Weather Avoidance in Bizarro-world
Join Date: Dec 2005
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To all those pilots proposing to hold on the airway .what about all the other aircraft following you on the same airway at the same altitude ?.
The safety margins will very rapidly become eroded and those pilots following may not know about the traffic jam ahead .
it's a bit like the people who get to the end of the walkway and just stop without a thought to those piling up behind them .
The safety margins will very rapidly become eroded and those pilots following may not know about the traffic jam ahead .
it's a bit like the people who get to the end of the walkway and just stop without a thought to those piling up behind them .
Join Date: Jan 1999
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To get shot down you are assuming that the PLA Airforce has armed jets cruising around or SAMs with missiles prepped for launch AND the Command & Control willing to make a unilateral decision in a few minutes.
It's military airspace after all. How do you know they aren't conducting war games? Or surveilling some Yanks just south of Hainan, as you slip off the airway into the thick of it?
The guys who blasted that CX flight out of the sky were reputedly executed afterward. So they may have acted off their own bat. Forget command and control so!
Or maybe they actually did as they were told, and later made scapegoats. Same net result for CX and its passengers.
The guy who rammed the Yank spy plane probably wasn't told to do that, right? But he didn't need live rounds to get the result he desired. And China still holds the spy plane. Might be considered a 'win' by them.
So you see how things can easily escalate. Fighter pilots are trained killers after all. And mistakes happen.
How long have you lived here?
Maybe some of you guys haven't been keeping up with current events, but there's a huge military standoff, and political confrontation going on right on your doorstep! Some commentators are openly forecasting a clash which could lead to a Third World War. Top level talks have been held between China and the US in an attempt to cool the rhetoric. But nobody is backing down, least of all China, and with loose cannons like the Philipines and Taiwan involved anything could happen.
Yes it's all so hard to contemplate, isn't it. Especially if you have a short attention span and a general air of denial regarding the seriousness of the situation.
US-China war 'inevitable' unless Washington drops demands over South China Sea
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea”, said the paper, which is often seen as a mouth-piece of hardline nationalists in the government in Beijing."
"The People’s Liberation Army, including its navy and air force, will be allowed to “project power” further beyond its borders at sea and more assertively in the air in order to safeguard its maritime possessions, the [Chinese] white paper stated."
“If the United States’ bottom line is that China has to halt its activities, then a US-China war is inevitable in the South China Sea”, said the paper, which is often seen as a mouth-piece of hardline nationalists in the government in Beijing."
"The People’s Liberation Army, including its navy and air force, will be allowed to “project power” further beyond its borders at sea and more assertively in the air in order to safeguard its maritime possessions, the [Chinese] white paper stated."
Last edited by Algol; 7th Jul 2015 at 13:36.
algol. calm down. each post is louder than the last.
1954. ffs.
or, actually please fly through the cb and then tell us how that was the better choice.
meantime, we get it. you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder.
(yes, no caps. gramma. etc. pfft.)
1954. ffs.
or, actually please fly through the cb and then tell us how that was the better choice.
meantime, we get it. you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder.
(yes, no caps. gramma. etc. pfft.)
Join Date: May 2008
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You really need to adjust the tin foil hat, Algol. It's running beyond Alex Jones at this point.
The EP-3 collision was a planned intercept to shadow long range ELINT collecting EP-3 missions which were targeting Hainan and operating in international airspace (not unlike the US intercepts Soviet bombers on long range missions to test the waters). It was pure buffoonery by "wrong way" Wang Wei. The cover story by the Chinese wasn't any better claiming that the heavy aggressively turned into the fighter (losing style points in an unbelievable lie; imagine the shame of a fighter pilot no longer on the planet who now has his government posthumously claiming he was outmaneuvered by a heavy). In any case it was part of a planned military operation which went wrong. Having SOME parallel to the KAL-007 shootdown where the errant 747 aircraft (which was NOT positively identified on radar) through a tragic chain of events may likely have been mistaken for an RC-135 operating out of Shemya (which were also routinely intercepted by the soviets) which was also gathering ELINT information around UHPP. None of these has anything to do with a civil airliner squawking and talking electing to deviate off route to preclude a dangerous situation.
The Iranian shootdown ALSO has no bearing or similarities. The ships were engaged in a current gun battle and were in a hostile combat zone when the Captain of the Vincennes made a bad call to engage what he thought was a hostile aircraft in a combat zone. Several guard calls were made in this case also. As far as I know there's not a war going on over the skies of China at present.
Flying through storms WILL present a very significant safety hazard. The safety risk of leaving an airway while squawking and talking (and relaying intent) is exceedingly low. The choice is clear.
The EP-3 collision was a planned intercept to shadow long range ELINT collecting EP-3 missions which were targeting Hainan and operating in international airspace (not unlike the US intercepts Soviet bombers on long range missions to test the waters). It was pure buffoonery by "wrong way" Wang Wei. The cover story by the Chinese wasn't any better claiming that the heavy aggressively turned into the fighter (losing style points in an unbelievable lie; imagine the shame of a fighter pilot no longer on the planet who now has his government posthumously claiming he was outmaneuvered by a heavy). In any case it was part of a planned military operation which went wrong. Having SOME parallel to the KAL-007 shootdown where the errant 747 aircraft (which was NOT positively identified on radar) through a tragic chain of events may likely have been mistaken for an RC-135 operating out of Shemya (which were also routinely intercepted by the soviets) which was also gathering ELINT information around UHPP. None of these has anything to do with a civil airliner squawking and talking electing to deviate off route to preclude a dangerous situation.
The Iranian shootdown ALSO has no bearing or similarities. The ships were engaged in a current gun battle and were in a hostile combat zone when the Captain of the Vincennes made a bad call to engage what he thought was a hostile aircraft in a combat zone. Several guard calls were made in this case also. As far as I know there's not a war going on over the skies of China at present.
Flying through storms WILL present a very significant safety hazard. The safety risk of leaving an airway while squawking and talking (and relaying intent) is exceedingly low. The choice is clear.
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It's not impossible to deviate around weather when the Chinese say no.....it just requires more negotiation.
A few months ago on the way to PEK where were about 100nm west of track (because no deviations to East approved) and flying between two lines of storms.
Suddenly our good mate from Guangzhou tells us were are heading towards a restricted area and we must turn either left or right......
Well we can't......(and a lot of these 'restricted' areas are not marked)
We started off with "unable to comply due weather" etc etc and when that didn't work we explained (in plain English) that there are big storms on both sides of us and we don't fly into thunderstorms.....
The controller wouldn't budge and kept insisting that we must turn either left or right.....all we could give him was 10 degrees left or right, but that wasn't enough......he wouldn't budge.
So we declared a PAN......he transferred us to another frequency (I'm assuming the supervisor) and we were cleared on present heading and requested to turn right (east) as soon as we could.
No problems.
No bogey's on our six.....no missiles coming our way.
We popped in a report the next day (and not surprisingly, never heard anything about it).
It's a regular occurrence, and as long as it's handled properly it's not dangerous....just bloody frustrating!!!!!!!
As long as you keep talking to the controller, keep escalating the situation, tell him what you're doing, use the correct words and also keep monitoring 121.5 then your safe as houses.....you're not going to get shot down.
Eternity.
A few months ago on the way to PEK where were about 100nm west of track (because no deviations to East approved) and flying between two lines of storms.
Suddenly our good mate from Guangzhou tells us were are heading towards a restricted area and we must turn either left or right......
Well we can't......(and a lot of these 'restricted' areas are not marked)
We started off with "unable to comply due weather" etc etc and when that didn't work we explained (in plain English) that there are big storms on both sides of us and we don't fly into thunderstorms.....
The controller wouldn't budge and kept insisting that we must turn either left or right.....all we could give him was 10 degrees left or right, but that wasn't enough......he wouldn't budge.
So we declared a PAN......he transferred us to another frequency (I'm assuming the supervisor) and we were cleared on present heading and requested to turn right (east) as soon as we could.
No problems.
No bogey's on our six.....no missiles coming our way.
We popped in a report the next day (and not surprisingly, never heard anything about it).
It's a regular occurrence, and as long as it's handled properly it's not dangerous....just bloody frustrating!!!!!!!
As long as you keep talking to the controller, keep escalating the situation, tell him what you're doing, use the correct words and also keep monitoring 121.5 then your safe as houses.....you're not going to get shot down.
Eternity.
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Route is blocked by weather and request to deviate denied by Chinese ATC:
Reality Check: We can’t under any circumstance intentionally put the aircraft and pax at risk;
Peril/risk lies in the CB , but it also lies in
a trigger happy PLA grunt with his finger on the trigger of a SAM and possibly unaware that the blip on his radar screen is a civil aircraft and not a part of his exercise.
If fuel permits:
Request hold until weather clears
If weather doesn’t clear or not likely to, or hold denied: advise Chinese controller of your intent as follows:
Contacting Ops with situation: Options:
a) return to point of departure
b) divert to a suitable ERA
If fuel does not permit any of the above then you are truly an emergency and justified in declaring your Mayday, sqawking7700, and deviating accordingly. Pucker a bit when you enter the uncleared airspace.
Reality Check: We can’t under any circumstance intentionally put the aircraft and pax at risk;
Peril/risk lies in the CB , but it also lies in
a trigger happy PLA grunt with his finger on the trigger of a SAM and possibly unaware that the blip on his radar screen is a civil aircraft and not a part of his exercise.
If fuel permits:
Request hold until weather clears
If weather doesn’t clear or not likely to, or hold denied: advise Chinese controller of your intent as follows:
Contacting Ops with situation: Options:
a) return to point of departure
b) divert to a suitable ERA
If fuel does not permit any of the above then you are truly an emergency and justified in declaring your Mayday, sqawking7700, and deviating accordingly. Pucker a bit when you enter the uncleared airspace.
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Mr. Algol,
If you have a huge CB in front of you and ATC won't let you deviate and you are worried about getting shot down if you deviate, you might want to consider requesting and if not allowed, declaring an emergency to doing a hold at present position.
Then you avoid the thunderstorm and the missiles.
Or are you worried they might shoot you down if you hold.
If you have a huge CB in front of you and ATC won't let you deviate and you are worried about getting shot down if you deviate, you might want to consider requesting and if not allowed, declaring an emergency to doing a hold at present position.
Then you avoid the thunderstorm and the missiles.
Or are you worried they might shoot you down if you hold.
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JammedStab, did you read my posts before posting? You are AGREEING with me.
Tough luck AA.
FL260. You can just imagine the scenario. No deviations. No climb.
How many of these incidents must occur before something changes.
Tough luck AA.
FL260. You can just imagine the scenario. No deviations. No climb.
How many of these incidents must occur before something changes.
