PROPOSED TAXIWAY REDESIGNATION EGCC
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PROPOSED TAXIWAY REDESIGNATION EGCC
If anyone's seen the proposals for EGCC taxiway redesignation planned for 2013 then I have to say it's all gone a bit daft! The fact that a taxiway changes direction should NOT mean redesignation. EGCC is busy enough without throwing in even more changes that will only serve (in my opinion) to elicit an increase in taxi errors (something that's already been evidenced to be on the increase). Although the plans are, to my knowledge, UNOFFICIAL and in no way committed yet, I have to make some comments about how I think it SHOULD be done.
I think the fundamental problem is that there are too many taxiway changes for what should be simple inbound and outbound routes. EGCC's just not big enough to need to be more unnecessarily complicated than it already is.
For example, consider taxiing from (say) stand 210 to runway 05L: with the proposals you'd taxi via MIKE, LINK3, NOVEMBER, ECHO, CHARLIE, ALPHA. Not an especially difficult routing but, oh so many changes! It's only going to take a non-famil crew and you could make a right old meal of taxi planning (GMCs take note!)
And stuff coming out of T3 shouldn't need to have two taxiways to get a stone's-throw away to 23R. Just join ALPHA and be done with it. The same is true of 05: just join ALPHA and keep going until you hit the A1 guard lights.
NOVEMBER should really start where LINK3 and NOVEMBER are proposed to link up, and LINK3 should still be part of MIKE - it doesn't need a LINK designation; it's part of taxiway MIKE.
Where ECHO, ALPHA and JULIET are proposed to meet is where the mess is - you can't realistically extend ECHO round C1 because you'd end up losing two holds (E1 and C2). You could leave CHARLIE and DELTA as they are and just run ECHO round the corner to join ALPHA directly.
ALPHA itself should continue past JE and JF and join GOLF so that the whole length is then ALPHA - why stop it at JF and change it into something else (GOLF)!?
And speaking of JE and JF, they should be scrapped because it's a CUL-DE-SAC and it should simply be designated the CUL-DE-SAC (you could have an ENTRY WEST and ENTRY EAST for inbounds; it wouldn't make any difference for outbounds since they'd be joining ALPHA to go either to 05 or 23).
As for AE and AF they both need tidying up, as does this whole BD nonsense. I don't know why they're not just designated the same way they were in days gone by: RET X and RET Y (alright, you could call them RET A and RET J for each end of the runway - what I'm saying is it's not rocket science!)
Just some thoughts - if the proposal as it stands goes ahead I can see truck loads of taxi errors coming. It'd be far simpler to do just that and make the whole affair SIMPLE.
And I've not even STARTED on the south side yet!
I think the fundamental problem is that there are too many taxiway changes for what should be simple inbound and outbound routes. EGCC's just not big enough to need to be more unnecessarily complicated than it already is.
For example, consider taxiing from (say) stand 210 to runway 05L: with the proposals you'd taxi via MIKE, LINK3, NOVEMBER, ECHO, CHARLIE, ALPHA. Not an especially difficult routing but, oh so many changes! It's only going to take a non-famil crew and you could make a right old meal of taxi planning (GMCs take note!)
And stuff coming out of T3 shouldn't need to have two taxiways to get a stone's-throw away to 23R. Just join ALPHA and be done with it. The same is true of 05: just join ALPHA and keep going until you hit the A1 guard lights.
NOVEMBER should really start where LINK3 and NOVEMBER are proposed to link up, and LINK3 should still be part of MIKE - it doesn't need a LINK designation; it's part of taxiway MIKE.
Where ECHO, ALPHA and JULIET are proposed to meet is where the mess is - you can't realistically extend ECHO round C1 because you'd end up losing two holds (E1 and C2). You could leave CHARLIE and DELTA as they are and just run ECHO round the corner to join ALPHA directly.
ALPHA itself should continue past JE and JF and join GOLF so that the whole length is then ALPHA - why stop it at JF and change it into something else (GOLF)!?
And speaking of JE and JF, they should be scrapped because it's a CUL-DE-SAC and it should simply be designated the CUL-DE-SAC (you could have an ENTRY WEST and ENTRY EAST for inbounds; it wouldn't make any difference for outbounds since they'd be joining ALPHA to go either to 05 or 23).
As for AE and AF they both need tidying up, as does this whole BD nonsense. I don't know why they're not just designated the same way they were in days gone by: RET X and RET Y (alright, you could call them RET A and RET J for each end of the runway - what I'm saying is it's not rocket science!)
Just some thoughts - if the proposal as it stands goes ahead I can see truck loads of taxi errors coming. It'd be far simpler to do just that and make the whole affair SIMPLE.
And I've not even STARTED on the south side yet!
Last edited by SATCO; 2nd Jun 2012 at 09:11.
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A map of the proposal would help.
Some years ago (around 2000 maybe) when I worked there, at the behest of NATS management, I wrote a Safety Survey on the subject of taxiway naming, signage and low visibility operations and provided numerous recommendations. I may still have it lying around somewhere.
A few years beforehand, there had already been a change in the naming (from numbered taxiways to lettered) to conform to ICAO recommendations. It is the airport operator's responsibility, not ATC's, to design the layout that conforms to these recommendations which are also published in CAP168.
The design they came up with was certainly not optimal IMHO. What they did succeed in doing was moving towards compliance and away from most of the colloquialisms that were difficult for non-regulars/native speakers to understand.
Designating an area as "cul-de-sac" is the type of colloquialism they got away from for the most part. Others such as "Light aircraft hold" and "Light aircraft park" survived. There is no reference in the documents to "links" and they removed the "East link" only for locals to refer to it as the "Old east link".
This might turn into a ramble as I remember stuff that I thought I'd long forgotten.
The curvy-ness of taxiways maintaining the same name was always one of my bugbears and was often the cause of aircraft taking the wrong route. From what I can remember, these were some of my recommendations, none of which were adopted by the time I left in 2003.
Taxiway A should have continued straight ahead where it turned into B and ended at B4.
Taxiway J should have continued straight ahead where it turned into K and ended at K3.
Taxiway B from B1 but continued through A5 and J10 and ended at J7.
D, A and C in a straight line lasting what, 600m is just dull.
Taxiway L joins D at two places so you can taxy D-L-D in two different ways.
Taxiway G is something they got right. In LVPs it is isolated from the through route and allows aircraft to pass when traffic is pushed from gates 49-57 as long as they don't pass the stop-bars at G3, H3 or G4.
In RVR of less than 400m only one aircraft or vehicle was allowed to be in any one lit block. Is that still the case? There just weren't enough lit blocks to allow much of a movement rate without GMC grinding almost to a halt with nowhere to put the next arrival.
I'll see if I can find the report.
Sorry for the ramble.
Some years ago (around 2000 maybe) when I worked there, at the behest of NATS management, I wrote a Safety Survey on the subject of taxiway naming, signage and low visibility operations and provided numerous recommendations. I may still have it lying around somewhere.
A few years beforehand, there had already been a change in the naming (from numbered taxiways to lettered) to conform to ICAO recommendations. It is the airport operator's responsibility, not ATC's, to design the layout that conforms to these recommendations which are also published in CAP168.
The design they came up with was certainly not optimal IMHO. What they did succeed in doing was moving towards compliance and away from most of the colloquialisms that were difficult for non-regulars/native speakers to understand.
Designating an area as "cul-de-sac" is the type of colloquialism they got away from for the most part. Others such as "Light aircraft hold" and "Light aircraft park" survived. There is no reference in the documents to "links" and they removed the "East link" only for locals to refer to it as the "Old east link".
This might turn into a ramble as I remember stuff that I thought I'd long forgotten.
The curvy-ness of taxiways maintaining the same name was always one of my bugbears and was often the cause of aircraft taking the wrong route. From what I can remember, these were some of my recommendations, none of which were adopted by the time I left in 2003.
Taxiway A should have continued straight ahead where it turned into B and ended at B4.
Taxiway J should have continued straight ahead where it turned into K and ended at K3.
Taxiway B from B1 but continued through A5 and J10 and ended at J7.
D, A and C in a straight line lasting what, 600m is just dull.
Taxiway L joins D at two places so you can taxy D-L-D in two different ways.
Taxiway G is something they got right. In LVPs it is isolated from the through route and allows aircraft to pass when traffic is pushed from gates 49-57 as long as they don't pass the stop-bars at G3, H3 or G4.
In RVR of less than 400m only one aircraft or vehicle was allowed to be in any one lit block. Is that still the case? There just weren't enough lit blocks to allow much of a movement rate without GMC grinding almost to a halt with nowhere to put the next arrival.
I'll see if I can find the report.
Sorry for the ramble.
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Oh contrere! Rambling is good... thanks for the comments. The report would be good to see; meantime, I'll see if my (limited) computer knowledge extends to pasting images - their proposal and my consideration.
Not seen the new proposals yet .. look forward with some trepidation!
We seem to confuse enough visitors as it is.
The current route(s) to say stand 23 or 2/4 already cause cause problems as has been pointed out.
An inbound routing from 23R of Alpha-Delta-Lima-stand 02 or 23 has resulted in some making a sharp right via D4 and then left onto Lima rather than going straight through Delta 5.
We seem to confuse enough visitors as it is.
The current route(s) to say stand 23 or 2/4 already cause cause problems as has been pointed out.
An inbound routing from 23R of Alpha-Delta-Lima-stand 02 or 23 has resulted in some making a sharp right via D4 and then left onto Lima rather than going straight through Delta 5.
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I took a look around for it but I guess it got purged when I moved over here. There's probably a dusty copy in a drawer somewhere in the Ops section.
The wrong turn example given was precisely why D and L shouldn't connect twice. Give a pilot a choice and they will take the unintended one eventually even if it involves a bizarre turn.
I remember a European carrier having landed at night on 24R (as it still was) exiting at BD and being given something like A-D-L stand 23 and then making too hard a turn and ending up on B. Rather than asking what to do, they got to the intersection with C and made the hard left turn into the unlit and closed area to rejoin A.
The taxiway layout is a mess and trying to make a logical naming system from it is difficult, but possible.
Say "Hi" to anyone who remembers DC, D watch 1997-2003.
The wrong turn example given was precisely why D and L shouldn't connect twice. Give a pilot a choice and they will take the unintended one eventually even if it involves a bizarre turn.
I remember a European carrier having landed at night on 24R (as it still was) exiting at BD and being given something like A-D-L stand 23 and then making too hard a turn and ending up on B. Rather than asking what to do, they got to the intersection with C and made the hard left turn into the unlit and closed area to rejoin A.
The taxiway layout is a mess and trying to make a logical naming system from it is difficult, but possible.
Say "Hi" to anyone who remembers DC, D watch 1997-2003.
