Weather Avoidance Problems

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I know this has has been aired before... but just a polite reminder to crews that maybe one out of a hundred times when you want "ten left for weather" we can't let you because of traffic. (Traffic=big metal object which causes hurt if you hit it). I think the vast majority of pilots are aware of this and realise that we don't head them into bad weather just for fun and we will try to offer an alternative heading away from weather and metal objects whenever we can. As many of you will be well aware, the weather around the London TMA has been pretty dreadful lately and ATC has done everything possible to accommodate requests for different routings. As always, one crew wants constant changes of heading whilst others carry on as normal but we do the best we can and hope that most are reasonably satisfied. Lots of the track changes were pretty complex for us, eg 240 out of OCK for ten miles caused a lot of phone calls and frantic hollering between us and the TMA controllers, as did the guy who insisted on turning south straight through the ILS when everyone else was turning in underneath perfectly normall. At times that little window in the side of my head that reads my age was going round like a fruit machine!!

What doesn't help any of us are those few pilots who get distinctly sniffy on the rare occasions when we cannot let them do exactly what they want. For example, a coupla crews flying CPT SIDs out of Heathrow in the last few days..... (given 240 degrees to start with then we turn you on to 270ish to thread you between the traffic descending downwind for 09L and the traffic on the ILS). The guy it was my misfortune to talk to got very upset at the right turn I offered and said he wanted to turn left 20... at the time there was a slower descending a/c in his 10 o'clock at 3 miles, just a couple of hundred feet higher and the requested turn would certainly have caused a serious airmiss or worse. His comment "it's OK, we have it on TCAS" did NOT help as there is no provision for standard ATC radar separation to be reduced by TCAS derived information.

I can't comment fully on the other incident as I was not involved but I know that the pilot involved went on to bleat to the next controller about having been refused the heading he wanted by the Heathrow Director!

May the Good Lord deliver us from such people...

[PPRuNe Pop]

Well let us hope he reads it HD.

I am sure most pilots understand the difficulties, and although there are others who think the that their little ole aeroplane is the only one that counts, I reckon they are few.

You do a brilliant job, in difficult circumstances, which kept me safe for years. Indeed, something ATC do every minute of every day.

DLTBGYD ;)

[seat 0A]

Hello HD,

Today we had a lot of wx inbound LHR. Sounded like there was a new female voice on the director frequency with a male voice cutting in now and then. They did an excellent job. I`m afraid we asked for a lot of different headings, even taking us overhead for a right hand downwind, coming from LAM.
Thank you very much for the safe handling of our flight. Always a pleasure to fly to LHR.

:)

[411A]

Many pilots do not give a damn about what goes on in the TMA, all "they" are concerned about is me, me ,me, never mind ANYONE else.
To those I can only say...DO AS YOU ARE TOLD....period.
It takes two to tango.

Give the ATC guys a break!

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

Seat.. Many thanks for your comments and glad to know our efforts are appreciated.. I guess the lady was our new trainee who is ex-Gatwick Tower and the other voice was her instructor (lucky man). Sounds like she got a baptism of fire! I've always warned trainees that probably the worst problems they'll encounter will be those caused by bad weather, and we get our fair share of it in the UK.

[ETOPS]

HEATHROW DIRECTOR

(I take it we're on 120.4 here?)

I'm just coming up to my 30th year of slaving over a hot altimeter and would just like to "spill the beans" on this subject
The two main factors that combine to create the problems you are facing on "weather" days is the limitations of wx radar onboard and a very small number of crews over-sensitivity to clouds and rain.

Modern colour wx radar requires a certain level of skill in order to get a true picture of the weather around. Far too many crews fail to alter the tilt or elevation of the antenna thus clutter the picture with ground returns which can make innocuous targets appear much more severe. Similarly there is a reluctance to select away from "auto" and adjust the sensitivity in order to try and reduce the "green" surrounding the bigger CB's. The equipement on my 777 is very good at filling the screen with returns from just rain and it needs tuning to find if there is any red about.

More controvertially - I have noticed over the years an increase in the number of pilots who are unhappy in bad weather. I'm not talking about those dark and stormy nights when we all wish we were "down there" but small CU, light turb and some rain on the window! Sometimes I have had to insist that "right 20" for a small fairweather CU is not absolutely necessary when it isn't even painting. Maybe my early experience of coping with severe Scottish weather, sometimes alone, has taught me to respect the atmosphere we work in but also the strength of our machines.

We all like to give our passengers a smooth ride but I will take standard seperation over comfort any day..........


P.S Still think UK ATC is the best in world.

P.P.S Thanks for the LAM snatch on Wednesday BA156

[BOAC]

Not helped by the almost complete lack of radar handling training!

[Basil]

ETOPS: Agreed.

411A: Bit of an oversimplification, old boy.

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

ETOPS... I'm 120.4, 119.72 and 134.97. Many thanks for the explanation as to why some will and some won't, which I had long suspected to be the reason.

[411A]

basil

Oversimplification...well perhaps, but ETOPS has hit the nail dead center, I believe. Some crews couldn't care less about the controller or other aircraft in the TMA. Perhaps they should visit the "radar shack" sometime and have a look....they would be surprised what a hard job ATC can be.

[wingattack]

This all reminds me of the story about the Senior Airline Captain who when offered an alternative hold at BNN due to some build-ups replied,
"No thanks, we both have Instrument Ratings!"

Maybe modern weather radars are a bit too sensitive and the mark 1 eyeball and a wealth of experience are sometimes sufficient for weather avoidance.

Thanks for the great service in the UK. The trainers deserve all the perks they can get ;)

[Basil]

Agreed ref controller expertise/workload. I spent a short ground tour as a military controller (raw returns & PAR) and recently had a go on the ATC sim at LATCC - have to say I'd have lost the plot completely without the (considerable) help of my mentor :eek: