I responded to the post of the OP. So I agreed with what someone else posted on the matter. What business is that of yours?

I do get "touchy" about posters trying to control / moderate the posts of others. We have official moderators for that.

Excuse me for coming back to my earlier posting, but

seems a total contradiction to the "Interpilot" procedures I was taught. Could anyone substantiate the above quote from an official source? Preferrably one not limited to the UK?

Simple and most definitive answer. If you think there is an aircraft in the vicinity of your planned flight path and the person "responsible" for passing you that information hasn't done so, it is not only smart, but I'd say it's actually neccessary for you to get the required information - unless of course you have the ability to spot every possible traffic in every situation or you blindly believe the Big Sky theory... If the traffic is near, or coming in opposite, it may not be enough time to get adequate information if you first ask ATC/FIS/AFIS/.... which first acknowledges, then asks the other aircraft involved, wait for a response, ...

ICAO Annex 2, 2.3.1 Responsibility of pilot-in-command

Full stop.

The OP asked about air/air transmissions on an active air/ground frequency, in the UK, with someone operating that frequency on the ground. That was what my earlier "no you shouldn't" post was intended to answer.

JO's post says that my answer . From that should I infer that those procedures allow a free-for-all exchange pilot to pilot on an active ATS-attended frequency? Surely not.

When a frequency is inactive eg out of hours or simply unattended, UK CAA CAP413 specifically states as below. However, my perhaps heretical view is that CAP413 is a guide to recommended usage, and common-sense should prevail.

At the last CAA-run "Safety" Evening I attended, under the "we want to hear any suggestions that will enhance safety" session at the end, I raised the question of introducing the Unicom-type and Air-toAir frequency procedures that are available in other countries. The CAA man's ever-so-helpful reply was that I should emigrate.

Why not? Who says?
And again: there exists no such thing as an "air/ground frequency". (or it should be another UK peculiarity).

Jan I have no desire to enter in to a fruitless debate with you, because if you seriously believe that pilots are quite entitled to clog up an active ATS frequency with pilot to pilot calls, then nothing I can say is likely to change that.

And just so you know, in the UK there are numerous Air to Ground Radio frequencies allocated. Here is just one of those facilities, extracted from the White Waltham entry in the UK AIP.

Frequencies
 

#FrequencyLocationUser 1122.600Abbeyshrule,EireAir/GroundDetails2122.600Castlebar, EireAir/GroundDetails3122.600Inverness AirportApproach/TowerDetails4122.600Lerwick (Tingwall)Air/ground and Ai...Details5122.600Seething AerodromeAir/groundDetails6122.600Sherburn-in-Elmet...TowerDetails7122.600White Waltham Aer...Air/GroundDetails

Yes there are several stations on 122.60 and Seething is one. We also pay the CAA/Ofcom £650 per annum for the privilege of using it.

Seething Satco.

I will look up the "Interpilot" section in my ground class syllabus.
As for the A/G: yes, that does seem to be something UK-specific, didn't realise that. But I understand it to be a misleading denomination for a type of service, rather than a property of the frequency.

Agreed that discussion is only useful if aimed at result and consensus.

This thread seems to be drifting around a bit. If it helps, here is a bit of info about the assignment of RTF frequencies. In the UK almost all aircraft service frequency assignments are technically for communication between ground stations and aircraft stations. You will often find this referred to in the rules as air-ground-air or AGA.

Communication directly between aircraft stations is not part of the licence conditions so, technically, except in those situations where we break the rules for safety reasons, pilots should not talk to each other directly.

These licence conditions are largely derived from the International rules set out by the International Telecommunications Union - a United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies - which means they should be very similar in almost all countries. However each country has to put the rules into its own law and this introduces differences.

Almost all frequency assignments in the aviation communication band are for air-ground communication. The use of the frequency to provide an air traffic service (ATC or FIS) or the UK's Air Ground Communication Service is authorised under different rules and is associated with specific frequency assignments.

So, the man at Seething was probably technically correct to say that the OP should not have called the other aircraft directly but as many others have pointed out we will have to be sensible about the way frequencies are used.

Mr Cessna,

I'm surprised that the A/G person at Seething made such a fuss of it. However, it isn't "normal" for two aircraft to talk to each other directly on an airfields frequency when the ground radio is manned and operating.

My suggestion in a situation like this is to make a call to the ground station along the lines of

G-XXXX is at (your location). Not visual with the reported traffic, say again his position.

That is then an open invitation for the other aircraft to report his position to the A/G radio unless the A/G replies.

Then you can't be accused of talking directly to the other aircraft but you have achieved your aim.

I do think that radio operators who spend time on the radio telling pilots off are unprofessional. If the pilot is a student, then they are just overloading him/her and a word later on the ground is much better. If it is a qualified pilot then a word afterwards is also much better.
Duxford once spent an age giving me a bollocking on the radio insisting that I did not have PPR. Wasted minutes where no one else could speak.... and they were wrong, they had mislaid the piece of paper. As an inbound pilot all I could do was argue with them while circling or go home.

Well, I did check it, and found that I was mostly wrong. That is to say, my syllabus says - loosely translated:
"Two planes can call one another, at an appropriate frequency, or with the consent of the controller on an air/ground frequency."
So I was right that there does exist a well defined interpilot procedure, according to my text the messages must include the word "interpilot" and also the frequency; but I had forgotten (if I ever learned it properly) that it is subject to controller approval.

I am even more surprised that my text does mention the concept of "an air/ground frequency" which still sounds very queer to me.

I must admit I had it mostly wrong, sincere apologies!

Radio operators
 

.........The reason I was following up this point is that the person who made the comment 'You are not allowed to talk to another aircraft' shouldnt have been using our ground radio in the first place. ((that's if the transmission wasn't from an aircraft in flight))
There were NO Seething Air Ground operators on the airfield on Monday which was the suggested day of the 'event'. We have a list of 'approved' A/G operators in our club and they are all 'trained to a standard' as laid down in CAP413.

Just unfortunate that I couldnt trace the 'culprit' (in the loosest sense of the word) Perhaps he would have received a RED card.

Two conflicting terms. An A/G station cannot control.

That's true, in the UK with its particular definition of an "air/ground" frequency. Which I still interpret as "the assigned frequency of an air/ground service".

But I did say it was a loose translation, didn't I? My original says "met toestemming van de verkeersleiding op een lucht/grond frequentie" if that is any help to you. "leiding" translates to "controller" for me, literally it would be "director" or "guide" or "manager".

Skyfly150/Seething SATCO

You know as well as I do that on most days the radio next to the bar at Seething is not manned. It is therefore not uncommon for someone to pick up the handset and try to help out if an a/c calls. Hell - I may have even been of doing it myself - passing r/way in use and wind to the air-amby scooshing through the cct on its way to an RTA on the A143. So on days when the club is not A/G manned then any Tom, Dick or Harry (or Mike, Brian or John) could be sitting having a drink and trying to assist.

Whether that person is A/G trained or just a seasoned PPL is a moot point. MOST of the time the info is pertinent, useful and timely. There are occasions and these might emanate from an a/c in the visual circuit that the RT usage departs from CAP413 and becomes more verbose and conversational in nature. Never seems to happen on busy days but during slack periods.

It's quirky and I for one don't dislike it, I guess that you'd have a problem trying to enforce better RT discipline on most Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Bank Holidays.

Stik

Very true, well said. Often with little thought to what the radio is actually there for - i.e. to enhance flight safety.

It appears from what has been posted here that someone who wasn't qualified to use the radio as an A/G operator may have made the radio call which prompted this thread.

Jan, perhaps in this context, Air-Ground frequency refers to ANY radio frequency used for aviation communications, because "Verkeersleiding" suggests indeed "controller" in the sense of being in charge, and there are no "controllers" on UK A/G frequencies, I believe they are called operators as they are not allowed to control anything.

Groetjes

Bert

On two occassions in my career I have been cleared to line up and asked,

"shall I wait for the landing aircraft to land first"?

I have also refused to descend to altitudes below what I considered to be my safety sector altitude on at least two occasions, on one occasion ATC later admitted they had been vectoring the wrong aircraft.

The commander of an aircraft has the ultimate decision on whether to obey any instructions given to him and its this quality that makes a commander, not pedantic hair splitting or point scoring on forums..

Unauthorised use of A/G
 

Absolutely correct Stiknrudda......A....Yes we all know that does happen and often, and we all know accidents can happen.......there could be serious repercussions if the info given proved to be wrong. We dont want any of that!!

Anyway, the use of A/G radio will all change in the very near future thanks to the dreaded EU. Most likely within a year.

If you want to use A/G you will need a new AGCS licence.
(Air Ground Communication Licence) ((Includes pactical and theory test))

Gone will be the old CA1308 certificate of authorisation!!

I Love to hate the EU.

If I'm inbound to an airfield and there's someone in the circuit but no-one manning the ground station, I EXPECT the other pilot to pass me any relevant information he might have. To remain mute is just plain BAD airmanship.

On the other hand. If I'm manning the tower and an inbound pilot decides to cut me out of the loop, I'll be just a little miffed.

As for an A/g operator not being able to issue instructions: Sometimes you have to in order to avert an accident. There just isn't time to make a polite suggestion. Stuff the rules.

[QUOTE][QUOTE]As for an A/g operator not being able to issue instructions: Sometimes you have to in order to avert an accident. There just isn't time to make a polite suggestion. Stuff the rules.
/QUOTE]

Correct...Operators may issue "Instructions" in an emergency. Already in the rules!

You are being ripped off. That's a future fee as proposed by Ofcom - some years in the future. you should not be paying more than £100 at present.
See: http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/Srg_1417FFenabled.pdf

Couple of years ago they asked me to do an evening lecture on correct use of radio. So I boned up on the distinctions between "Radio Littleham", being a humble base station with no claims whatsoever to authorise anything, and the other sorts, called "Control" which one can think of as a tower if you like.

The humble base station may pass information. But never never use the phrase "at your discretion"! Or the magic word "cleared" for anything!

So the aircraft nearby calles "Littleham Ground, this is Golf Whiskey Hotel
Alpha Tango, abeam the Brewery, inbound to you."

And Littleham Ground can say "Alpha Tango, Runway 24 in use, eight gliders in the circuit....cables in use for launching" and pray that Alpha Tango has enough nous to know what to do about all that!

Actually most of the time nobody is paying attention at Littleham anyhow, the only people anywhere near the radio are a couple of clueless visitors and the airfield dog....

Why on earth do we not have the simple Unicom system like in the US?
"Littleham Traffic, this is Cessna November 24885, down wind for 24"
And then anybody else nearby responds, giving their positions and intentions. What could be simpler and safer than that?

That very system, albeit under a slightly different name, has existed in UK for about six or seven years.

(From Flyer Portal)

So - 5 pages in and the OP is AWOL. I sent him/her a very friendly PM (cos I'm near Seething and pop in and out for fuel, etc) alerting him to some vagaries mentioned in a plethora of posts above.

Where is he? Is he hiding under a bridge somewhere?

Stik

Mary

I see that you are in the UK, but your post seems very confused, referring as you do to "Radio Littleham" ("Littleham Radio"?) and then giving an example with the callsign "Littleham Ground" which is an ATC callsign. And you were giving a lecture on the "correct use of radio"!


The sooner the the CAA gets its act together in addressing the AGCS issue, the better, preferably either getting rid of A/G stations and making them either Safetycom or obliging them to upgrade to FIS.

2 s

Or by leaving them alone and allowing pilots to continue to make use of them, as they have done quite safely in the past?

5 pages later, and it must now be obvious that yes you can talk to another aircraft, you just need to press the PTT button and open your mouth.

If the question is should you talk to another aircraft? Can't we all get used to exercising common sense? I don't see why there needs to be absolute regulation of everything. If it works, use it.

If the op had a bit more experience he would've known he could just as easily have found out where the traffic was from the a/g operator as he could asking directly. The fact is he didn't have an accident and the a/g operator shouldn't have felt the need to have a go at him.

Won't getting rid of A/G stations and making them adopt Safetycom saturate the frequency?

Below 2000' in the vecinity of my base I hear aircraft talking to a station nearly 100nm away.

Patowalker, spot on. One of the main drawbacks of SafetyCom is that it is one frequency that is potentially used at perhaps hundreds of locations in the UK. Agreed that those locations should by definition be low-traffic, but on a good weekend with several farmstrip fly-ins, SafetyCom can be nigh on useless especially when users do not both start and end the call with the location.

And as far as getting rid of A/G frequencies is concerned, Ofcom seem to be aiming for that anyway with their totally unjustified daylight-robbery fees. :mad: