China ATS delays

[Dragon69]

ArthurBorges,

You remind so much of our beloved 828a. Learn a few words of Mandarin and you think you know everything that is Chinese , but the truth is you know very little.

cxa340so, the locally trendy term for that is Shanzhai: it's about learning through imitation until you reach proficiency sufficient to give you scope for personal creativity. Shanzhai is how you got out of 4WD and learned to walk on two feet. It's how you learned the alphabet before moving on to prose and poetry of your own. In the 1960s, we were trashing Japs for that. We thought they all were all look-alikes too. It passed.

For one the Japs were technologically advanced much before the '60s, you do know how formidable they were during WWII right???? The japs were never branded as copiers, they were known for being innovative in making things smaller and more efficient. Get your facts straight!

Secondly, when you learn to walk or learn the alphabet, you do so not by imitation but by being TAUGHT properly! You go on to write poetry because you were taught the important fundamentals. Learning by imitation doesn't give you the fundamentals needed to progress! To think otherwise makes a mockery of the education system...and you said you're a professor right

mephisto88, the Chinese are not lateral thinkers, they are quantum thinkers: We'll catch up eventually.

There is no denying that ATC in Beijing is dangerously inefficient! If they were quantum thinkers like you say they are, then surely putting aside old cultural ways of thinking, and asking to be taught properly from the west shouldn't be a problem now should it!

[gengis]

There is no denying that ATC in Beijing is dangerously inefficient!

Inefficient - without question. "Dangerous"? That's debatable, unless you can point me to an example of any recent mid-airs or crashes attributed to ATC in China?

asking to be taught properly from the west shouldn't be a problem now should it!

From your (and my) point of view - yes. But as mentioned in an earlier post, they're not as daft as they're so often made out to be. This "gweilo" delay factor is a glaring case in point. There are numerous occasions where i have caught them using English to the foreign guy & very deliberately Chinese to the domestic guy, and in the process - by a cheeky use of offsets - swapped the levels of both guys, with the foreign traffic having had his level robbed from him without being none the wiser. This i have personally come across on many an occasion (and yes, i am fluent in Mandarin - else i too would have been in the dark). And the reason they succeeded in this was because of this use of "duality" in language to their advantage - the obvious solution being that they adhere strictly to the use of only English. To this degree, being "taught from the west" may be barking up the wrong tree - they're certainly not oblivious to things as might appear to you & I, and they might want the status quo to remain.

[hongkongfooey]

Yes, there is a reason for the “follow me” vehicle. I assume you are talking about Pudong.

That does'nt explain the other dozen single runway airports in China that have follow me cars to guide you 50 metres

[gengis]

That does'nt explain the other dozen single runway airports in China that have follow me cars to guide you 50 metres

HKFooey, i'd be very tempted to say it's got to do with the "service" charge for providing the car?!?

[hongkongfooey]

I'd say you are on the money Gengis

Another 1 hour delay yesterday due " flow control " funny how the dozen or so Chinese a/c that departed in that hour ahead of us were not subject to the same " flow control ", yeh, funny as a ing fart in a lift
Mind you, on the positive side, the controlling when we got back to HK was equally, if not more 5hit, than up north

[bigjames]

hkfooey, are they that bad here? half of the hk atc seem to be native english speakers, and it all seems pretty regimented. far as i can see, standard approaches and waypoints apply to cx as much as china eastern and other carriers. although i'm not sure how many of you were in the vicinity earlier this week when approaching AF was yelled at for not establishing ILS to 25R as instructed.... "You can't do that!" funny...

[hongkongfooey]

Big Jimbo, it depends on who is on shift, you get to recognise the voices after a while and work out when you are going to be 220IAS with 60 track miles to run, whist zig zgging across the sky, some of them are'nt even capable of leaving you on the STAR/SID, whats the frigging point of having STARS that add 100 track miles to your trip when they have to extend them more ????????
But I have to say one of my favourites is flying abeam the field( SIERA ), and landing behind aircraft that were 200 miles SE when you were looking down at the runway.......hilarious.

[gengis]

Bigjames

half of the hk atc seem to be native english speakers

I take it that this is your pre-requisite of the criteria for what makes good ATC then?

[ArthurBorges]

Dragon69, Inciter, Captain Dart and BusyB

You remind so much of our beloved 828a. Learn a few words of Mandarin and you think you know everything that is Chinese , but the truth is you know very little.

Yep. I know a few words of Mandarin and little else -- not even 828a.

The (J)aps were never branded as copiers, they were known for being innovative in making things smaller and more efficient. Get your facts straight!

In 1950s Brooklyn of my birth, Japanese products had a different reputation. For general entertainment, when Japanese automakers decided to crash the Swedish market in the early 1970s, the advertising strategy was slogans like "We know our cars aren't as good as Swedish cars, but you can have a new Japanese car for the price of a used Swedish one." It took them about three years to establish the reputation you speak of and claim 20% of the Swedish market.

Your facts are surely also true but subject to the constraints of your date and place of birth.

Secondly, when you learn to walk or learn the alphabet, you do so not by imitation but by being TAUGHT properly!

Theorists argue that kids need to reinvent the letters they copy off the blackboard before they can reproduce them successfully; others argue they copy until they simply get the muscular reflexes right, freeing their minds to move on to personalize cursive with flourishes and other distinctive features. For my part, I think that makes for brilliant dissertations but it's a storm in a teacup. I may be wrong. We can however agree that competent teaching facilitates the process, whether it happens your way, mine, or somebody else's.

Interestingly, research reports that language learning begins in utero: make special efforts to surround pregnant women with soothing music and gentle language at least until delivery -- I'm not too far off topic here: it's Chinese tradition too.

Learning by imitation doesn't give you the fundamentals needed to progress! To think otherwise makes a mockery of the education system...and you said you're a professor right

Well, I have to kick in the airbrakes here: imitation and mimicking are fundamental. Progress follows.

I do mock education systems East and West for overemphasizing imitation, but I don't have enough beer on tap to go into that now.

Um, I said "I teach at an university." Professors are divinities that walk on air and water alike, with tenure and other attributes. I am but a contract instructor. My chair is a one-year ejection seat with as many ejection handles on it as I have bosses. That makes at least four. For details see: Arthur Michael Borges * French-English, Swedish-English, English-English Translation * Analytical, Non-Ethnocentric & Punctual with Strong Writing/Editing Skills * Translator Profile at TranslatorsCafe.com - Directory of Translators, Interpreters and (sorry about this long URL -- not my idea!)

...surely putting aside old cultural ways of thinking, and asking to be taught properly from the west shouldn't be a problem now should it!

Dragon69, a friend of mine bought a clapper in Hong Kong. It's a musical instrument. He took it home and gave it to his two-year old, thus instantly turning it into a baby toy. This is what we do. We see something new & foreign and adopt it only if we see a role for it within our existing worldview.

What rubs me the wrong way is the assumption that you have to go West to "learn properly" when you have "old cultural ways of thinking." If the Vietnamese had done that in the 1960s, they would never have achieved reunification, now would they?

To move beyond us vs. them thinking, we all need to listen as well as we can teach "properly". Is that so foreign a thought?

Agreed: your input shows that Chinese ATC have lots to learn too.

...while they are wiggling their pieces we are burning gas at the rate of about 50-100 kgs per minute!

Being stuck 6000-10000ft below optimum level together with the approach controllers obvious confusion...cost airlines between 500-1000kg of gas per arrival.

Inciter, thank you for the detailed response on fuel consumption. It would have more impact if I knew the price of the gas your a/c burns, but my posting was intended to give readers some insight into the mindset here. My own experience is that once I understand why a fool is acting like one, I can take her/his behaviour in my stride more easily and this has to be good for my blood pressure. Maybe for yours too.

First rule to fixing a problem you must admit you have one.

Um, in China, that's the SECOND rule. The first is NEVER to embarrass anyone. Our frankness simply does not work here. Direct confrontation mayyyyyy secure a tactical victory, but be sure payback time is on the agenda. Sooner or later. And it will cost more than the benefit of the tactical victory. In case of an issue with somebody, find a go-between and work through him or her. If you feel like exploding, make an excuse and remove yourself from the situation; come back to it when you've cooled off. Been there, done that. Didn't enjoy payback time one bit.

Yesssss, I see how, when you're entering airspace with pax and been in the cockpit for 11 or 12 hours minus a brief break, this may not be easy and there is no go-between but it might help during layovers and, given time and a modicum of good faith, might carry over in your cockpit mindset. Again, understanding why someone is behaving oddly helps you step back and relax about it, which is good for blood pressure, adrenalin levels and such.

Arthur, keep smoking what you are smoking and maybe join a teachers' forum.
This is a Forum for AVIATION PROFESSIONALS as the banner at the top clearly states.

Inciter, I smoke four packs a day of pure tobacco. You're right about the banner too. I'm not sure why I'm not into teachers' forums but I did moderate and administer forums at the second largest translators' website. Does that help?

I did USD 150,000+ of pro bono translations for an NGO subsidiary of a major European airline over seven years, was born under the landing pattern of LGA, became cadet 2/Lt in the Civil Air Patrol, now live between CGO and 18 ICBMs targeting the USA and count seven years in China: Do you feel I can contribute here now and then?

Captain Dart, I don't know how many tongues I have in my pair of cheeks: thanx for spotting all of them. Immune to hats as I am, I can only bow in deference.

BusyB, You are a snowflake bright enough to twinkle up a rainbow in the sunshine of a breakfast sky.

Happy Skies & Landings to One & All!

[ArthurBorges]

AbFab

Ahhh, China ATC what a joke.......just like that other third world airport JFK

Now that tickles a rib or two of mine!

[bigjames]

@HKfooey, HAHA obviously you got lost on your way to tango delta then and allowed those other guys to jump in ahead of you on the TD340!

@gengis, not at all. just responding to someone's point that in china the level of english is poor. i'm not necessairily in the tyler brule camp on that one!

[hongkongfooey]

Ahhh, China ATC what a joke.......just like that other third world airport JFK

Ab Fab, I'm sure you are joking but interestingly JFK has ( or had in 2008 ) more aicraft movements than Beijing, is over 6 decades old and is very close to another 2 extremely busy airports ( Newark which is also busier than Beijing, and Laguardia ),not to mention Teterboro.
Beijing has none of these constraints.

Inciter, thank you for the detailed response on fuel consumption. It would have more impact if I knew the price of the gas your a/c burns,

Art, depends on what price our " third world management " have hedged the fuel at , but to give you an idea, I would estimate that nearly every time I fly in China I am forced to waste between 2-500 kgs of fuel ( 250-650 litres of fuel ), I would be surprised if the fuel was any less than 1USD/litre. That is also 400-1000kgs of CO2 going into the atmosphere that really does'nt need to
We have some 30 a/c flying in and out of china every day, 2-3 times a day

[broadband circuit]

Semi-Accurate Chemistry

Hongkongfooey 2-500kg of fuel produces 400-1000kg of CO2. Really You are front office material

Rule 3, I assume you are mocking him because you think that he is creating an extra 2-500kg out of nothing.

If so, permit me to mock you, and suggest that you do yourself a favour, and search for the periodic table of elements on the internet. You might work out that 2-500kg of fuel will produce 6-1500 kg of CO2.

[LapSap]

JFK has ( or had in 2008 ) more aicraft movements than Beijing, is over 6 decades old

Isn't that the point though hkf? JFK controllers have had 60 years to fine tune their procedures as traffic gradually increased over the decades to just slightly more than Beijing has achieved in about a 6th of the time?
If you threw 400,000 movements at JFK in 1950, it would probably have seemed a mess too.

And yes Rule 3, I believe the ratio is about 3.16 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of fuel burnt.

[hongkongfooey]

Sorry, did'nt account for all the rocket scientisit/nuclear physicists on PPRUNE I just remember reading somewhere that 1kg of burnt fuel = 2 kg of CO2, whatever.
Rule 3 off back to the sandpit forum would ya.

Lapsap, no thats not the point, the point is JFK is an old airport that is trying to cope with more traffic than Beijing, which is a new airport, and JFK is surrounded by other busy airports which means a hell of a lot of traffic in a very small area of airspace, is that simple enough for you

China ATC is rubbish and they waste 1000s of tons of fossil fuel a year, sorry if that offends you, its just the facts mate.

[throw a dyce]

HKF,
Are the delays resulting in extra fuel burn,caused by non optimum levels,waiting at the holding point,or just holding for approach.
Say for an average sector are you delayed more than 20 minutes in the air due to holding.
My experience of that region was that HKATC tried to place many of the strange flow restrictions imposed by the Mainland,on start up restrictions,to minimise fuel burn.
Not picking a fight,just curious from an ATCO who used to work there,and back in a heavily flow restricted UK.

[Rule3]

Thank you to those who enlightened me, I have withdrawn the post.

[hongkongfooey]

Hi throw a dice
don't tend to get much holding, unless there is a TS within 20 miles , we do occasionally get orbits after they have tried their best to slow us down to get the local airlines in front of us ( this is up north, not HK ), but to be honest that might happen once a month.

Most of the fuel is wasted by flying around at 23-25,000 when we should be at 35-39000, this does happen regularly, I would say easily more than 50% of the time. Admittedly, once you are lucky enough to get in the air, its usually reasonably painless, except when the PLA decide to go flying and you get a 90 degree heading change for 5 minutes, or a local airline wants to climb through your level, same same.
Also the routing is, well, rooted It is not unusual for a 500 mile ( for example ) as the crow flies trip to be 6-700 miles including a SID and a STAR. If I drew our routes on a map for you, you would swear I was pi55ed
The other, more minor fuel wastage is sitting on the ground for 1-2 hours extra with the APU grinding away.
As an aside, both HK and China let you load the pax, disconnect the bridge, before telling you there is a 1-3 hr delay due " flow control " or the other favourite " delay undetermined " or " no departure time ", as you can imagine this pleases the pax no end and of course it is always our fault.
cheers

[Thunderbird4]

CO2 calculation

Kind of off the topic but for those interested... here's the calculation that the offsetters website uses:

One gallon of jet fuel produces 21 pounds of CO2; one barrel produces 886 pounds. The standard calculation is that each passenger kilometre on a fully laden airliner emits 150g of carbon dioxide (short haul flights use a figure of 180g). So for each passenger, the flight from HK to YVR is 10200km x 0.00015 tons = 1.53 tons.

[throw a dyce]

HKF,
Thanks for that.
In this neck of the woods airlines are happy to accept lower levels,as a way of getting airborne.The low cost airlines have a tight schedule to keep.Often the higher levels are just not available especially with the North Atlantic flow on.
In HK the delay on the ground is what I was referring to about strange flow control by the Mainland.It seemed to vary from day to day,and often imposed without warning.
Clearance delivery in HK spent so much time trying to sort out this mess,that often you couldn't really give an idea of the delay.For example Mainland slapped a one per 20 min flow rate on me once,only one level available,and I've got 4 wanting start all at the same time.Sorry number 4 but you've got 1 hr delay.That's 150nm in trail separation.WHY? Don't know never will.

In the UK it's between 5 and 10nm and lots of levels with RVSM.

I have always said a CFMU is needed there with companies getting slot times.Not the best system but a vast improvement on what you've got.
I have also heard that the Mainland use the same numbers as us,but swap the nm for minutes.I don't think things will change in a hurry,unless the powers that be have a look at other ATC systems.But then that would be losing face.