Multicom vs area frequency

[Biggles_in_Oz]

As triton140 and CAR 166C say, the only mandatory broadcasts are to avoid collisions (which sortof implies that we are all-seeing/all-knowing sky gods who can foretell when problems will arise)

CASA have a publication (dated 2014) called "Operations at non-controlled aerodromes" http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_asset...ca_booklet.pdf

It explicitly says "Under CAR 166 C, you must make a radio broadcast whenever it is reasonably necessary to avoid a collision or the risk of a collision."
and also
" Pilots should monitor and broadcast their intentions on the relevant Area VHF when operating at aerodromes not depicted on aeronautical charts."

So it becomes a matter of just what the word, "should', really means.

[Clare Prop]

So Clare, you must be one of the instructors who's teaching the pilots that I hear Centre trying, unsuccessfully, to contact, to warn them of a pending penetration of an active Romeo or controlled airspace. Or to try to get them to squawk ident to confirm location and then altitude, for the safety of other nearby, IFR, traffic. Or to try to confirm the location of an aircraft that's past its SARTIME.


Well Creampuff, I can't speak for other training providers but must say I'm astonished too, that you think the we let our students get themselves into those sorts of situations. Perhaps you need to become familiar with the competencies required to get a PPL before going on the attack like that.

We don't cruise at IFR altitudes, for a start. We don't go cruising merrily into Romeo or Class C airspace and we keep track of our SARtimes. Just basic stuff, really. And you would be amazed how much less likely it is with some of the things like Ozrunways around.

I think this shows exactly how some segments of industry have absolutely no idea how others operate. I can assure you all there was zero consultation with CFIs about any of this, as usual. We just have to try and present a dogs breakfast in a logical way.

I still have a lot to learn but I think my 11.000 hours of instructing may be worth something in this debate.

What is the point of being on Melbourne Centre when we are too low for them to see on radar? And usually they can't hear us either, or perhaps they are just ignoring us. Perth Centre is different but they are not doing the same job as Melbourne Centre.

Meanwhile I will continue to use the broadcasts even though they are no longer mandatory ...because how will you know if a collision risk exists if everyone is in stealth mode....and will do it on CTAF...and only use aerodromes that are published on charts (which we do anyway)

[Dick Smith]

" Pilots should monitor and broadcast their intentions on the relevant Area VHF when operating at aerodromes not depicted on aeronautical charts."

This is stark raving mad. That's where the multicom of 126.7 was to be used.

Then again I suppose if professional controllers don't object to such madness on their frequencies- why should we?

It's clearly an attempt to return to what someone once learnt in the 60's.

Where's our retired FSO when we need him!

Come on. Someone must be able to advise who drove this revisionism at CASA?

Or could it be Creamy?

Try doing this in Canada, USA or the UK- they will have you certified.

[ForkTailedDrKiller]

Gotta agree with you on this one Dick!

Seems like a really stupid idea.

Dr

[Creampuff]

Clare: Your students don't make mistakes? Wow - will you and they be starting a religion?

Actually, your students do make mistakes. But that's not the main point.

Your students don't need to be making a mistake in order for Centre to want to talk to them. Your aces may well be cruising at the proper VFR cruising level, but Centre needs to talk to your aces in order to verify the accuracy of the information being transmitted by the transponder, before passing information to the IFR aircraft nearby. Or your aces may be blissfully ignorant of the fact that the transponder fitted to the aircraft is transmitting an inaccurate altitude that's causing problems for others in the system.

It might be a student from another school that's forgotten to cancel his SARTIME, and your aces might help save a lot of SAR resources if they can provide information to Centre.

If you and your aces monitored the area frequency, rather than bimbling along listing to 126.7 alone, you and they would already know this.

Dick: It's me. I decided that the rules would require this. Everyone else said "no", but I said I didn't care and that the rules had to say what I wanted them to say or I would stamp my feet and hold my breath. Worked a treat.

Listen everybody: Do what ever you like. It's your licence, not mine.

[tecman]

I've never had any doubt about what I'm supposed to do when there is no marked airfield on the map: listen and broadcast on the area freq or Centre as required. Definitely had a few terse controllers from time to time, and there's often a need for very minimal and judicious broadcasts. But it's the only approach that makes sense of the rules as written.

It's not a big issue these days as the $1200 comm in my bug smasher has a dual-watch function for two frequencies, which is a poor man's twin transceiver arrangement. Works well, and often buzz around Perth local area with the CTAFs as the primary freq and Centre as the secondary.

While I appreciate many of Dick's reforms, I thought the uncertainty introduced in frequency selection was a real step backwards. To have a situation where a pilot with precise 3-space coordinates experiences ambiguity as to which frequencies to use is plain silly, and by the looks of this thread we have a way to go yet in setting it right.

[Clare Prop]

Wow, just...wow.

It is a required competency in order to qualify for a PPL, that you don't do stuff like that.

Being competent doesn't mean you are an "ace" as far as I know "aces"are in the air force and I am a civvie pilot so I don't quite know what you mean.

I'm just trying to present this from the point of view as someone who trains and tests people who are going to be using these procedures during Day VFR. There is enough here in Australian aviation which is very illogical, which makes it harder to teach and learn and now we have more.

Clearly there are those "on high" who know better than us because there was zero consultation or education to industry. Zero.

But I do know that some friends who do charter out of a popular REGISTERED aerodrome with a discrete CTAF who are having more problems with people rocking up and saying nothing, and this is at an aerodrome where carriage of radio is mandatory....now it seems USING it is optional and the collision risk has now gone from known to unknown.

Once again I ask the question, how can you know a collision risk exists if nobody is talking? I really don't want a repeat of having an Air Tractor taking off in the opposite direction to me on short final because he didn't feel like talking or listening to anyone that day.

[Tankengine]

Let us not even mention those who either don't talk or use someone else's callsign to avoid movement charges! whoops!

[Creampuff]

Isn't one of the performance criteria for an element of the PPL, under Unit C8:

Maintains radio communications and listening watch with ATS/ATC

How does one do that on 126.7?

Clare: If your students aren't being taught to monitor the area frequency, wherever they may go or be, my view is that they may not be as effective a participant in the system of safety as they might otherwise be. (But note: I'm a nobody.)

I agree it's a complete dog's breakfast (that I didn't cook).

Maybe it would be less of a dog's breafast if people at least complied with the rules that are clear (not many of those) and, if the clear rules are wrong, got them changed. (Good luck with that - did I say I was a nobody - and I'm jiggered if I know who's in charge of the rules.)

[Clare Prop]

If you only have one radio, as most of our aircraft do, it would be nuts to monitor the "area" frequency rather than the one that other people are (hopefully) broadcasting on in your vicinity.

Most of the time on navexes here in WA we are way out of range of any ATC and down below 5000 calls to Melbourne Centre for flight plan amendments if they are heard are being ignored. So that listening watch would be "if" they were required to in order to operate in controlled airspace.

If we are on Melbourne Centre, hearing RPT aircraft at flight levels is not really going to contribute to the safety of our flight.

If we are operating at an aerodrome that has an instrument approach, those aircraft are also on the CTAF.

So the students are taught to decide which frequency will give them the best chance of gaining situational awareness of aircraft in their vicinity.

I'll refer you to the MOS Schedule 2 Section 2 unit C1.2 and unit OGA 2.1 (c)

[Creampuff]

If you only have one radio, as most of our aircraft do, it would be nuts to monitor the "area" frequency rather than the one that other people are (hopefully) broadcasting on in your vicinity.

That's a completely circular argument.

The frequency on which other people should be broadcasting is determined by the rules. The rules are in the NOTAM quoted earlier in this thread, and are the rules that I and every other pilot I know thought already applied for over a decade.

If you want to teach your students to bimble along listening to 126.7 alone, even when they are not in the vicinity of a strip marked on a chart, go for it: it's a free world. Just note that there could be other people bimbling along monitoring and broadcasting on the area frequency.

I don't make the rules. I just try to work out what they mean - this week - and comply with them.

[andrewr]

What should happen, and what used to happen when aviation was regulated competently and pilots were trained to a standard, was that the organisers of the fly in would arrange for the promulgation of a thing called a 'NOTAM' that pilots used to 'read' and 'comprehend' as part of their 'pre-flight planning' and 'operational decision-making', in which NOTAM the location of and discrete frequency for the activity could be specified.

So when the local aero club has a members-only fly in BBQ at a member's farm strip they should be publishing a NOTAM?

[andrewr]

The rules are in the NOTAM quoted earlier in this thread, and are the rules that I and every other pilot I know thought already applied for over a decade.

The rules as I understood them (and other pilots I have spoken to, but I haven't asked every pilot I know) were that at an airfield you used the specific frequency if one had been specified, and 126.7 if no specific frequency had been assigned.

Away from airfields, you monitored but did not broadcast on area (except for some specific high traffic areas e.g. Melbourne coastal route where broadcasts were recommended).

This sounds like it is heading back towards a requirement for VFR aircraft in general to broadcast on area. Otherwise I'm not sure what is special about an unmarked strip that requires a broadcast, as opposed to leaving an airfield where there is a CTAF defined.

[Creampuff]

So when the local aero club has a members-only fly in BBQ at a member's farm strip they should be publishing a NOTAM?

Depending on where that strip is, and depending on whether it’s marked on a chart and you want to avoid clogging up the area frequency if it isn’t marked on a chart: YES. OF COURSE. PUBLISH A NOTAM. I’ve read NOTAMS about kite flying and kid’s balloon releases FFS. It ain’t hard. (I will make my point another way: What is the risk in arranging for a NOTAM about the fly-in to be published?)

Although I realise it may be particularly confronting for Gen Ys, it not all about them. It’s also about ‘others’ who ‘share’ the sky and also want to be safe. Others may have an interest in avoiding the vicinity of an unmarked airstrip at which this fly-in activity will occur.

I'm not sure what is special about an unmarked strip that requires a broadcast, as opposed to leaving an airfield where there is a CTAF defined.

And therein lies the crux of the operational conundrum.

To someone who’s flying near but unaware of an airstrip that isn’t marked on the charts, it looks just like all the other million square miles of land that doesn’t have a marked airstrip. People around there will be monitoring the area frequency, because that’s what the rules require and they don’t know about the unmarked strip - it's unmarked.

The people flying in and out of the unmarked airstrip will know about it, but others won’t. Others would like to know. Given that the others are obliged to be monitoring the area frequency, the way in which to alert them to activities at an airstrip that is not marked on the charts for that area is to …. get the people operating at the airstrip to broadcast on area (or get the strip marked or get a NOTAM published).

And in a wonderful coincidence, here’s the text of a post from the ‘QLINK CTAF calls on Centre’ thread:

Yet despite these calls we still get targets on the TCAS who are conveniently mute and all the while we are coming up on their caboose at a great rate of knots.

To the 'weekend warriors' and smaller operators out there - PLEASE be on the appropriate frequency and be proactive in letting us know where you are. Saves on paperwork later on

There are rules about what the ‘appropriate frequency’ is.

[Trent 972]

Creampuff is correct. The law is the law.
Dick Smith is correct. The law is an ass.
Clare is correct. Teaching common sense.
The law has been tested by the vast majority of GA pilots and is ignored as being unworkable.

[Creampuff]

Yet there are lots of pilots who say the requirements set out in the NOTAM quoted in this thread are a ‘no-brainer’.

Just goes to show that what may appear common sense to one man may appear stupid to another.

I guess that’s one of the reasons societies make rules.

[dartman2]

A couple of observations:

1. When referring to AD's marked on charts, which charts? There are lots that may be on a VNC but not on the WAC or VV covering the same location. this of course can lead to two aircraft at the same place on different frequencies.

2. The "area frequencies" are primarily for aircraft in class A/C airspace. They are not the same as the old FS frequencies. Nobody in upper airspace needs to hear somebody in a light aircraft operating into his mates farm. Many of these frequencies are retransmitted so half the country gets to listen to it.

3. Just to further complicate things there is a lot of confusion out there which area frequency should be monitored (class C or E where applicable).

The answer should be:
1. Use the TWR frequency if airspace is not active
2. Use the designated CTAF for the AD or broadcast area
3. In ALL other cases use 126.7

Alternatively bring back Flight Service (like they have done at Headland).

[Creampuff]

The "area frequencies" are primarily for aircraft in class C airspace. … [T]here is a lot of confusion out there which area frequency should be monitored (class C or E where applicable).

Evidently.

So d2, let’s take the ERC LL and the stuff on it around - random pluck - Broken Hill.

On that chart there are some green solid lines, and some brown dashed lines, that make a big box, near the centre of which is Broken Hill.

The chart legend says that the green solid line means “G Frequency Boundary” and the brown dashed line means “E Frequency Boundary”.

On that chart there is also a frequency box near Broken Hill. In that box there are brown letters and numbers that say “ML CEN 122.6” and green letters and numbers that say “ML CEN 122.6”.

There are also some blue letters and numbers that say “A LL FL245” and some brown letters and numbers that say “E LL FL180”.

What is a “G Frequency”?

What frequency should aircraft below FL 180 be monitoring in that area around Broken Hill, if the aircraft is not in the vicinity of any aerodrome?

[dartman2]

Creampuff, yes I know that but plenty do not. That was my point.

I know of many that think they should monitor the overlying E frequency (which is sometimes different).

[Creampuff]

Goodo.

Gotta say that your knowledge wasn’t abundantly clear from your post, but be that as it may and while we’re on a roll with the area around Broken Hill ….

On what frequency should Farmer Brown transmit if he wants people to know that he’s taking off from his un-marked airstrip 65 nautical miles to the East of Broken Hill (and coincidentally right under W516), and what frequency should he be monitoring until in the vicinity of Broken Hill during his flight over at 6,500’?