Inside Melbourne ATC

[growahead]

Saw this video on youtube. Some ppruners may find it of interest;

https://youtu.be/GVOeteqUiOw

[0ttoL]

I think you might mean this Youtube video. (Hopefully can post the link)
Stephan Drury channel

[Dick Smith]

I reckon a very good production.

I think in in a different lifetime I was involved in the change to the two centre system and a push away from Hughes who had never built a multicentre FDP system.

Fascinating to hear the recommendation for VFR pilots to put in a flight plan. Wow. That’s a step back to pre 1990!

Must be low existing workload if they recommend that. And it’s completely free!

[Jungmeister]

I am not familiar with current day practice (retired 13 years ago) but I think the controller probably meant file a plan before you depart. I doubt that any controller enjoys taking Flight Plan details over the radio. I think that Dick Smith was a proponent of inflight filing which was common in the USA.

[alphacentauri]

No, I think what Dick is getting at is that in the US, VFR flights are encouraged NOT to submit a flightplan. If they require clearances they are processed pretty efficiently.

Compared to Aus, where a clearance cannot be given to an aircraft that is not 'known' to the system. And flightplan details need to be submitted either by the pilot or the ATC on behalf of. Its pretty inefficient to be honest......I prefer the US system.

[Jungmeister]

Yes, I am sure that's what Dick was referring too. However, I would be surprised if today's practice is any different to my day. Surely these fancy flight planning programs on iPad/tablet make it very simple to submit a plan?
Obviously, there are occasions when an in-flight diversion would not have a chance to plan and that can usually be accommodated. But to blast off on a flight crossing controlled airspace without submitting a flight plan is going to cause increased workload for the controller.

[GA Driver]

blast off on a flight crossing controlled airspace without submitting a flight plan is going to cause increased workload for the controller.

With the greatest of respect to yourself and that comment, that’s their job! To deny a clearance because it increases workload due to no plan is pretty poor.
Each time I get issued a slowdown, holding pattern, metron ground delay, visual approach as #2 etc etc all increase my workload too. Doesn’t mean we don’t do it.

[thunderbird five]

@4:50 teaching the moonwalk too.

[CaptainMidnight]

To deny a clearance because it increases workload due to no plan is pretty poor.It would be a matter of priorities for the ATC, as it should be.

You're not to know what is happening in the ATC's environment and going on behind the scenes. To take details over the air and enter into Eurocat is a distraction from everything else that is happening. Usually that's manageable, sometimes not. A FPL in the system is the smart way of working in the system.

[JollyRancher]

Granted that I'm just a baby in the world of aviation, but the three minutes it takes to lodge a flight plan through NAIPS before departure doesn't seem like the greatest of inconveniences. I've been encouraged to lodge a flight plan with sartime before any cross country flight, regardless of whether or not I intend to enter controlled airspace, and assumed this was standard practice? Never had an issue with amending flight plan or sartime over the radio either.

[IsDon]

Granted that I'm just a baby in the world of aviation, but the three minutes it takes to lodge a flight plan through NAIPS before departure doesn't seem like the greatest of inconveniences. I've been encouraged to lodge a flight plan with sartime before any cross country flight, regardless of whether or not I intend to enter controlled airspace, and assumed this was standard practice? Never had an issue with amending flight plan or sartime over the radio either.


I agree.

Back in the GODs, flights that departed without flight plans, nominated “NoSAR, no details”.

Or NoSar, no details, no brains.

Its not not that hard, and it may just save your arse one day. Cheap insurance.

[Dick Smith]

Are you telling me that a VFR pilot can once again put in a full position flight plan for , say a flight from Bankstown to Archerfield, and this is put in to the ATC FDP system at no charge?

Incredible. I knew the Port Hedland AFIS was a windback of my cost saving reforms. This is another one!

[Awol57]

Was there a point in time you a VFR couldn't put in a full flight plan? We were certainly doing it when I was instructing back in the early 2000's. It then sits dormant in the FDP unless a controller looks it up for some reason.

Also what is the AFIS in hedland costing you? As far as I am aware, there are no charges generated by the AFIS.

[Dick Smith]

Port Hedland is costing the Australian aviation industry its full cost. Don’t kid yourself that there is any other explanation..


No taxpayer input as far as I know and the ATCs are not volunteers!

Re VFR Flight Plans ,Does someone key in an actual departure time? How otherwise would ATC , say at Coffs know when you are coming?

Amazing. VFR plans remain dormant. I will suggest to the FAA they copy this no cost idea.

[Awol57]

Certainly aware that the ATC's and AFIS operators are not volunteers. But unless the airways charges went up in 2013 when it opened, the cost would just be a reduced payment to the government. No information is sent to avcharges by the AFIS.

[mostlytossas]

Quite a good video but I had to have a little chuckle to myself at the start when the Air Services guy proudly stated that they look after 11% of the earths airspace. That might be so but there is hardly anyone in it for the most part. Compare our airspace with Europe,China / nth Asia and the USA etc and our controllers have to have about the easiest job for a controller in the world.

[FL400]

Traffic volume ≠ task complexity ≠ workload

[markis10]

Quite a good video but I had to have a little chuckle to myself at the start when the Air Services guy proudly stated that they look after 11% of the earths airspace. That might be so but there is hardly anyone in it for the most part. Compare our airspace with Europe,China / nth Asia and the USA etc and our controllers have to have about the easiest job for a controller in the world.

Love it, no one lives in Australia so being an ATC must be easy, never mind that that same lack of population sees a lack of resources for managing that traffic, such as radar coverage (to a certain extent less important these days ) yet we have some of the busiest airports in the Southern Hemisphere and two of the busiest routes in the world , No 2 being Sydney Melbourne and No 8 being Brisbane Sydney.

[mostlytossas]

Oh please your making me laugh again. So we have SOME of the busiest airports in the southern hemisphere huh. Wow. In an aviation sense it has hardly any activity compared to the NORTHERN hemisphere. As for the silly formulae above what does that really mean? That could be used to justify anything.I know lets put a customs office on Antartica. We can justify it with that formula. You blokes arn't Air Services middle management by chance?

[mikk_13]

Trying to argue that Australia has busy traffic or air routes is ridiculous.

[FL400]

Hahaha the middle management accusation. Always a winner :D

[markis10]

. You blokes arn't Air Services middle management by chance?

LOL, nope, former Sydney Melbourne Radar Controller then worked 1500 movements a day at Bankstown with Mark 1 eyeballs and brain as the only aids.

[FL400]

Pipe down markis you had the easiest ATC job in the world ;)

[mikk_13]

Traffic volume ≠ task complexity ≠ workload

Few flights + many procedures = high workload.

You are not busy because of actual flights. You are busy repeating call signs and doing stuff that no one else does or cares about.

[fower]

Few flights + many procedures = high workload.

You are not busy because of actual flights. You are busy repeating call signs and doing stuff that no one else does or cares about.

Pretty much sums up the joy of being an airservices atc at times. No one could argue Australia has congested airspace, but outdated airspace design, complex and inflexible internal coordination and flow procedures, cumbersome RT requirements and workload intensive HMI (not to mention "separation assurance".....) and an obsession with reporting the most innocuous deviations from procedure, can and do lead to high workload subsequently affecting the end product. It could be so much simpler.
A couple of aussie atcs I've spoken to who have departed for overseas jobs in busier places (dxb, europe etc..) have said that they find the job itself easier despite much higher traffic levels, mostly due to sensible procedures and being permitted to focus on actually separating traffic rather than mindless compliance with endless rules and procedures. Conversely, overseas atcs moving to australia often express frustration with same.

[SumFingWong]

Descend via the STAR.....

[Captain Dart]

...Climb via the SID...waiting for ‘land on the runway’ and ‘taxi on the taxiway’.

[GA Driver]

..... to the assigned gate from the company.

Require readback

[missy]

...Climb via the SID...waiting for ‘land on the runway’ and ‘taxi on the taxiway’.
It's coming (to YSSY ERSA) :ACFT landing or taking off must confine operations to sealed runways."

[HighAxis]

Could be worse.

A friend is working on the ATC rollout in the Philippines funded by the Japanese government.

There are remote locations that still use magnets and whiteboards for international carriers...