ATC problems tonight at BFS

[mysecretsmile]

Just heard on the news that ATC at BFS are having serious problems and that ATC in Scotland are assisting can anyone confirm if this is correct and what the problem is

[Prince Of Darkness]

Their Radar (both primary and secondary) is out-of-action for a few days for maintenance. It just means that Aldergrove ATC can only provide a procedural Air Traffic Control service, so, there are increased seperation rules, and a much reduced arrival/departure rate.

It also means that the good people at Aldergrove ATC have to work a lot harder!

Oh, and Scottish can't help that much; they generally can't 'see' much traffic below 6000' over N. Ireland.

[eastern wiseguy]

Having just finished a night shift I can tell you that the primary was available all night.....that the engineers will hopefully have SSR and PRIMARY FULLY serviceable over the course of today...and we are NOT HAVING SERIOUS PROBLEMS ....sheesh! As to the scots Prince has it correct......not RJW are you ?:E

[Tower Ranger]

There is of course another completely serviceable radar at City capable of minimising any delays with excellent radar cover but due to politics not only aldergrove traffic but city traffic is needlessly delayed as we sit in front of our radar watching the procedural struggle.
Some would say there are no procedures for these circumstances but I`m sure "radar handovers" and "standard separation" were covered in Mats1.

[Carbide Finger]

Last time I heard (abut two years ago) the Harbour only had primary anyway?

Hope you all are having fun!

CF

[with alacrity]

The primary radar was returned to service on Wednesday afternoon and the secondary will come back on line on Friday.
Radar outage was not due to annual maintenance but occured because of a technical and structural problem which caused the SSR responses to jump around the primary blip and alarmingly duplicate or triplicate themselves!
Excellent work by Aldergrove engineers, ASG and SMC to repair the radar and return it to service every evening.
The primary radar performance has now considerably improved even in previous fade areas.
There were no significant delays to traffic which must be seen as a tribute to the ATC staff at Aldergrove, ScACC Antrim Sector and Belfast City. I am led to believe that Tower Ranger played a blinder.
A procedural environment is manageable by ATC at a solitary airport but trying to procedurally control a TMA with two adjacent airports with conflicting traffic patterns is extremely difficult and at times, quite frustrating.
I can understand the point that Tower Ranger made about handovers direct to the City, but there are no procedures in the ScACC/ Aldergrove Interface agreement or respective Mats Pt 2 that would allow this to happen.
Lots of interest by the media about the quote "Dangerous and unsafe procedures in the sky over Belfast"
I hope the person who leaked that is ashamed of their ignorance and malice.
To sum up, an excellent job by ATC and Engineering and apologies to the pilots who had a trip around the holding pattern.
The good news is that the planned annual maintenance in November will now only take a short time and loss of radar will hopefully not take place at all.

[Tower Ranger]

Thanx WA
You know I always try to help where I can. Now just make sure you keep me on when Nats take us over!!
Btw well done to all concerned both AA and SCATCC ,any delays our end were minimal. Can`t wait till the anual maintenance..........

[controller friendly]

And anyone who wants to thank the very hard working BFS controllers or who indeed reckon they need an apology, you're all very welcome to the Apartment in Belfast from 3 tomorrow...

Jugs(full of alcohol);) will be plentiful.....

TR....just keep buyin & i'll put a word in for you....xx

:D :) :D