Further CASA CTAF problems shows not working!
Flying from Tennant to Birdsville the requirement is to monitor the 125.4 MHz area frequency. Obviously the 120.3 Torres Straight frequency is ganged to this to maximise AsA profits.- plus up to another 10 or so transmitters .
Are you seriously suggesting that 12 or more controllers should be employed so that each controller has a single frequency?
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Griffo,
Back in my days as a separator of airframes and later on as a manager of folk doing that I was always impressed when I watched you guys managing frequencies. Concert pianists had nothing on you guys.
MJG
Back in my days as a separator of airframes and later on as a manager of folk doing that I was always impressed when I watched you guys managing frequencies. Concert pianists had nothing on you guys.
MJG
up to 13 frequencies are coupled together to try and make it work at an affordable cost
An extra 12 or 13 controllers handling what 1 controller does now would also bring us more into line with the US (we obviously need to copy from the best), as their system requires 15 times more controllers to run it than ours does.
Last edited by Traffic_Is_Er_Was; 31st Mar 2016 at 21:58. Reason: spellig...damn
Thread Starter
I would prefer the system used in every other leading aviation country in the world for VFR traffic. That is in the approach area for an aerodrome monitor the CTAF.
Otherwise leave your radio on any frequency you think best . Commonsense states that in areas like north of Birdsville the best frequency would be 121.5 as you can get out an emergency call at any time to a high flying airline aircraft. Also ATC can call you if necessary if you have flown into restricted airspace via a high flying airline aircraft as a relay.
Otherwise at typical VFR flight levels in most cases you would be out of VHF range of AsA ground stations so a mayday call will most likely not be received by anyone.
The CTAF frequency problem this thread is covering is entirely caused by the wound back CASA requirement that VFR monitor and announce on area frequencys that are often also used for ATC separation purposes.
No other country has such a 1950s requirement. It worked then because there were 700 Flight Service Officers employed to monitor all these calls and this allowed the calls to be kept off ATC separation frequencies.
Otherwise leave your radio on any frequency you think best . Commonsense states that in areas like north of Birdsville the best frequency would be 121.5 as you can get out an emergency call at any time to a high flying airline aircraft. Also ATC can call you if necessary if you have flown into restricted airspace via a high flying airline aircraft as a relay.
Otherwise at typical VFR flight levels in most cases you would be out of VHF range of AsA ground stations so a mayday call will most likely not be received by anyone.
The CTAF frequency problem this thread is covering is entirely caused by the wound back CASA requirement that VFR monitor and announce on area frequencys that are often also used for ATC separation purposes.
No other country has such a 1950s requirement. It worked then because there were 700 Flight Service Officers employed to monitor all these calls and this allowed the calls to be kept off ATC separation frequencies.
So Dick, do you think you could get your master of Risk Management and font of all knowledge aviation, Leddie, to give us the numbers on Maydays from VFRs that have been missed by ATC and had a bad outcome when an immediate response to that Mayday would have prevented that bad outcome? Thanks.
Oh, and just to keep you on the straight and narrrow, what enroute frequency you use is totally irrelevant to the topic of this thread: the frequency to use at an aerodrome. Try to stay focussed.
Oh, and just to keep you on the straight and narrrow, what enroute frequency you use is totally irrelevant to the topic of this thread: the frequency to use at an aerodrome. Try to stay focussed.
Commonsense states that in areas like north of Birdsville the best frequency would be 121.5 as you can get out an emergency call at any time to a high flying airline aircraft. Also ATC can call you if necessary if you have flown into restricted airspace via a high flying airline aircraft as a relay.
The most important things to improve your chances of survival, and to help search and rescuers are:
1. Know how to handle an emergency, forced landing or ditching.
2. Before departing, submit a flight plan, SARTIME or leave a Flight note with someone responsible. If you have to make a forced landing, a major confidence booster to survival is knowing that a search will have commenced.
3. In the event of an emergency, get out a MAYDAY or PAN call. If not operating on an ATS frequency, always have the area or overlying airspace frequency set for immediate use. This is the most responsive method to alert the search and rescue system.
4. During an emergency, after completing the pilot actions and communications calls, activate your 406 MHz distress beacon (ELT, PLB or EPIRB). Make sure it is registered with AMSA.
5. Make sure you have survival equipment suitable for the area being overflown. Know how to use it, and make sure you keep it well maintained. An emergency supply of drinking water is crucial. Also ensure that you have an emergency supply of prescribed medications.
1. Know how to handle an emergency, forced landing or ditching.
2. Before departing, submit a flight plan, SARTIME or leave a Flight note with someone responsible. If you have to make a forced landing, a major confidence booster to survival is knowing that a search will have commenced.
3. In the event of an emergency, get out a MAYDAY or PAN call. If not operating on an ATS frequency, always have the area or overlying airspace frequency set for immediate use. This is the most responsive method to alert the search and rescue system.
4. During an emergency, after completing the pilot actions and communications calls, activate your 406 MHz distress beacon (ELT, PLB or EPIRB). Make sure it is registered with AMSA.
5. Make sure you have survival equipment suitable for the area being overflown. Know how to use it, and make sure you keep it well maintained. An emergency supply of drinking water is crucial. Also ensure that you have an emergency supply of prescribed medications.
BTW: If you activate your 406MHz beacon, it transmits on 121.5 ...
Thread Starter
Lead balloon. AMSA are made up of people who rarely ask advice. I have done over twenty years of testing on what frequency is most likely to get an answer on in an emergency.
Also any recommendation which requires a VFR pilot to be constantly heads down looking at the chart to find the correct frequency is crazy.
The AMSA advice is very likely to get no answer at all if followed 80 nm south of Charlieville at low levels - and lots of other places. But 121.5 I have found always works.
Also any recommendation which requires a VFR pilot to be constantly heads down looking at the chart to find the correct frequency is crazy.
The AMSA advice is very likely to get no answer at all if followed 80 nm south of Charlieville at low levels - and lots of other places. But 121.5 I have found always works.
Last edited by Dick Smith; 1st Apr 2016 at 10:22.
Originally Posted by Dick Smith
Also any recommendation which requires a VFR pilot to be constantly heads down looking at the chart to find the correct frequency is crazy.
Originally Posted by Dick Smith
and lots of other places
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Otherwise leave your radio on any frequency you think best . Commonsense states that in areas like north of Birdsville the best frequency would be 121.5 as you can get out an emergency call at any time to a high flying airline aircraft. Also ATC can call you if necessary if you have flown into restricted airspace via a high flying airline aircraft as a relay.
These days, anyone who is flying around the GAFA without the benefit of a tablet running OzRunways or AvPlan is seriously hampering their capabilities. The cost of acquisition and subscription is but a couple of hours' flying. On OzR (and I'm betting AvPlan too) you can have a constant display of the active FIA frequency for the area. So, to describe the situation as "constantly heads down" is yet more hyperbole.
The concept of using 121.5 as the primary frequency to monitor has at least one massive flaw: it will degenerate into the general purpose chat channel, as it already has in many less developed countries. And why would it not? If you want to contact someone, and everyone has their one radio on 121.5, how else would you reach them? Witness the chaos in China, as an example of the casual use of what is supposed to be an emergency frequency.
Similarly, the scenario of ATC using an airliner as a relay to warn a lightie of a looming airspace penetration is another furphy. How many R areas are sited where an ATC can see it happening, but out of range of a ground station on which to call him?
I'll make the same point I did the last time this issue reared its head: in a perfect world, the low-level traffic would have their own frequency for a given area, so the ATCs and the jets wouldn't have to hear them. That used to be the case, but was deemed too expensive to maintain.
So the next best option, if there is to be some order in the system, is to be on a similarly assigned area frequency. At the moment that is run by an ATC. Simply monitoring whatever you think appropriate is a descent into anarchy, as no two pilots will agree on what that should be.
Marked airport? Easy, use its CTAF frequency, or 126.7 if it doesn't have one, when you're near it.
Unmarked airport? Use the area frequency, for the benefit of those who don't know the place exists. In the remote event of the place being busy enough for the calls to bother ATC, then arrange to have it marked or NOTAMed, and the CTAF rules will apply.
Oh, wait... That's what we're already supposed to be doing.
Thread Starter
Agra. On a recent VFR flight in my Caravan from the east coast to the Kimberly and back I monitored over 1200 calls not one of which was relevant traffic.
It's a "cry wolf" system. Totally useless. You have to look down at your iPad all the time in an attempt to identify locations you have never heard of. And lots of IFR aircraft don't give position reports as on ADSB or under radar coverage. And with up to 13 frequencies on retransmit you are listening to pilots over 500 mn away.
It's a half wound back mess. But keep resisting change. We will make the changes when the new generation comes along.
And if it's so easy tell me the area frequency to monitor at 8500' in these two locations.
First over Goulburn township and second over Goulburn airport. Ha Ha Every second pilot I ask after 5 minutes gives a different answer. And imagine. Completely different frequencies that close and no directed traffic.
And 121.5 won't turn into a chat channel in Aus if it's clear that it's just for emergencies . It's all about leadership. You are just desperately attempting to go back to the system you learnt in!
It's a "cry wolf" system. Totally useless. You have to look down at your iPad all the time in an attempt to identify locations you have never heard of. And lots of IFR aircraft don't give position reports as on ADSB or under radar coverage. And with up to 13 frequencies on retransmit you are listening to pilots over 500 mn away.
It's a half wound back mess. But keep resisting change. We will make the changes when the new generation comes along.
And if it's so easy tell me the area frequency to monitor at 8500' in these two locations.
First over Goulburn township and second over Goulburn airport. Ha Ha Every second pilot I ask after 5 minutes gives a different answer. And imagine. Completely different frequencies that close and no directed traffic.
And 121.5 won't turn into a chat channel in Aus if it's clear that it's just for emergencies . It's all about leadership. You are just desperately attempting to go back to the system you learnt in!
Last edited by Dick Smith; 1st Apr 2016 at 10:25.
On a recent VFR flight in my Caravan from the east coast to the Kimberly and back I monitored over 1200 calls not on of which was relevant traffic.
I always sigh with regret when I figure the right thing to do is monitor 126.7 because I'm sorta like near-ish to flying in the vicinity of an aerodrome with a CTAF of 126.7. I know that once I push that button, I'm going to hear every call from every radio-equipped aircraft in the vicinity of every 126.7 aerodrome within a couple of hundred miles. Not on[e] of which will usually be relevant traffic ....
Here's a thought, Dick: You can just pull the circuit breaker/s for the VHF/s once you're away from any aerodrome in the vicinity of which VHF Comms capability is mandatory. (Lots of no radio aircraft out there already, after all.) That way you won't be bothered by transmissions from anyone on any frequency, and you can reset the circuit breakers when you have to or want to transmit and can handle all those irrelevant traffic calls. (Don't forget to placard the VHF/s and do the MR paperwork though...).
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Agra. On a recent VFR flight in my Caravan from the east coast to the Kimberly and back I monitored over 1200 calls not one of which was relevant traffic.
It's a "cry wolf" system. Totally useless. You have to look down at your iPad all the time in an attempt to identify locations you have never heard of. And lots of IFR aircraft don't give position reports as on ADSB or under radar coverage. And with up to 13 frequencies on retransmit you are listening to pilots over 500 mn away.
It's a half wound back mess. But keep resisting change. We will make the changes when the new generation comes along.
And if it's so easy tell me the area frequency to monitor at 8500' in these two locations.
First over Goulburn township and second over Goulburn airport. Ha Ha Every second pilot I ask after 5 minutes gives a different answer. And imagine. Completely different frequencies that close and no directed traffic.
And if it's so easy tell me the area frequency to monitor at 8500' in these two locations.
First over Goulburn township and second over Goulburn airport. Ha Ha Every second pilot I ask after 5 minutes gives a different answer. And imagine. Completely different frequencies that close and no directed traffic.
It's also possible, though I haven't checked, that both frequencies are worked by the same controller, so that it won't matter which one you're on. In any case, there are frequency boundaries all over the country - they have to be somewhere! Why you feel it's such a scandal that at some point you have to change from one to another, I have no idea.
And 121.5 won't turn into a chat channel in Aus if it's clear that it's just for emergencies . It's all about leadership.
You are just desperately attempting to go back to the system you learnt in!
For the record, I don't want to go back to the system I learned in. I've adapted to the current one, which doesn't work too badly; certainly better than the alternatives you've been proposing.
Thread Starter
The " current one" only works because most pilots do not comply with it.
I would say at least 90% of pilots at aerodromes not marked on charts do not give their calls on the ATC area frequency.
Yes. Even though on some of the flight I was out of VHF ground station range I still ended up with over 1200 useless calls to monitor..
There are many times when the frequency across the chart marked boundary is not worked by the same controller .
The only safe way the system you want can work correctly is to re employ 700 FSOs and put back a directed traffic service.back into class G airspace.
And you haven't answered why all other leading aviation countries do not require frequency boundaries on charts and monitoring by VFR ? Why wouldn't we want to keep it simple and standardise to assist pilots who want to bring their dollars here to rent a plane? It works with cars and the road system.
Re your domestic sector. When I fly the Citation in Aus I am mainly in a stock standard NAS system when en route. Sometimes so quite I have to call the Controller to see if I am still on the air.
It's the low level airspace that is the amateur pathetic joke.
I would say at least 90% of pilots at aerodromes not marked on charts do not give their calls on the ATC area frequency.
Yes. Even though on some of the flight I was out of VHF ground station range I still ended up with over 1200 useless calls to monitor..
There are many times when the frequency across the chart marked boundary is not worked by the same controller .
The only safe way the system you want can work correctly is to re employ 700 FSOs and put back a directed traffic service.back into class G airspace.
And you haven't answered why all other leading aviation countries do not require frequency boundaries on charts and monitoring by VFR ? Why wouldn't we want to keep it simple and standardise to assist pilots who want to bring their dollars here to rent a plane? It works with cars and the road system.
Re your domestic sector. When I fly the Citation in Aus I am mainly in a stock standard NAS system when en route. Sometimes so quite I have to call the Controller to see if I am still on the air.
It's the low level airspace that is the amateur pathetic joke.
Last edited by Dick Smith; 2nd Apr 2016 at 06:32.
I just did a domestic sector, in the course of which I heard several dozen calls which weren't intended for, or relevant to me. Oddly, I managed to heed the ones which were, and the others didn't bother me unduly.
Perhaps we need SELCALL ops. so we only hear those calls specifically for us.
Dick: when was the last time someone told you something here and you realised you were wrong or what you'd been claiming was wrong?
Thread Starter
I have realised I was wrong and changed my mind when in communication with real people many times.
Some of the best decisions I have ever made in life are after I have changed my mind after getting more accurate advice. How else do you reckon I have made a few dollars?
But rarely has this happened on this site because those who don't have a genuine confidence in their views to be open and post under their real name or give me a phone call are pathetic creatures in my view.
Many of you may have agendas that may not benefit the Australian aviation industry as a whole . Why else wouldn't you put your real name to such an important issue as airspace that effects the viability and safety of our industry ? Why else wouldn't you contact me so we can work together to improve our industry?
And by the way. Who's the only person who has made any cost reducing changes in aviation over the last 25 years? Who changed the system so that every pilot has direct access to a radar controller when in survailed airspace ? Could have saved MDX if I had been able to make the change earlier .
Some of the best decisions I have ever made in life are after I have changed my mind after getting more accurate advice. How else do you reckon I have made a few dollars?
But rarely has this happened on this site because those who don't have a genuine confidence in their views to be open and post under their real name or give me a phone call are pathetic creatures in my view.
Many of you may have agendas that may not benefit the Australian aviation industry as a whole . Why else wouldn't you put your real name to such an important issue as airspace that effects the viability and safety of our industry ? Why else wouldn't you contact me so we can work together to improve our industry?
And by the way. Who's the only person who has made any cost reducing changes in aviation over the last 25 years? Who changed the system so that every pilot has direct access to a radar controller when in survailed airspace ? Could have saved MDX if I had been able to make the change earlier .
Last edited by Dick Smith; 2nd Apr 2016 at 06:58.
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The " current one" only works because most pilots do not comply with it.
I would say at least 90% of pilots at aerodromes not marked on charts do not give their calls on the ATC area frequency.
I would say at least 90% of pilots at aerodromes not marked on charts do not give their calls on the ATC area frequency.
In the meantime, perhaps those pilots making up their own rules should try complying with the existing ones. Then we could all see whether there's actually a problem, and make the appropriate changes.
Yes. Even though on much of the flight I was out of VHF ground station range I still ended up with over 1200 useless calls to monitor..
Then are many times when the frequency across the chart marked boundary are not worked by the same controller .
The only safe way the system you want can work correctly is to re employ 700 FSOs and put back a directed traffic service.back into class G airspace.
And you haven't answered why all other leading aviation countries do not require frequency boundaries on charts and monitoring by VFR ? Why wouldn't we want to keep it simple and standardise to assist pilots who want to bring their dollars here to rent a plane? It works with cars and the road system.
The "other countries" of which you speak have systems which relate to their own geography, weather, size of airspace, traffic density, radar coverage, ATC manning levels, and a host of other variables. But I suspect there's only one other country you're really interested in, and a simple cut-and-paste of their setup isn't the solution. I've flown there too, and the system even at jet levels often seems to be made up as they go along, with undocumented local procedures everywhere. Surely that's not what we aspire to.
Finally, to suggest that this be done for the benefit of the teeming hordes who want to come here and rent an aircraft, is possibly your weakest argument yet.
Thread Starter
You are actually flying now in the half wound back Dick Smith system. yes the airspace that you " are pretty happy with"
As Bloggs points out the only reason we have the present system is because I removed the 700 FS officers so all pilots could have direct communication with ATC and radar where there was coverage.
The plan was to move to the proven safe North American system. This system does not allow VFR pilots to make announcements on ATC separation frequencies. This is for obvious safety reasons.
As Bloggs points out the only reason we have the present system is because I removed the 700 FS officers so all pilots could have direct communication with ATC and radar where there was coverage.
The plan was to move to the proven safe North American system. This system does not allow VFR pilots to make announcements on ATC separation frequencies. This is for obvious safety reasons.
Thread Starter
Re evidence re 90% not complying.
On the flight to the Kimberly and back I passed over hundreds of strips that were not marked on charts. From time to time a saw taxiing aircraft. Not once did I hear a call on the ATC area frequency .
On my regular flights from Sydney to The Canberra area I pass over dozens of small strips in the Southern Highlands area . Some are quite busy on weekends. I have not heard one taxiing or circuit call on the Area frequency which I monitor because of the half wound back system requirements.
On the flight to the Kimberly and back I passed over hundreds of strips that were not marked on charts. From time to time a saw taxiing aircraft. Not once did I hear a call on the ATC area frequency .
On my regular flights from Sydney to The Canberra area I pass over dozens of small strips in the Southern Highlands area . Some are quite busy on weekends. I have not heard one taxiing or circuit call on the Area frequency which I monitor because of the half wound back system requirements.
Last edited by Dick Smith; 2nd Apr 2016 at 07:50.
Given the strength of your convictions, you would no doubt be monitoring 126.7 while flying past all those busy unmarked strips.
Did you hear any calls from them on 126.7?
Do you entertain the possibility that those aircraft have no radios, or have them but their pilots make the decision not to use them? I can't remember the last time I heard a call on 126.7 or Area from someone at a strip that isn't marked on a chart.
Did you hear any calls from them on 126.7?
Do you entertain the possibility that those aircraft have no radios, or have them but their pilots make the decision not to use them? I can't remember the last time I heard a call on 126.7 or Area from someone at a strip that isn't marked on a chart.
Thread Starter
I have been attempting to comply with the CASA/Skidmore half wound back rules. I was mostly at 8500'.
I may object to regs which I think are wrong but I always do my best to comply. Also I am interested in seeing if the CASA wound back rules work effectively. If they did I would change my mind and support them.
I may object to regs which I think are wrong but I always do my best to comply. Also I am interested in seeing if the CASA wound back rules work effectively. If they did I would change my mind and support them.