410

Like a few others have mentioned already, I find the biggest problem with the remote holds is the impossibility of predicting with any degree of accuracy how much fuel you will burn from the hold to touchdown. The frequent level offs at intermediate altitudes and the early speed reductions which necessitate flap (and even gear) extention far earlier than you'd like to make for a higher fuel burn on descent into Dubai than just about any other port in the EK network. (I have to say 'just about', as Singapore is lately giving Dubai a run for its money when it comes to marathon cross country vectoring on approach.)

Committing to destination seems to be the way the powers that be are content for us to go. It would seem that the risk analyses done by these people at the top have shown to their satisfaction that it's quite acceptable to fly a succession of closely spaced wide body aircraft onto a single runway with almost every one of them on close to minimum fuel and committed to landing on that one runway.

Dct no speed

I am confused and need the help from the Good Guys out there.
Having just obtained Flight Sim 95 from the F. K. D. He has a new one, (Flight Sim 2000) that he got from the DVD Lady, as he has more coffee pot's, now that he is required to train others.
I was loading the speed for B773 according to Bafoonpilot.Listening to "Drop The Pilot" on my Walkman (Ipods are not for us on our wages). When I overheard ,that when reduced to 170 ,during a busy night shift(because it is a B773 and we read PPRUNE) the reply was "We are a B773 and we will do 180??????????
The controllers were all working their a of, to keep the base leg for 30 right from reaching the Omani Coast. Requiring a/c to slow down so the Director could turn them base leg +/- 12nm from touch down.Setting up the guys in the tower with just enough gap to land one ,depart one, then land one ect,ect.
The guys in 'The room with a view,' were all working hard, all night putting there a on the line with "tight ones", and the regular spacing was reduced from 20nm via Desdi and Bubin to 10nm to avoid sight seeing (aka flying around your own a ) This was all done for You, our valued customer. :
To then have a comment like this is really up!
So.... if you where the driver of "Keep Discovering 16" : Get laid !!!!! Or have the nerve ,that connect your a hole, to your brain, cut off so you don't have such a s outlook on everything!!!!
Thanks to the Good Guys out there, that fly our speeds and headings(without bitching). We know you also work hard to help us make a seqeunce work!
Please also feel free to addopt A Controller ,whenever you meet our kind at the "Village"........you'll be surprised that with a few beers and a nice word or two (but mostly the beers ) you might just end up getting, DCT NO SPEED next time you come up on our screen!!
Now back to my Flight Sim 95, What speed should I put in 170 160 or 180?

typhoonpilot

170 covers it Thanks for thinking of us, I guess you still can't win 100% of the time. No idea what the guy was thinking.

TP

P.S. You'll only get adopted at the "Village" if you can say my name properly

Jolly Foreigner

Do you then become one of the 'Village People'???????

Dct no speed

Typhoopilot, sorry a case of mistaken identity, be on the listen out for 190 and 170 if I forget remind not demand please!

JF, will be proud to be associated with "The Village People" !!!! However I am not wearing a silly hat, well how about I borrow your pilots hat?

The Villages Idiot was in "Keep Discovering 16."

See you on final approach soon

DCT NO SPEED

Kattar Kid

quote: The controllers were all working their a of, to keep the base leg for 30 right from reaching the Omani Coast. Requiring a/c to slow down so the Director could turn them base leg +/- 12nm from touch down.Setting up the guys in the tower with just enough gap to land one ,depart one, then land one ect,ect.
The guys in 'The room with a view,' were all working hard, all night putting there a on the line with "tight ones", and the regular spacing was reduced from 20nm via Desdi and Bubin to 10nm to avoid sight seeing (aka flying around your own a ) This was all done for You, our valued customer. :


Just a point of order, surely this is your job?
Not trying to cause any hurt, but why, after we have been turning in circles at Desdi for up to 30 minutes, do we then get vectored all over the sky in the DXB CTA?

Friends of mine in UAE center says that they put all aircraft in 20 miles trail before handing over to DXB. Why then all the vectors? They also say that they watch something called a "snake" with some amazement. They said that surely straight in and downwind is the easiest way to get the fleet on the ground?
If everyone is 250kts and 20 miles between each other this would seem logical?
I look forward to your answer. I am not trying to cause trouble, just to understand.

thank you

03Rnow30R

Even though I feel the post by DCT no Speed was a little harsh, I can understand his frustration.

The best way for you, all pilots and even our UAE ACC compatriots to understand what happens on a nightshift from the approach side, is to come and see it for yourself. Unfortunately getting permits to enter the White House seems easier than to get airside and into the center in Dubai, so there is our/your problem as to why we can't get together. The Dubai ATC's would be more than willing to have you plug in with us and explain things.

What I will say is this:

Take your 20NM space as given by UAE (thanks AGAIN, we do appreciate your work), 1 acft from each side gives you 10NM between them, take the concertina effect into account for the 40+ miles to run on the STAR and add a few arrivals from the DARAX gate (which don't get counted in the 20NM), a couple more from OMAA and the other sattelite stations, oh and the odd go-around every night, then provide an 8NM gap between them on final for tower to depart traffic and all of sudden 20NM doesn't seem that much. The result is the so called "snake", "daisy chain", "conga-line" and many other wonderful names. It is easy to sit back and judge others work "from a distance", it is human nature. Everybody can do it better, can't they?
Another point is that as this is a free for all airport with no slot sytem in or out, we also have no way to judge the deparure rate for planning.

Hope this explains it a tad. Yes it is our job, that is why a sense of humor helps.... No hurt taken

Khaosai

Hi Kamel,

not sure where you got the 460 kgs from, however i agree with you that holding at around 20 000 ft makes more sense if holding for 20 minutes plus.

Anything more than that, in most cases, would be compensated for with extra fuel by dispatch, or by the operating crew due to an unfavourable TAF/NOTAM etc.

Holding at 1500 ft is very unlikley in most normal situations but it's a good comparison to actual fuel burn across the range.

Wiley

No criticism of the blokes on the consoles is implied here - I think we all recognise that they are working to a set of rules they wish they could shed, (The same might be said of many people on the other end of the microphone.) But would it even be remotely possible for someone high up in UAE ATC to take a junket to London and see how someone else (I'm not implying someone "better") does it?

To say again what I've been saying for so long now, a close in hold would allow EVERY aircraft, whatever type it is, to remain clean (ie, above 230k) until departing the hold. That will save a lot of people a lot of fuel. If the hold had a minimum height of 7000' and there was approx 20 track miles from the hold to touchdown, preferably with a "S" turn involved to allow the controllers a final tweak of the spacing, most people (I can see from some of the posts, not everyone) would be happy, because 20 miles from 7000' should normally result in a continuous descent and minimal, but more importantly, a PREDICTABLE fuel burn ex the hold.

End of rant.

Radar Pete

They do it with staff.......lots of them.

HPSOV L

Just out of interest; after exiting the Desdi hold the other night I noted the fuel used from crossing Desdi at 10,000', flying the arrival 30R with the usual minor extension downwind and reduce speed/early flap, to touchdown was exactly 2 tonnes. This was in 772 and as has been pointed out the FMS does not give accurate predictions in this situation. Wouldn't want to leave Desdi with less than 5 Tonnes or 5.5 in the 773. This gives about 25 mins holding to land with a 30 min reserve.
What do you guys think?

what_goes_up

It's an easy one to solve that problem. Take this god of the skies out of the sequence and put him into the penalty box for a while. He won't do it again as there is a lot of paperwork involved.

Appreciate your work guys!!

W_G_U

Wiley

HPSOV, I allow 2 tonnes from Desdi/Bubin for a long way round approach. (You might - stress 'might' get away with a little less on a straight in, but don't count on it, for ‘straight in’ approaches frequently involve 90 degree or even larger turns away from finals.) Thus, my 'panic' figure, at which I’ll be declaring an emergency if I haven’t started the approach if I have committed to Dubai, is, as it is for you, usually around the 5.2 to 5.5 tonne mark, depending on my final reserve figure.

When you consider that virtually every EK 777 burns this much between the hold and touchdown on virtually every approach into Dubai whenever there is holding required, it makes a complete mockery of letters from the P.T.B. urging us to minimize unnecessary fuel burn. They could improve their bottom line on fuel usage exponentially with one meeting with UAE ATC insisting that this problem of early/slow descents and cross country marathon vectoring all too often with flaps extended be sorted out without delay.

typhoonpilot

Excellent point Wiley

I'm afraid the answer lies here though:

Typical tripping over a dollar to save a penny mentality that the bean counters would not understand.


TP

Dct no speed

So ....There I was, going around and around the Defence Round-about for the 5th time and thinking; " This is it," "when I get onto the BIG Z now, I will have a straight ride over the bridge past "The Village, a short delay at the gate and the into my parking without even as much as seeing other traffic on the road."
Why do I expect this ? I have now done my holding(penalty or ATC victimization as some may think), so that would mean no more traffic ahead right? Why does this not work? 6 lanes, joined by 4 more, all becoming 3, becoming 2 and then, only 1 parking for my Auto!
The same apply for night shift, and for Dubai in general. The funnel is a bit small for all of you. We try as far as possible to limit the "free"of charge (only pay for your own fuel please) sight seeing/ or light seeing at night........well at least some of us do!!
Whe are stuck with someone,( in the town South of here,) who is of the opinion, that his plans are the best in the world and that his surname ,should infact, have been Icao.! Someone laying down the law, who has never even work here, or at any other BIG airport.
We,Dubai App and the UAE Control, need you as the flying public to wisper in the ears of the Big Man. That you are fed up with the situation, and that the "free for all policy" need to be looked at. The magic word...........SLOTS!
I also think that one of the reasons it is easier to get into the White House
than in our playroom is: That you would be shocked to see our system of ink on paper, as oppose to a real ATC system. And our managers and Gca Know this! This should have only been a short term thing but that was a few years ago now. The new one : "After sometime to be getting" Like most things around here , a Month given, just not the year!!
So ...... in November (no year ) we'll be getting new procedures/Equipment/staff/salary tincrease/radar /fam flights/ ect.... list goes on
Sorry I am bitching a bit,it is that time of the month!
At your service always,
Dctnospeed

410

This very point has been made repeatedly by quite a few ATC respondents on this site, and seems to be the major - (the only?) - stumbling block preventing the problem being fixed.

We keep hearing that "management reads these threads", but to date, I've seen no evidence that they ever react to what they see written here. They certainly don't react to letters written to them inhouse by their line pilots on this point, so I suppose it's a bit unrealistic to think they might react to something they see here on a public forum.

But we can live in hope, for I still can't get my head around the fact that EK (and, I assume, EY) senior management, constantly harping on the theme "save fuel at at any cost", seem content to allow this one man's intrangience to cost them what must surely amount to millions of dirhams a year in unnecessary fuel burn.

BlueSkye

I know some people, who knows people that has heard of people who can find people with middle names such as "Kneecaps", "The Bullet" or "Damage" that might solve this big, bald... correction bold problem. Unless something is his idea, it will NEVER happen. Once again for those in the back, NEVER. For all the EK jocks, your only hope is thru Sheikh Mo and family, 'cause UAE ACC/DXB APP is farting against Katrina. You must also remember that in Denmark in '69 it was done this way. Therefor it is the be all and end all.

Dct no speed

A.M.E.N brother!

AirNoServicesAustralia

Just a small correction to 03R, you said "a few arrivals through DARAX gate (which don't get counted in the 20 NM)". Since Phase 17 came into force, we have to also provide the required spacing between DARAX-MAXMO arrivals for Dubai, so you will have either 15NM or 20NM between 2 DB landing MAXMO aircraft. To be honest though it is not usually multiple DB landers through MAXMO, as the majority are for SHJ, RAK or FUJ, but when it does happen as I said we have to space them.

03Rnow30R

ANSA

I didn't meen 20 or 15 between the DARAX arrivals. That single DARAX arrival needs to be added to the lot from DESDI and BUBIN and it can make a significant difference (another 8 miles on final), sorry if it caused confusion there.