Manchester's always wet runway?
 

What is the reason that the runway at Manchester is promulgated as wet when it is obviously dry? This afternoon 23L was dry as a bone and promulgated as wet. Aprons all dry too. Had it even rained today? We calculated wet performance figures of course. All a bit silly and seems to have been the case for the 20 years I have been flying there. What justification for promulgating inaccurate information?

And while on the subject of Manchester why is it that because the odd aircraft years ago departed with the wrong SID plugged in that we get asked to confirm our SID just before take off? Are you aware nowhere else does this? [That I have flown to anyway - I have done quite a bit of flying]

When it comes to SIDS Dublin is even worse, you have to tell them the first waypoint in the FMC before they allow you to push back!

hotmetal, check your pm's :-)

I have to say that I get to be a pain in the bum whenever I'm given duff gen. like a report of a wet runway when it's dry. There's nothing for it but to do the paperwork and let the culprits sort out out when it arrives. Arse covering Met reports should make you suspicious of every item of "information" you are given by ATC, so the question is "what did they say when you asked them?" But if you wanted to be really nasty you could always report "poor" braking action on arrival or on taxi out to match their "wet" runway.

And a little sideline to this. Many years ago I was regularly going into SOU and the two things that really irked me were 1. The wind was always varying and at least one of the directions always ended in a five and 2. No matter what the cloudbase, it was never CAVOK. A thermic cloudbase of 6,000' (rare I'll give you), blue sky or NSC, cloud would always be reported as something like FEW 043. Maybe it was shallow fog, drifting snow or plagues of frogs which stopped it being CAVOK?

PM

Piltdown Man, ATC don't do the runway inspections, they just get told the surface state by the runway inspection vehicle (checker/whoever) and pass on the info to go on the ATIS

@blinkz

That would be the result of crews flying the wrong SIDs, leading to various exciting events. The procedure is cumbersome but so far it seems to work.

I wonder If the runway is declared wet at this time of year; not due to precipitation but, due to the cocktail of anti-ice chemicals sprayed instead! :confused:

Manchester Ops call signs.

'Checker' Duty Safety Officer detailed to TCOB
'OPS 3' His boss
'OPS 1' Ops 3s boss.

If you're not happy that the runway state, as per ATIS appears not to match the Runway visual appearance, ask GND or TWR to get them out there. Their vehicles are UHF/VHF cross linked so they will have already heard you.

Sir George Cayley

From memory (albeit a bit out of date now) if its not raining in Manchester its about to rain, so by definition the observed dry runway will be wet imminently and more often than not WET, WET, WET would be right:p

Exactly DD, at breakfast its not "is it going to rain today" its more "WHEN is it going to rain today". Thats assuming its one of the 5 days a year when its not already raining by breakfast. :E

Re SID confirmation, this is only asked for on HON/LISTO off the 23's.

This year already a certain UK operator of 747's was at holding point expecting to depart on LISTO despite acknowledging HON with GMP.

Guess the procedure will continue for a while yet!

I know it is diverging of the topic of the wet runway but I am curious as to what prevents the LISTO departure disappearing and the Honiley alternative being used for all south bounds? Surely it would eliminate the extra few seconds of R/T and any chance for confusion?

The outbound SID tracks can be laterally seperated,thus providing greater expedition.For example a HON SID could depart one minute after a LISTO SID.If both aircraft were on HON SIDs there would need to be 2 or even 3 minutes departure separation. The Area Radar controller is then able to climb both aircraft on parallel radar headings.

The reason for the 2 departures is for noise reasons, prop's and small jets use LISTO, the HON SID came in for the big jets to avoid Knutsford on a 4 mile climb out as they were getting too many complaints about noise from the residents.
As maclad said, the split can be just one minute giving the aircraft headings to be laterally separated therefore making the departures far more expeditious

I landed at EGCC yesterday, was CAVOK, dam runway was bone dry, and not declared wet :D.

I fully appreciate that ATC are the poor sods in the middle. But we are starting to get to the point where we are questioning the validity of the information ATC provide, in this case purely because of the (now) old fashioned GIGO principle. If nobody questions the validity of runway state messages the the guilty will continually keep passing on duff gen.

PM

(An occasional user of EGCC, but only when dry!)

Its a problem all over the UK to be honest, runways are often reported wet when they are damp or even bone dry as someone said above. Common sense and a look out of the window are often much more reliable.

If its a landing then you just have to take the report at its word but at least you are erring on the caution, wet landing distance being longer anyway. The problem is the departure, there is I think an assumption by many (airport operators, and a lot of pilots) that it doesn't matter if you use wet performance when you don't need it, you are covered anyway. This is most certainly NOT the case, wet runway performance is a fudge to allow operations to be commercially viable (ie. lift a decent payload) during wet conditions. It provides significantly reduced obstacle clearance margins (15ft rather than 35ft) if an engine fails at V1 and less margin if you have to stop before it due to reverse thrust on the remaining engines being factored in which it isn't on a dry runway.

The regulations are very specific as to what constitutes a dry, damp or wet runway and its about time the airport operators worked to them and provided regular and accurate updates to the runway state after it has stopped raining.

Where's the reference for this for the benefit of those of us who don't operate from MAN very often?

There is no reference on charts or anything else that you are likely to have on the flight deck. It is simply down to local knowledge.

Similar situation for the new and very abstract non standard push back procedures.