Can you call another A/C?
 

Called another A/C in flight to ask for position and altitude today whilst solo and radio operator said: ''you cannot call another aircraft''? I haven't taken R/T exam yet but what did he mean?

:uhoh:

Which ATC unit were you in contact with? If it was busy I can well understand them objecting. If it was quiet it would have been good procedure to ask ATC if you could contact another aircraft.

Seething and there was only one other A/C in the circuit???? :\

Lets be clear: was this the Seething radio operator r was it the other plane's radio operator?

myself and the other aircraft were both on the seething freq. and i asked the guy for his position?

:confused:

I was just inbound to seething

ok sorry my fault i shall explain further...

I was joining and other aircraft had just joined and when i was overhead i called G-aaaa can i have your position please because i had not heard him call downwind etc. just after the other A/C gave me his position the A/G radio guy said: YOU CANNOT CALL ANOTHER A/C IN FLIGHT!!!!

YOU NEED PERMISSION????

Since when can A/G operators tell you what to do??

that is exactly what i thought!!! :E

Can R/T or rules of the air prevent you from contacting another A/C in flight??

Strange?

On a busy frequency I could understand the controller being upset, but a A/G operator TELLING you that you cannot contact another aircraft? :mad:

Your the pilot and you decided what was best.

A/G offer advice and thats it.

A/G and FISO or ATC basically do what it says on the tin. A/G not A/A therefore. However if the A/G frequency isn't busy you could say "GAAAA to GBBBB say position" and no-one should take exception since you are the pilot in command responsible for the safety of your aircraft. If it's FISO or ATC you should ask the ground station to find out for you as a courtesy.

The R/T Operator is wrong and has no right to give such an instruction, or any instruction at any time.

You are quite within your rights to do as you did, although it does suprise me that you encountered such a problem at Seething - everyone there is normally extremely professional and accomodating, whether they are pilots, radio operators, engineers or bacon butty makers.

I've never across such a problem with them.

Perhaps A/G prefers low wings...... But yes, you call the shorts, certainly not an A/G operator....

This has helped bundles... many thanks


:ok:

SoCal,

Most people solo before passing the RT practical.
Just had a look at CAP 413, no mention of not being able to talk A/C to A/C.
Wouldn't press the issue though as the A/G people tend also to be the people giving you coffee and fuelling your plane :).

flying is full of people that know everything :) you just have to learn to let them alone.

Pre-solo exams
 

There is no (UK) legal requirement to have passed any exams before going solo while training for a JAA-PPL (A). However it is almost universally "required" by schools and instructors that students pass the aviation law, by reason of being sensible, duly diligent or simply covering your a**e.

Posts 13, 14 and 15 are all pertinent. You have a PM, too - it's basically posts 13-15 as I'm fairly local to Seething and aware of their RT usage!!

Stik

Perhaps the first call should have been ' Seething radio can you give me the position of other circuit traffic?'

That way, it keeps the A/G operator happy, and also checks for other traffic you may have been unaware of. If no response then blind calls and request position reports yourself.

Just my comment on what I would have done.

Bingofuel - as he is an a/g operator he cannot give out that info. I have to admit, my understanding was that aircraft could not call each other in that way but then I fly from an atc field so maybe things are not as rigid at a/g fields?

Traffic info from A/G Radio operators
 

Yes they can give traffic information if requested to do so See also CAP 413, chapter 4, pages 32-35

Can you call another aircraft in flight
 

Seething is Air Ground radio only so cannot tell you what to do.

What day of the week was this and a rough time.????

Aircraft in the Seething area often talk to each other as the Tower is not always manned.

Seething Satco

SoCal, I didn't pass my RT until 19 years after I got my PPL!!

It wasn't a legal requirement to have one in the '80s and it wasn't until I came back to flying later on that I had to do it.


In this situation I normally say to the A/G: "G-xxxx request circuit traffic" which normally gets me a quick run down of who is doing what, this is especially useful at airfields where you need to backtrack

Surely it's an air/ground frequency, with Seething holding the licence, and not an air/air frequency?

When a/g is closed, obviously the a/c have only blind calls to make & each other to talk to, but when it is open a request would have to be made through the a/g operator, I would have thought?

I never heard of frequencies being classified this way, I learned frequencies are associated with services and services are associated with regions of airspace.

Back to the original question: my R/T syllabus mentions "interpilot" communications and outlines how to do them properly (though I must admit I couldn't rehearse it all right now), so I really can't see what the A/G operator was whining about. Just a bad moment, probably, that has happened to the best of us, hasn't it.

I trust you were not blabbering away on 123.45

SoCal, the word "if" is the crux of the matter here, there were places even into the nineties IIRC where you could do a whole PPL course on non-radio aircraft. Admittedly, this would be an unusual option and not sure how many may have chosen to do so. But if you intended to fly something vintage with no electrics out of a private strip, then why not?

Just wanted to say - not all Flying Schools require air law for first solo - I first soloed today (grin required :) ) and haven't sat the exam.

As PIC, you do what ever you feel you need to for safe flying practices.

Stone me, I've seen them in towers, huts and caravans. Is this a Seething speciality? Normal for Norfolk...

My response to this would've been, "I think you'll find I just did!"

How then, did you know that he had just joined?

If you were in the overhead, about to descend deadside, why call him at all? There was no conflict. A blind position report would have told him what you were up to. That's why we make such calls.

Reading this, I'm thinking that all the convoluted application of 'the rules' is removing something pretty important, namely common sense, though to be fair it is increasingly absent from life in general these days.

If you're tooling around, knowing another aircraft is in the vicinity, but you can't see it, why doesn't matter - if you stuffed up, so what? Break the chain. Talk. Ask. One of the major reasons for having a radio is alerted see and avoid - it'll hopefully get both of you looking in the right direction. Ask for forgiveness later (if necessary), hard to do that if you're tumbling earthward..

For what it's worth where I learned to fly (aus), it was entirely common to coordinate directly with other a/c in the circuit.

skyfly 150

Do I read it correctly that you are signing your post as "Seething Satco"? Delusions of grandeur or what?

2 s

Perhaps he is a Satco who is very cross.

Though I think it is no big deal what OP did, I can kind of understand the response from A/G too.

I think OP shouldn't be too bolstered up on 'hey you did nothing wrong'. It might not have been 'wrong' but on the other hand it isn't usual practice at an A/G field to talk directly to other aircraft for positioning, this is why each aircraft makes position reports. I think to be honest we have a situation with a student pilot probably A) did the right thing in the circumstance, B) should take away from the experience that some further training is required regarding 'normal' radio procedures at an A/G field. It's always worth simply talking to those involved when things like this happen and learn their opinion direct. Quite a bit of rubbish spoken on this thread regards the 'powers' of an A/G operator. I don't see that the A/G operator issued an instruction or gave a clearance, simply that they were trying to guide regarding the normal R/T procedure.

That isn't to say I've never been contacted by another aircraft at an A/G field, but one wouldn't usually do it IMOH and lets remember we are only hearing one side of the story. :)

Mr Cessna, as a standard practice you should not assume the right to talk aircraft-to-aircraft on any active frequency, no matter whether A/G, AFIS, or full ATC, without the specific approval of the ground operator. Out of hours, certainly on the first two, is perhaps another matter; but even then calls should be short and to the point.

In the case you quote, if you were really concerned about a conflict, give your standard position call “overhead / dead-side” etc, ending with “request other traffic”. Either the ground operator or the other aircraft should respond.

In reality, safety (although I detest the current catch-all over-use of that word) is the priority, and any reasonable use of the radio to achieve that end in my opinion is valid, irrespective of what the book says.

As an example when flying in to an event at a well-known airfield with (at that time) A/G radio, on very short-final when a Cherokee appeared large in the windscreen right above, having apparently cut in front of the others on final behind, descending steeply and at almost the same speed. Gulp! The call “?X Cherokee immediate go-around NOW, you’re right on top of me and I’ve nowhere to go” is not in CAP413, but it worked.

I’m slightly bemused that your profile says you have a PPL, and are current on 8 or 9 different types …. but have no R/T licence ….

I take the view that nobody should issue a reprimand of any kind over the radio, especially to a student, as it is likely to achieve nothing but distraction.

Conventional Gear, I agree.

Generally it's not normal, even at a completely uncontrolled field, though not necessarily entirely unusual. Nor was that an 'attaboy'. Normally the position reports suffice. If anything I suspect the training point is better situational awareness, but that's something that comes with time.

I take the point about requesting traffic, but that is less direct, takes more time, and in many cases the radio operator may well not have the circuit under observation. Maybe it's a culture difference, but there seems to be an attitude that ground services are there to tell us what to do, rather than to facilitate our needs.

I seem to recall that there's a catchall somewhere in air law that says the PIC can do basically what they want if they percieve safety to be an issue, just be prepared to justify your actions later :E

Yes, that's correct.

It's totally unnecessary (and a potential flight safety hazard) to be taken to task in the air, especially by an A/G radio operator at an unlicensed private strip!

And that is exactly what I have responded to.

An A/G operator cannot control an aircraft or issue any sort of clearance (or not) and the regulations specifically warn them not to do so.

Must admit I only posted as it all seemed a bit one sided. Glad to see others can at least see the same.

Reminds me a lot of a thread here a couple of years or more ago before I joined up.

Guy goes to flying club, flies with instructor, instructor won't sign him off to fly club aircraft.

Wow, the abuse against instructors that followed went on for pages. What an 'idiot' the instructor was, how dare an instructor teach a qualified PPL how to fly when he just went for a checkout and so it went on. (and on, and on).

Here I was laughing my head off reading it all, knowing said instructor who is in simple terms one of the best I've had the good fortune to have flown with, knowing the flying club, where quite simply they only employ damn good instructors. Knowing the actual circumstances of what the plonker had done during the flight to not get signed off. Fact he went on to fly with another instructor from the club with exactly the same result said it all really.

I made a total hash once of joining at Lydd. Complete mess of it and they assumed I had descended dead-side which isn't allowed. Made for some frosty R/T. I could have come on PPRuNe and told a very one sided story and had lots of people tell me I was PIC and could do no wrong. I didn't I simply called up when I got home and talked it over with the guy on the phone. I got where he was coming from, he got what I had actually done and why, we both gained something from it. Most importantly I knew I could fly back again and be really confident that it wouldn't be a problem next time.

All in all the best advice on here, if you have any R/T issues with an operator at a field you arriving at, either go talk to them when you land, or at least when you get back home and see if you can learn something.