What do you have to do to get a clearance these days?
 

Today was a perfect day for flying. Light winds, and barely a cloud in the sky.

While I was out and about I heard 3 aircraft in an hour requesting clearance through Melbourne CTA. They all sounded like training flights, I suspect from Moorabbin.

One requested transit via Melbourne at 7500.

The others requested clearance to Moorabbin from I think Bendigo and Castlemaine, can't remember the altitudes but they were 6000+.

All were told "Clearance not available". A couple of them sounded kind of surprised.

Is it really so busy on a Saturday afternoon that 7500 over Melbourne is impossible? Or that there is no possible way to transit controlled airspace from north west of Melbourne to Moorabbin (I suspect they would have accepted 9500 at a pinch)?

Is Melbourne CTA now effectively closed to VFR aircraft? Or what do you have to do to get a clearance?

Wouldn't happen in the U.S. Don't worry, IFR lighties are copping the same lack of 'service'

AirNoServices Australia

It's ok, once we've all spent about 25-50% of our Aircrafts worth on upgrading to ADS-B everyone will be so out of pocket that no one will be flying and there will be HEAPS of space available!

Haven't asked for a clearance for a couple of months, however very surprised to hear that Bendigo direct Moorabbin got knocked back as it's almost directly over the top and usually slots in easily. I find my best chances for a clearance are to align myself prior to the request so as to put myself directly over YMEL. You've got me thinking that if I get knocked back in the future I might ask if I can do something like Bendigo - Avalon - Moorabbin; that might work and would still be quicker especially with the usual westerly up top.

9 Pm, sunday night, Bankstown airport, plan submitted to depart YSBK D zone into C and head over the top of Richmond for Dubbo... waited at holding point to runway 11C for 20 FRIGGIN MINUTES waiting for a clearance to depart, all we heard at YSSY was 1 flight outbound to the east, and another 50 miles north. sure enough, we waited until the controller had the inbound flight on the ground at YSS before we got our clearance... :ugh::ugh::ugh:

Folks,
As has been said to me on more than one occasion, including a conference in ASA's headquarters in Can'tberra, re. VFR traffic, words to the meaning: "Why should we provide a service to anybody who doesn't pay".
Tootle pip!!

I had a similar issue last week. IFR from Canberra to Melbourne. Had planned sbg to YBSS. All going well until I got vectored about an extra 50miles east. Even though I was headed west. From what I could see traffic wise it would not have been an issue for me to get a few vectors around the north west. Just a bunch of lazy controllers who couldn't be bothered doing a bit of extra work. Embarrassing to see this is what it is like here. Wouldn't happen in the U.S.

ATC aren't really providing a service for GA anyway. To understand who benefits from ATC, ask who would object if it didn't exist? GA would be quite happy I think.

I understand the need to control traffic around major airports. However, if a large area of airspace is to be reserved for those (hopefully) making money from commercial services, and other users excluded, you could make an argument that they should be paying for the airspace as well as ATC services.

Charge Airservices per cubic mile of class C/D below 10,000 (to be passed on to users) and see how big CTA ends up then :)

How is Airservices funded? by the taxpayer? airways charges? or a combination of both? if its both, then theres no excuse.

Always ask why the clearance is not available, then ask when will it be available! They are service providers and you are requesting a service. We have about 10% of the traffic that the USA have!

"I had a similar issue last week. IFR from Canberra to Melbourne. Had planned sbg to YBSS."

If you had been allowed to fly this route you would have been like the bloke driving along the Monash freeway - on the wrong side of the road.

I believe that if you wish to plan on a non-published route, in CTA, you are supposed to obtain prior approval from ATC. If you get that approval then you should expect to fly the route. If the route is not approved there will be an alternative suggestion.

Where does it say that you have to get approval for an unpublished route? Not a good analogy anyway as there's nothing coming the other way on that route.

There is an obsession in this country with complying with rules that don't exist in the first place. So just make one up, in the name of safety of course.

There are some ATC's that make stuff happen, there are some that delight in stuffing around those that they assume pay 'nothing' for the privilege of gracing controlled airspace. Might pay some of them to do a little research on where the funding is coming from.

These scenarios don't happen in some countries that handle 10 times the traffic we do. Why's that?

There are 15,000 controllers in the US & 800 here.....

Which means we need about 1500 controllers here :ok:

ATC are too busy trying to make all the RPT jets simulataneously speed up while slowing down, maintaining separation while keeping us all bumper to bumper and maintaining 180kts to zot miles while hoping we don't have to go around.

The whole system is stretched beyond capacity and its only going to get worse while governments allow airports and ATC to be run 20 years behind the capacity curve. Bad things are going to start happening in CTA some day, probably better off staying out of there. :hmm:

AIP ENR 1.1-41 para 20.1, 20.4

Have a look at a TAC 3 and note the number of outbound and inbound routes to/from ML to the north that track crosses or is in proximity to.

Isn't a "published route" an issue if you're in a bug smasher...? You certainly aren't going to follow an RPT route.

In my head it seems to work like this and has always worked well for me given that much of the traffic comes from Sydney and Brisbane.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~bc_j400/airspace.jpg

(Slightly out of alignment but you get the drift)

It's airways charges and they pay a dividend to the government every year. So in effect, you are paying the taxpayer.

Squawk7700.

......given that much of the traffic comes from Sydney and Brisbane.

And much of the traffic goes to SY and BN. ML tower clears all departures to 5000. When transferred they usually get unrestricted climb to FL240 or their planned level if lower. If you plot all the SID tracks on a map with unrestricted climb to 5000 you'll see it is very difficult to get an opposite direction light aircraft through that.

Airservices receives no taxation funding. Income is derived from enroute and terminal fees.

RE 'Airservices receives no taxation funding. Income is derived from enroute and terminal fees. '

Is not Airservices 'structured' to pay a 'dividend' to the Fed Gummint...As a Govt Business Enterprise, or is there another name for that now??

i.e. a 'profit margin'.... = a tax on each and every passenger....??

No Cheers :ugh:

My post was in response to uncle8's IFR flight, and Porter's response.

If operating to the IFR in CTA, you need to follow the published route structure unless you have prior ATC approval.

ERSA GEN FPR section 5 covers the preferred flight planning in the Melbourne area, including VFR overflight of the ML CTR.

clearances
 

Lodge a flight plan with accurate ETA'S :)

Squawk7700:

CaptainMidnight

This is what I remember too from when I did it, but these guys seemed to have set up for this exactly and had the clearance denied.

I suspect they were trying to do CTA navs and have a box that needs to be ticked in the syllabus. They probably paid ~$1000 for the nav and will have to try again another day. They might have waited a number of weeks to get weather where 6000+ over Melbourne was possible.

It's easy to deny a clearance, but it can have a big impact on the requestor. It's not necessarily just the minor inconvenience of diverting OCTA.

I have joked in the past that ATC forget that aviation is 3D, but this sounds like it is true.

Does this mean that altitude is not normally used for separation, and aircraft at different altitudes will not be permitted to cross paths without horizontal separation?

I'm guessing that levelling off at 5000 is not usually necessary, so FL240 is given before 5000 is reached. This means clearance for a 20000' block of airspace, which certainly would make it difficult to get other aircraft through.

It makes sense to clear directly to high levels if there are no conflicts, but perhaps when there are other aircraft wanting to transit the airspace a more specific clearance might be helpful - either above or below the other aircraft path.

Vertical separation is a key component of ATC's toolset.

Within a terminal area there may be altitude limits designed into certain SIDs & STARs that provide that vertical separation. Example: an aircraft departing on a SID being vertically separated from another arriving on a STAR where there is a crossover. There are other traffic management practices that may be involved as well.

A visit to an ATSC is worthwhile to understand how it all works, ATC practices and the constraints they work with.

ERSA GEN FPR section 5.7 was indeed added some years back to advise the minimum overflight altitude that is most likely to facilitate a clearance. Availability is of course always subject to traffic at the time of the request, and RWY use at ML is also a factor.

Before filing a flight plan for a CTR/TMA transit it would be worthwhile calling the relevant TMA Traffic Manager (phone numbers are in ERSA) to discuss your requirements, determine the appropriate route/tracking and the likelihood of clearance availability.

And as PA39 has said, filing a flight plan instead of just calling up assists ATC.

ATC's are paid very good money to separate aircraft. There is full radar coverage in all capital cities with most of them having ADSB coverage. There are plenty of options available to the situation described by nosewheel. Seriously, who cares if there's an opposite direction scenario. It may be difficult, is it impossible? Digitus extractus comes to mind.

That's correct and one of the tools we use is workload management. You seem to think that because it's possible it should be accommodated, regardless of the risk. Sorry, that's not the way it works. If I think there's a reasonable chance the extra dozen conflicts and additional complexity you'll create by wandering across my airspace contrary to the general traffic flow will up the workload to potentially unsafe levels then I'd be mad to let you in.

Sure there are options but unless you're there on the day and have the whole picture how can you say which if any were available?

Perhaps an option would be to have our controllers trained on higher volume scenarios. With a mix of GA and RPT.

If we don't have enough controllers say something. Don't use that as an excuse to provide a poor service, instead speak up and say something or how could anything change?

Isn't there a national traffic Center in Canberra that is supposed to be looking at volume and controller numbers? Obviously not working out to the benefit of service paying customers. Why is my $ worth less than someone else's?

No, what I think is there are many tools in your arsenal to deal with risk. If this particular aircraft entering your airspace has saturated it to the point where you can accept no more, than fair enough. Was that the case on this day? I doubt it. Australia slaps itself on the back incessantly about how good it is. I doubt that too. Australia thinks it is the world leading ANSP, that's bull****. There is serious cultural change that needs to take place in there.

I've a pretty fair idea how it works.

Was the aircraft offered transit at a lower level? Was the aircraft offered transit OCTA?

You can train as much as you want. That doesn't particularly change the level where saying "no" is sensible.

You're talking to the wrong end of the animal. We know we need more. It just ain't going to happen because the accountants are simpletons and understand nothing other than averages.

Because it's so much smaller? The problem is the system is built around what the vast majority of the customers are doing. RPT & such flying SIDs and STARs which make an integrated system with built in safety features such as level requirements. I'm sure you'll agree this is a "good thing" as it makes things safer for the flying public. Unfortunately it makes things less flexible for those wanting to do something different. The vast majority win and the small minority lose.

No idea of the circumstances on the day. Have you considered the possibility that we work within the limited resources we have at our disposal?

In the part of the world you inhabit. I'm not saying we're special or you're special but maybe, just maybe we make do with a system that's tailored for the level of traffic we usually deal with? We don't usually have a zillion aircraft so don't have the facilities to handle that many. Double the size of the sectors you have in the US and halve the number of controllers. Would that make any difference?

Transit OCTA? That's up to them - in class G they can fill their boots. I think the point was they were specifically wanting a clearance.

If you really need to get CTA done as part of a course, do it at night..

And I don't know what you guys are doing (or trying to request), but ATC have always done everything they can to help IFR or VFR..

Never been through Tamworth or passed Williamtown then Angel?

I think everyone is aware that ASA is chronically short of controllers, that's what the main issue is. Thing is, with the new Part 61 PPL a CTA endorsement is required meaning more VFR clearance requests. ASA costs these candidates 5-600 dollars every time a 'request' is knocked back, more if it's a test not including the stuff around of coming back and doing it again. VFR pilots are **** scared of requesting clearances and petrified of operating in CTA. Great culture that we've developed here.

Surely not; can't they just head into Essendon instead...? It's still Class C.

Do you want to do an airways clearance properly or via some dinky shortcut into Essendon?

Couldn't agree more. If you are going to be trained on a procedure it needs to be done properly. And yes it's very expensive to have to do it all again because of a denied request. Happened to me.

If students are not getting the experience or knowledge they need we are breeding a a bad culture.

Whilst ASA is significantly understaffed it also depends on the controller you get. You occasionally get a good controller who knows the GA landscape and isn't afraid to use the tools to accomodate a request. Flight plan or not. The tools are there to allow it to all work.

We were talking about Nav's from Bendigo to Moorabbin being forced to transit OCTA. I then suggested going into Essendon.

Going into Essendon CTA / Class C and landing or not (cheaper if you don't) is far more complex than obtaining a VFR transit from Bendigo to Melb in Class C. There would be far better value to depart Moorabbin for Essendon, depart out to the east and then whatever, than a VFR transit over the top of Melbourne.

Getting knocked back on a clearance in the aforementioned scenario does not sound like grounds for a repeat NAV. The school that I do my AFR's at doesn't even actually mandate entry into CTA to comply; they simply assess you on your ability to set yourself up for it and request the clearance.

If a school forced you to re-do a NAV based on the opening posters scenario, then that school is run by money-hungry low-lifes and the student should find another school.

Squawk 7700, you are not an flying school provider, you don't know what you are talking about. Clearances into & out of Essendon without going into Class C above Essendon's zone do not incorporate level or heading changes. Quite often you are processed out via Kalkallo or Westgate bridge because your planned track cannot be accommodated.

There is a culture of 'fark GA, they don't pay' within ASA. It's justified by the table of priorities in AIP.