa was relatively easy, generally light upper winds, not much change in magnetic variation and a mercator chart

The most difficult sectors I found were the lhr to Caribbean in daylight - no loran, no consol (ahh consol!!), just sun (moon and venus if you were really lucky) for parts of the route.

The chart was a Lambert and grivation played an important part.

I think my best moment was a mer passage between Fiji and Honolulu - we were delayed as this sector was usually a night sector.

Best seat on the flight deck as you had a proper table to eat at (only reintroduced with the A320).

I'll stop waxing lyrical and await your apology!!

Alan

[chuks]

The more experience I have the less I know.

The nice thing about most of my long range flights were that I was either in an unpressurised light piston twin at either nine or ten thousand feet with no oxygen or else in this Dornier 328 at its maximum altitude, 34 or 35 thousand. I didn't have to step-climb the Dornier so I would just go for F340 or F350 and that was that part sorted. In other words there was very little decision-making in the vertical plane required.

Then I just had to worry about comms. We always used that in-flight broadcast procedure on 126.9, we had a good HF and there was almost always some helpful airline crew above us somewhere to give us a relay.

I think that one trip Lagos, Nigeria-Gao, Mali-Marrakech, Morocco was the only one where I really had trouble with lost comms, on the sector from Gao. The thing was that it was a relatively long, maximum-range leg out over the middle of nowhere when contact with someone, anyone would have been good to have. We were flying upwind and we were lucky the winds were light. You know how you can pick up a wind change and that would have caused a diversion, when I would have needed to communicate.

As it happened we had no problem with the wind but I hate that feeling you get when the "holes in the cheese slices" start to line up.

We had a big discussion about flying offsets, since the Honeywell FMS made that simple. I have my doubts but ours was a very small operation so that we couldn't have a wide-ranging discussion about this.

I just don't like to see systems being tinkered with even when the basic premise is obviously sound. In fact it is exactly like the way you start out following a prominent track feature VFR, isn't it? Everyone stays off to the right.

That crash over the Amazon, well, yes, you could argue that "If the two aircraft were offset then it would not have happened." Err, yes, but... If perhaps both crews had been keeping a proper lookout in VMC as we are told to do, if perhaps the bizjet crew had clarified exactly which flight levels they were expected to use, if perhaps they had tried harder to establish comms and if perhaps they had not seemingly and inadvertently switched off their transponder, if Brazilian ATC had done a better job...

I don't think we can just take this one as a clear call for flying offsets because I don't think it is that simple. Once the official report is out then we can study the conclusions and say better whether offsets are the way to go for everyone.

Of course as long as you stay within the airway there's no legal barrier to flying offsets now and I cannot think of any objection to that other than my vaguely philosophical one.

One no-brainer that needs more emphasis is keeping that transponder on even when there is no radar. I still come across guys in Africa who say, "What's the point?" not having a clue about the recommendation for using the transponder or why. TCAS to them is just something "other guys" have.

[saeedkhan]

I Rember We Used To Fly To Sieara Leone On 747 No Sooner We Were Out Of Khartum Fir No Contact This Was Way Back In2003 . But Lately Flew To Nyala In Darfour Same Pitiable Condition So Keep A Good Look Out Safe Flying

[Chris Scott]

Quote from finncap:
Chris - I know you well and I am ashamed of your suggestion that we were inexperienced pilot/navs with rookie copilots in the right hand seat.
[Unquote]

Greetings Alan,

Perhaps we should have shared anecdotes on our previous incarnations before we retired from the A320...

I readily apologise for my simplistic remarks. Should not have presumed, as a former co-pilot of David Airlines - metaphorically speaking, of course - to understand the modus operandi in Goliath Airways cockpits.

You seem to be underplaying, however, the unpredictability of the position, direction and intensity of the sub-tropical jet over North Africa in winter: remember what happened to Libyan Arab Airlines' B727? I still contend that our specialist navs made life a lot easier for us, as well as offering a degree of pressure-pattern flying where permissible. The issue of pilots like you taking over the chart table, dividers and sextant soon became academic - with the introduction of INS - so the effort was arguably more trouble than it was worth.

In the meantime, as I said, we could have done with a bit more attention from some of your colleagues when we introduced 126.9 blind-broadcasting in the early 1970s.

Chris

[finncapt]

Chris

Apology accepted - I'll go back to clearing the snow.

[metrodriver]

Go in the middle of the night from Lagos to Nairobi. From leaving Nigeria till reaching Entebbe it is incredibly hard to get to talk someone. Lucky if you do, SOP if you don't. Leaving nairobi to Benghazi is kind of the same thing. If Khartoum is awake he'll talk to you. Somewhere they can hear, but not transmit. Then you'll be an hour into Lybia before you can talk to a guy for a relay.
Niamey has a radar with quite a good coverage. They just won't tell you they got it.

[ATC Watcher]

Niamey has a radar with quite a good coverage. They just won't tell you they got it.

Quite a contradiction in terms. either they give you an SSR code and say afterwards " radar identified " or they do not say anything. If they do not say anything ( as I suspect) it means they cannot use the radar you say they have for surveillance and separation purposes.
My information is that Niger has no civil radar operations ( just like Sudan at the moment)

On another subject ; if communications are as bad as you say they are, how is this compatible with current RVSM operations ? We were told that exept for RDC and Angola everyone else in the AFI region had 2-way reliable (upgraded) comms. Are the comments being voiced here recent ( i.e. in the last weeks ) or BOAC VC10 era ?
.

[Henry VIII]

Quite often and expecially during night HF com in AFI area are marginal, that's a fact.how is this compatible with current RVSM operations ?It is NOT compatible and I wonder how it's possible to authorize RVSM with such a situation.
Let's say that I can only suppose how... political ego, blind manager, project development by people unaware of realty.

[A7700]

From ASECNA AIP :
ABIDJAN FIR

Abidjan is currently the only centre equipped with Radar implemented as experimental operation. As regards the rules, the Recommended Standards and Practices of ICAO in general, and
more precisely, those indicated in PANS - OPS (DOC 4444) Part 10"Use of Radar in Air Traffic Services", are applicable.
For precisions and restrictions with regards to the Centre of Abidjan,it agrees to refer to the local instructions of Radar operation contained in the aeronautical information circular N° 4/A/91 of
January 25th, 1991. See pages 6 ENR1-6-01 and 6 ENR1-6-02.

NDJAMENA FIR UIR

1. Generality
In order to increase safety in Ndjamena FIR (TMA, UTA and FIR part included in 250 NM for Ndjamena VOR), RADAR has been implemented to provide monitoring and assistance to aircraft.

There is no radar in Niamey.

[Pardes]

Squak 7500 and see if that gets their attention!

If it does...then say... "Negative 7500, Requesting higher, if able" ;)

[TopBunk]

Squak 7500 and see if that gets their attention

They don't (in the main) have primary radar, let alone secondary:ugh:

You have obviously never operated in Africa (or India or South America or ....):ugh:

[ATC Watcher]

Squak 7500 and see if that gets their attention! If it does...then say... "Negative 7500, Requesting higher, if able"


Nice one, I am sure you have tried /done this over your own country or the US, they surely will appreciate the humor of it .

But more seriously : why would you do that in Africa and not at home ?