US F-15s and RAF tanker in near-miss over north Norfolk coast
 

The BBC and local press have been reporting this: US F-15s and RAF tanker in near-miss over north Norfolk coast - BBC News

The full report is here: http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploa...%202017002.pdf

However, another incident is also rather alarming and can be seen here: http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploa...%202017026.pdf

The second report states: That must be rather worrying, surely?

To hell with the pilots, what about the controllers?

I did two tours at Boulmer, one at Staxton and two at Neatishead controlling literally hundreds of hours of tanking on AAR5/6/8 with tanker cells of up to 4 tankers and up to 24 receivers either climbing towards, tanking with (and moving between tankers in the cell for dry/wet tanking) and departing on two separate frequencies (one cell, one transit). The even idea that FJ manoeuvring traffic would not be called when inside 20nm is incredible. Everyone knew that FJ traffic could turn 180 degrees in a sweep and change height by 10K+ when playing in the vertical. And all that without Mode C on most of the traffic.

But then I also did 8 ship USAF F4 intercepts off Great Yarmouth with one target and 7 fighters doing individual 135 degree intercepts with the target changing each run whilst coordinating with all the other military and civil traffic when Woodbridge/Bentwaters had about 200 F4s and Wattisham had a Lightning wing.

Standards and experience have obviously gone through the floor.

According to the Tegleraph, a "flight controller" at "Stanwick" was involved. Anyone give a clue to where that is exactly?

I left ATC in 2003. Standards were high, experience was pretty good but there just wasn't enough people to do all that was required. It was clear to me back then that we were getting asked to do more and more, with less and less.

I worked some of the busiest airspace around, and with a full team it worked like a charm, band-box just one position and it could go very wrong very quickly.

Reading some of the other airprox reports have a look at how many say the controllers on task were at capacity and having to multi-task.

If two F15 pilots can't see a bloody great airliner on their all-singing, all-dancing radars then they shouldn't be allowed near a fighter and should be kicked off to the desert to fly drones. Never mind ATC didn't tell them about the tanker, what's wrong with looking out of the window, or did it 'come at them from a funny angle' (to quote Snatch).

Il Duce
Stanwick is to the east of Southampton - it's the replacement for West Drayton but with more whistles and bells and a moat!

Interesting that the report on the Typhoon join near-miss fails to properly recognise the weakness in Voyager Tanker proceedures. After joining, control of the receiver is passed to the MSO! :eek: That is the problem!
Mind you, this report is just the deliberations of the airprox board. The responsibility for taking backward steps with UK AAR capability lays at the feet of some career thrusters within that sphere over the last ten years! :yuk:

OAP

In the interests of accuracy, it's Swanwick.

Our control centres - NATS

Onceapilot, I agree with that view!

When I first started AAR, it was standard procedure for the 'operating pilot' to fly the tanker, talk to the receivers and to ATC/SOC all on the same radio frequency. That was fine, because AAR slots were generally 30 min and we rarely had more than a 4-ship in the slot.

As time went by, someone decided that AAR slots could be reduced to 20 min. That meant that the chance of receivers leaving with others joining and some still refuelling increased. Those of us with experience could still cope with all the radio chat, but it was harder for newcomers to learn the art than it had been for us 10 years earlier.

So the idea of a discrete 'boom' frequency was proposed - I wrote some SOPs which went to Staneval, but they never got round to putting them into effect. The idea was to operate as on a trail - pilot-flying dealt with the receivers on the 'boom' frequency and pilot-not-flying dealt with ATC/SOC. Inbound receivers would only be accepted when the pilot-flying was happy; all the RV call etc. would take place on the ATC/SOC frequency and the receivers would only be pushed to the boom frequency when they'd called 'visual'. Clearance to join the formation would only be given by the pilot-flying; he/she would also be the ONLY person responsible for moving receivers around the tanker and clearing them for contact/disconnect etc.

Another nation decided that they wanted the PF to use the ATC/SOC frequency, with the PNF controlling receiver movement on the boom frequency. I advised against this, but they insisted. Then they devolved receiver movement to their air refuelling officers once the receivers had reached echelon, or the 'observation' position as it became. They coped with this ONLY because their air refuelling officers were experienced fast-jet backseaters who were very familiar with formation control and had bags of spare capacity. But I still recommended that only the pilot at the controls should move receivers around the formation - I once witnessed a PF turning the aircraft just as a Tornado had been cleared for contact by the air refuelling officer, much to the Tornado crew's surprise. I explained in the debrief that this was precisely why only one pilot should fly the formation. But it's their train set and they cope fine due to the well above average quality of their air refuelling officers - whereas my proposed SOPs were for 3 'average' crew members!

We offered the RAF an opportunity to come and play with the full mission AAR desktop trainer to evaluate SOPs - but there was no money in the budget for such a thing....:rolleyes:

OAP, there's a fair bit in that report about datalink issues etc. But the SOP shouldn't require such things and, as they used to be, should be simple enough to work with the basic principles which the RAF AAR force developed through long experience.

OAP

Explain please how this incident has anything to do with the "problem " that you have identified.

Hi VASCO,
OAP

In the first instance with the F-15's, why is the tanker sitting at such a low FL? Most modern aircraft with a modicum of performance can tank at least 10k above that height..

SATCOS WB,

Yes, the highly polished Miliary radar services of the 80's and 90's did seem to wane somewhat. Seemed like it was a whole new crew by 2005. Overall, still generally got a great service though.:ok:

OAP

Towline 8, Wash ATA and 323C has always been an 'interesting' mix.

As to the tanker procedures - it does seem rather slack compared with those CGB was taught a few decades back.

flighthappens, ARA8 is limited to FL70-FL170 and airway Y70 is immediately to the south, with a base of FL175.

OAP at what point is the MSO given control of the receivers? Surely not before they've established in echelon / observation? Who clears the receivers to leave the formation?

Beagle, Ack, I am aware of the airway to the south.

I did not realise TL8 was capped. why is it capped given it is clear of controlled airspace? I'm guessing because of the lateral proximity?

OAP

The Rx were still talking to the pilots at the time! I would suggest that your concerns are out of place here. Yes BEags the transfer is at echelon left and the PF clears them to leave.

Going back to the F15 Airprox, the incident shows how TCAS is no panacea for all Mil situations. A large aircraft cannot outmanoeuvre a fighter/bomber that maintains a collision flightpath while manoeuvring. Even if RA was enabled and followed, a manoeuvring FJ that happens to follow a dynamic path to collision cannot be avoided. TCAS can only assure a miss against steady flightpath traffic or compliant TCAS avoiding traffic. This should be fully understood. On the same basis, I think that active AAR block levels should normally be reserved for only co-ordinated Military traffic, as a Military restriction. It may be difficult to further restrict Civil traffic but, it is rare that civil conflictions occur and Mil radar should direct the Tanker to avoid laterally by a wide margin.

OAP

Hi VASCO,

Further,

Vasco, if you have different knowledge of the incident, we would all like to hear. :ok:

OAP

vascodegama, what is the point in transferring receiver control to the MSO? I can see it for boom tankers where the boom operator communicates with the receiver he/she's plugging, but for probe and drogue why would a pilot flying a tanker transfer control of receiver formation movement around the aircraft to anyone else? It is bound to increase intercom activity, if only to avoid the scenario I mentioned earlier where one person cleared a receiver for contact and another decided to turn without seemingly being aware of the approaching receiver.

So what is the perceived benefit? Personally I consider that it increases risk.

The push to boom frequency should only be made, in my view, when a receiver confirms visual with the tanker. Once on the boom frequency it should be cleared to join by the PF. When AAR is complete, it should be pushed to the ATC/SOC frequency with the allocated squawk whilst in echelon right, then cleared to leave by the non-flying-pilot, who has probably also advised ATC/SOC that the receivers area about to leave the formation, thus improving the controller's SA as well as that of other receivers inbound to the tanker.

OAP

The rx was on the boom frequency but not actually joined echelon -therefore he was talking to the PF . Can't think of any other way of putting it sorry.

BEags

Not my idea I am afraid.

Alternatively the fighter maintains the control frequency on one radio (for SA on other traffic) and boom on another...

Understood, vasco'.

But surely someone must have thought that it was a good idea? Otherwise why change the tried and tested ways of the past, which worked well?

Nope - one radio for communicating with people (whether tanker or ATC/SOC) outside the fighter formation and the back box for communicating with wingmen inside the fighter formation.

If you need to chatter that much that you are obtrusive on the tanker you are probably doing it wrong. Besides, you can (almost) always use Mids voice....

It's hard not to pass-up the opportunity to criticise the tanker dudes but I am finding it impossible to ignore Typhoon #5's really bad day. Even if the chap was completely tumbleweed he would have remembered that his formation alone was rather large, short of fuel, arriving out-of-sequence and fighting for the illusive VMC. On top of this he had the tanker to join and departing aircraft to consider.

At the point he found himself back in IMC trail, with no SA, talking to nobody but a tanker crew, I just wonder if any of the hairs on the back of his neck were actually serviceable.

....did the RAF A330 pilot manage to get a photo of the incident? 😱😱😱

Vasco, that is not how the report is written....

Now, this says Typhoon 5 was on boom freq (therefore with the MSO) or, do you know different?


OAP

OAP

It is not the act of switching to the boom frequency that transfers the control of the receiver ; it is when the rx reaches echelon left that the PF gives control to the MSO. This had not yet happened so I stand by my statement.Your quotation says he maintained 2.5 mile trail-this is very much still in pilot control territory.

Once I'd picked my coffee mug off the carpet, I took a snap of the TCAS for posterity. Just grabbed the camera from it's storage location by the side stick...

AARA 8 is capped at FL 160 as at the eastern end, just east of the CP is a segment of Dutch delegated airspace, base of FL175, so that drives the top of Area 8 as well as Y70 to the south. You can operate higher in coordination with Swanwick, but if the weather is nice, there is no need to get in the way (and Swanwick are already maxed out in this sector, hence the incident).

http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2017-05-25.pdf

One does have to wonder WTF is going on these days...

Just tonight the lovely Geraldine announced another 'close encounter' of the military aircraft kind on the local TV news; details are at http://www.airproxboard.org.uk/uploa...%202017029.pdf

:uhoh:

@Beagle:
Back in the early 90's a friend of mine died when one P-3 flew into the other P-3, relieving on station, San Diego Op Area, fleet exercise. Two dozen fatalities. Two crews gone. The guys from our squadron who were on the SAR/recovery missions didn't find very much that was very big ...

Back to the original incident.
Mixing traffic operating IFR in VMC with high performance ac operating VFR in VNC is always fraught with difficulty. The fact that AAR 8 is so close to the Norfolk coast is also a factor. There is always a compromise in location of AAR tracks between convenience to receivers and safety.
There is no doubt that the F15 crews should have known AAR 8 was active, however, they were perfectly entitled to be there under see and avoid. Why 4 aircrew, two radars and interrogators failed to see the tanker is of concern?
I find it curious why the tanker pilot turned belly up to the Eagles and therefore losing sight? I’m not convinced that all pilots are trained on collision geometry and how to break a collision. Yes you may break your IRF bubble but at least moving the contacts in the windscreen will avoid metal coming together.
As to later comments in this thread concerning who has control on which frequency when conducting AAR amuses me. This argument has gone on for years and is still not resolved. Since the RAF operates throughout the world the general principle of all doing the same must prevail. I can recall numerous incidents in Bosnia, Kosovo and The Middle East where difference procedures in a multi-national coalition caused confusion. If a very experienced, strong willed individual has an opinion he should write a paper and send it to the appropriate regulating authorities.

Agreed that the F-15s should have awareness of the activity of Area 8, but the report failed to mention that the tankers have no awareness of the bookings for the Wash ATA either. A simple info exchange would solve that. But neither F-15s or tanker received any traffic information on each other from ATC, despite being under traffic information service. See and avoid was in play, and that, plus luck, is what ultimately stopped a collision.

As for why the tanker turned away, consider a pair that you are just visual with. They are in the 10 o'clock low, 5 miles climbing rapidly. TCAS then alerts you to the collision potential due to their rate of climb. Do you turn towards the rapidly blooming aircraft at your max 30 degrees angle of bank? Or away? Or just plough straight on. Tankers are not manoeuvrable especially when the closure is so fast. It takes 5 seconds to action a turn. They definitely can't 'break' to avoid! The tanker turn was initiated as the likely best course of action to avoid the F-15s, in self preservation. The tanker only had time to roll in before the encounter. Monitoring on TCAS and out the window (before the protagonist went under the nose) in the 10 seconds we had failed to mitigate any collision threat. Hence the 'luck' element alluded to in the report.

6foottanker,

You have kind of answered my point. Had the tanker turned left, even a little bit in the time allowed, the F15s would have crossed the nose further away. Its all to do with collision geometry and how to visually recognise and then break a collision.
I am an advocate of TCAS, however, sometimes there is too much reliance on it. Obviously, tanker pilots are used to operating with many "fast movers" operating near to them. There may be an assumption that ALL are visual with the Texaco but this is not always true. Being "heads out" on both sides of the cockpit is still of vital importance.

A turn south would have flown us into the lead (easterly) jet, and you are assuming both F-15s don't change track. They were requested to stop climb as they approached the tanker (and reduced climb rate) so the geometry was against us in each case. A turn away increases the tanker's relative profile to assist visual acquisition and also was auctioned to take the aircraft away from the perceived constant bearing (visually) of the climbing fast jets. However, due to the lack of available response time, the tanker would have been in the same bit of sky whatever they did, once the decision to manoeuvre was made.
But I agree about the TCAS diminishing lookout. Not a factor in this case though since they were seen by me before the TA call.

Stan
 

[QUOTE=Il Duce;9840837]According to the Tegleraph, a "flight controller" at "Stanwick" was involved. Anyone give a clue to where that is exactly?[/QUOTE

I think you'll find they were talking about Stan Wick who works at Netispaddock.

Wherever that is.

6foottanker, thanks for your reply. Can you tell me what is the maximum bank angle/G that the Voyager is cleared to. Whilst I understand how AT normally operates in Controlled Airspace, a tanker operating in Class G the pilot must be more willing, and able, to operate the ac to it's limits.

Many moons ago I had a similar conversation with Victor crews. Only when they were about to go to war were they interested in how to max perform their aircraft and their StanEval even developed a missile break!!

tarantonight
Oh, that Stan Wick. I thought he'd packed in flight controlling when West Draylon closed. I knew him when he first graduated from Shorbury, I think he got posted to St Athens followed by a tour at Waddingham. Anyhow, good to know he's still guiding the aircraft along the runway with his table tennis bats.

A vital component here is currency.
I am now into my 35th year as an Air Defender and changes over the last 15 years has been dramatic. You can talk all all you like about process and procedure but you cannot teach experience. That comes from hands on practice, and lots of it. In the 80s I could look at a radar picture of the North Sea and it would be chocker with Mil activity. Today (literally), it's like 'Where'e Walt'.
Simulation is the drug of choice and I would say we are at, or close to, an 80/20 split in favour of simulation. Don't get me wrong, the new simulators are excellent but there is no substitute for the real thing.
In the 80s, as an instructor, I could get a student controller at least 2 live sorties a day. A mixture of control levels and a mixture of airspace activity to deal with. Today, 3 a week is considered good but they will do another 7 or so on the simulator so the spread sheet looks good. Once qualified they join a queue as the flying available goes to the students. Skill fade is quick, especially when you add in a 4 month tour in the Falklands not long after qualification. It is a vicious circle.
When it comes to active towlines, and we don't get that many anymore, they are active danger areas and should be treated as such. Irrespective of Radar Service requested in Class G airspace they should be coordinated and restrictions enforced. As a Tanker controller, once I had taken over the joining aircraft and they were 2 way with the Tanker, it was the Tanker Capt who had primacy. Have to admit I am out of the loop a little as to current procedures.
The RAF has shrunk beyond recognition and we are trying to do the same with less. One of the casualties is, and will always be, currency and experience. That is the same, I would say, no matter what your specialisation. The days that ORAC described are well and truly gone.

Dominator, I don't think you will find anyone is likely to talk about specifics. However, you are right that crews should be able to use their aircraft within its limits. The fact is though, an airliner / tanker has very limited max manoeuvrability (in the realms of 50 degrees bank, 20 degrees pitch and +0.5 to +2.0 G). This is very little with which to try and negate a close-in confliction with a dynamic FJ. Coupled with limited flightdeck visibility, the only way to safely operate these large aircraft in the Military FJ environment is to control FJ activity around them.
BTW, the Victor "missile break" would, I think, be a misnomer.:)

OAP