Skywest sets sights on push into Asia

[Section28- BE]

FreeFlight/ Stork- Fokker Services

Giday "IAW"

To shoot the breeze a bit (only play/lock & load when asked or required) been out of this silly game for awhile and am not familiar with the WA environment and nav aids installed, but- in the interests of being open & without prosecuting any cryptic angle, have had a read of (ex Google) the below Reuters Release of Mon Jun 15, 2009 7:32am EDT:

FreeFlight Systems and Fokker Services Announce Partnership | Reuters

and do note Free Flight is ex Waco TX @ 2001 and derived ex Trimble. And state that I'm not aware or familiar with this evolution of the technology or this particular concept.

Given the press release date and the words therein- has this System been flown/certified and approved in a Jurisdiction yet...........????/ as a Primary Aid...........

Having said that- a powerful tool/augmentation to the F100 and Skywest's position in the Mining Charter market as a primary aid, given the operational enhancement- as you own the bugger and if someone wants to play & mess with you, spend the brass and step-up, or carry the fuel and alternate. Bit like putting the runway/fuel in for a site, under the appropriate Contractual Conditions in Perpetuity.

As we all know most "remote" mines once they moved the project beyond the "Dirt Stage" were sold a GPS NPA (and the resulting operational limitations) with their site runway at inception (as it "would be approved" as a Primary Aid by the Authority "eventually", to save and make the system more efficient by reducing/removing NDB's and the resulting maintenance/certification, remember that time.........). Where pavement was involved/and a Mining Company was prepared to pay for it- it usually ran to a Bae146-100 PCN-wise - and why wouldn't you if you/& the "Advisors" could swing it.

For what it is/isn't worth- If, per chance "they"/you?? are engaged and/or acquiring the system (with the appropriate incentives) as part of the work-up & Certification:

1. Airframe Antenna/Sensor Location

2. System Strength and Stability

3. The above (2.) in varying conditions (precipitation, dust etc and shadowing in particular)

4. Operationally- "need a few more hours"............. there goes another 40tn of gas + Overhead.

5. Resulting and derived ex # 1.- 'here is the CAR 35 drawing' for approval application for the next hole through "your" Pressure Hull...................

Good luck to them with that installation. trust it goes well.

Rgds
S28- BE

[Icarus2001]

Nothing like some vigorous self promotion from Jeff and his mates Hugh and Geoff.

Skywest Airlines already flies the bulk of employees to the region under its existing 'fly-in fly-out' charter contracts on behalf of various mining customers and is also the primary provider of reliable air travel to the North West Shelf's major service hubs such as Karratha, and Exmouth.

1. The bulk...debatable

2. Primary provider...a marketing term, pure fantasy

3. Karratha...Qantas and Virgin may carry three or four people up there too

4. Exmouth...they do not even fly there. Learmonth is the name of the place

Now. These advanced GNSS units, are they like the ones I had installed in a C172 I flew about ten years ago?

Skywest won the Barimunya contract from National Jet but managed to not reveal the fact that their aircraft could not fly the existing GNSS RNAV approaches there because they did not have a receiver installed. Nice work if you can get away with it. The client naturally assumed that being a modern aircraft operated by a "primary provider of reliable travel" their aircraft would have a GPS in it. Well they didn't. To say the client was unhappy would be an understatement.

So now they market their catch up to industry standard as an advanced leap of technology. A brilliant strategy but smoke and mirrors I am afraid. Well done though guys, you got away with it.

Gorgon will mean lots of work for one operator to Barrow Island and flow on work to Karratha for other operators QF, DJ and XR. National Jet start Barrow-Karratha shuttle flights soon I hear and they will move pax from Q terminal to their own facility. Join the dots.

Onslow. The strip is 1600 metres long. How many pax will an F100 carry at 35 degrees off 1600 metres?

[Section28- BE]

Giday-

For those uneducated (& lazy) among us (me), is Barimunya a GPS NPA or a GPS NPA with NDB and approved radial approach or is everybody running stand alone GNSS systems (if I understand what Skywest are on about correctly??) over there.........?????

Skywest won the Barimunya contract from National Jet but managed to not reveal the fact that their aircraft could not fly the existing GNSS RNAV approaches

Might be cheaper to drop the NDB's in (if they aren't there- and fix it for once and for all).........., and will now go and educate myself so as not to fumble about here in the dark.........., cheers.

Ta/ Rgds
S28

[westausatc]

At a recent industry meeting in Perth (to discuss a unrelated topic) our guys were told that the charter industry was expecting about 500 people a day doing FIFO into Barrow. If you are going to upgrade the runway to take a F100 at YBWX (not sure if that's needed), why wouldn't you make it capable of larger aircraft and fly in a 76 twice a day?

This is going to be a decades long project and the extra cost of runway upgrade will eventually be paid for but the increased cost of 5 flights a day as opposed to 2 will be with you forever...

As to the nav capability, if the Skywest F100s are going to be getting GPSRNAV approved, almost everything we get flying to the north will be 7nm cross track (not sure about the Alliance F100s). We will probably be able to facilitate quite a few more level requests (especially following on same track) since we will be able to us 20nm rather than 30nm. Should be good for everyone.

Nitpicker,

Sounds good in theory but we aren't allowed to speed them up past their profile and most profile speeds are 280 these days (F100s normally round 270). Something I didn't mention previously.... As a basic rule, we work on 10kts less for the second being enough to keep the distance we have, ie. if I have 10nm between two (B738 followed by B712) and I want to keep it, if the B738 is going down at 270kts, I would assign 260kts to the B712 and expect to not have to change it, maybe 10kts if anything.

For my own curiosity, is it preferable for you jet jockeys to be sped up or slowed down? Would you prefer me to assign a slower speed and speed you up if I need to in order to keep my sequence, or would you prefer to be given a faster speed and then slowed down if there is too much closing? How about the props?

[topend3]

The runway at BWX is not getting an upgrade at all. That has been knocked on the head, partly I believe due to the environmental restrictions. So, it's more 146's from Cobham out of Perth, and as Icarus pointed out, next week a KTA-BWX shuttle run using a KTA-based 146 kicks off.

[westausatc]

If the runway isn't getting upgraded, any other jets able to get in and out of there?

From memory, about 80 seats on a 146 (been a while since I was on one!) so looking at 7 or so flights a day up and back to move 500 bodies! How many 146s will NJS be able to get their hands on? Will it be enough?

[Icarus2001]

why wouldn't you make it capable of larger aircraft and fly in a 76 twice a day?

Good question. My information that it is due to the handling of pax at Bwx. How many they can handle at one time and how quickly helicopters can shuttle them out to rigs. A 99 seat 146 three times is preferable to a 767 once. The other obvious issue is that if you lose the 767 the whole show stops whereas another 146 can take up the slack.

NDB Issues. Very expensive to put in for airport whereas the RNAV approach is not. No maintenance etc. Barimunya only has RNAV, same as Coondewanna.

[Mach E Avelli]

Westausatc, speaking for myself, I prefer to go fast in the early stage of the descent where the air is usually smooth and it can be planned to start down later than usual. By staying high then going to idle, it saves fuel. Lower down where there is more likelihood of turbulence, being asked to then slow down is often doing us a favour. Jets have speed brakes and the props are really good at slowing down anyway, so washing off 50-80 knots over 5 NM or so should not be a problem - with one caveat. If there are maximum crossing altitudes on the STAR, slowing down while continuing descent is a problem in the heavier types, so they may need to reduce rate of descent or even level off momentarily if you ask for a large speed reduction over a short distance or close to the crossing limit.

A slow descent must be commenced earlier, ie further out. Having to stoke the thrust up again low down to speed up eats fuel, so I would rather avoid having to plan for a slow descent then half way through it or later being asked for maximum speed to the outer marker.

[hongkongfooey]

A heavy 320 will lose approx 10kts/NM level with full speedbrake, any rate of descent will increase this figure ( NMs ) markedly. If you require France's finest to slow down/go down, this is as about as easy as stopping a road train with a toothpick, speedbrake markedly increases min speed, in some cases ( MLW ) nearly up to Flap 1 speed, becomes a bit of a juggling act.

[Hoofharted]

Westausatc, in a perfect world:

TOD = 3 x Altitude plus 10 miles @ .78/300KIAS

30NM - 8000FT

20NM - 5000FT @ 250Kts

Just a walk in the park kazansky!! (mind you, the little ripper that is the 717 will do what ever you want it to)

[westausatc]

Mach,

Thanks for that! Will keep it in mind when trying to work out what to give.

HKF,

Sounds like it's the opposite for Airbus (why am I not surprised? ) in that it is easier to speed up rather than slow down. Am I getting the right picture.

Hoof,

Ah the 71! Love them! But if it's not a perfect world (and sequencing into Perth is about as 'unperfect' as you can get!), which would you prefer?

[Capn Bloggs]

20NM - 5000FT @ 250Kts

Pussy. How about 320 until 15?

Woops, I forgot. The woosees have just taken over. Make that 320 until 18nm.

[XRlent100]

Westausatc,

Skywest have just signed a memorandum of understanding (early Sep) which will see you ATC people coming for a burn with us and us coming to have a look at what you guys/gals do.

As yet no ones taken up the offer so now its out there we may see you sooner rather than later. Maybe a query with your manager might do the trick.

C U Soon

P.S. To all the sceptics its been approved by DOTARS and CASA.

[westausatc]

XR,

That's great! Exactly what we need! Unfortunately, unless you guys start your KG-ML flying again, I won't get to participate. But it will be excellent for the approach/tower guys and you pilot types too.

If any of you are in ML, please speak up and can try to organise a visit to the centre to see how we do things on West Radar. It is different to approach. Likewise, I am more than happy to jump at a famil flight if it can be organised!

[Captain Klink]

XR,
ASA and BoM have signed memoranda with several operators for famil flights for ATC and Met staff, but AIPA, Senator Xenophon and OTS are rewriting the jump seat rules.

[SoulMinties]

Speed up or slow down?

We typically drive our Dash 8's at maximum cruise power. Once we're at top of climb we can get a pretty reliable estimate for CONNI or GRENE on the way into Perth. The only option for us is to slow down. Cruise TAS is around 240 to 255 kts for a -100 and 250 to 265ish in the -300 depending on the temperature, weight and altitude. That's about 165-175 kts indicated.

The GPS predicts our ETA's at subsequent waypoints based on our current G/S so we have to consider whether turning at the waypoint before GRENE will give more or less of a headwind component which could change the ETA there by a minute. We can slow down to around 150KIAS or less depending on weight, which will typically reduce our G/S by about 30 knots.If ice is not an issue, we could go slower, but a heavy -300 will start to wallow a bit with a higher-than-comfortable deck angle.

On descent, we can indicate about 210 initially from say FL200, increasing to 230 by the mid teens. I'm interested in the plan to have a requirement for aircraft to maintain 180 kts to about 10 miles, then 160 kts to 4nm on visual approaches. The Dash is pretty versatile like that. For instrument approaches we are compelled to be at 140kts (Cat B) at glideslope intercept when doing the ILS for real. That's approach's domain but I thought you might be interested. We love it when you tell us to keep our speed up as long as possible.

[Kelly Slater]

Westausatc, listen o the tone of voice in the reply when you ask someone for max speed or to slow down. Pilots want to go fast, even when it is eating into their own overtime and even though there is no sensation of speed unless you are near the ground. I dare say that most pilots would want to go fast even if it makes their job more difficult.

[kimberleyEx]

Gday westausatc.

In question to Alliance's F100's being GPSRNAV. I believe they all are GPSRNAV approved. The only difference been, that it is not coupled to the IRS/FMS. It is a stand alone installation.

Alliance have been doing GPSRNAV approaches since they won the Nickel West contract for Mt Kieth and Leinster.

Regards.

K-Ex.

[68+iou1]

I dare say that most pilots would want to go fast even if it makes their job more difficult.

No Kelly No! Don't go there!

[flyingfox]

Thread Drift.

What has any of this got to do with the thead topic? Start a new one or let this one die.