DOUBLE BOGEY

Mr Coalface,

Thought that would weed you out!!!!

You obviously know me and the thrust of my "argument" with you is the insulting response to the "Flying Boot" essay........remember now!!! Something about a "Big Mouth".

You are clearly a gutless individual who uses his anonimity to hide behind whilst making unpleasant statements about other people. We do not need a shrink to assess you as you are diagnosed as a spineless coward !!!!

If you work with me have the guts to front up or else shut-up - forever!!

Impress to inflate

Children Children, stop or you will both get a clip around the ear

throw a dyce

I think most Tower controllers will attempt to wait until a heli is down before transfering to GMC,but it isn't always possible.The CAA in the last 2 years has come out with all sorts of extra phraseology to prevent runway incursions.This has increased the workload greatly,without increasing the movements.Another suggestion is that aircraft monitor the tower rather than call at the holding point.Cut down on extra R/T a bit and would have a be agreed all round.

Special 25

Think 'Hold W4 - Monitor Tower' would certainly ease a bit of the radio traffic. In order to calm those who get frustrated with the 'Call Ground' call whilst in a 10ft hover, soldn't we also have a "Land 34 - Vacate 32 - Call Ground on landing" ???

throw a dyce

Well it's transferring an aircraft to GMC when on the active runway which isn't tickety boo with the runway incursion guidelines.It also doesn't fit phraseology that is allowed with fixed wing or helis.However we transfer helis to GMC when they are holding on 32 or 23 as standard practise,which are under Tower control.That point is just ignored because people want an easy life.I'm not sure what SRG/CAA would think of it because Aberdeen is a one off.Our Mats part 1 doesn't cover a lot of what happens with the helis and it's a grey area what's right and wrong.

U R NumberOne

For what its worth, the three companies raised the problem of holding point delays recently and I've been working with them to see how we can improve the situation. Yes, better scheduling giving less bunching of departures around 0700 would be great, but if that isn't a realistic possibility then we'll have to see what else we can come up with (I'm always open to suggestions!).

One thing we have already ruled out as being unworkable is some sort of flow control - the complexities and workload generated by such a system totally outweighed the benefits.

For what its worth, I always wait until the heli has set down before chucking it to Ground. Following an Observation report, we did also examine dropping the frequency to leave just "contact Tower", etc to reduce RT loading. Unfortunately SRG had set a precedent in this area by rejecting an earlier similar suggestion on Anglia Radar. Never let it be said we don't try!

Data Dad

Changing to a different issue....

I think we are all agreed that the first hour/90 mins in the morning is very busy. An increasingly common "habit" amongst the flight crew that is beginning to annoy me and many of my colleagues is the "Ground, this is XYZ123" call...

The conversation goes:

Aircraft: "Ground, this is Bristondia nine nine Oscar"
Ground: "Bristondia nine nine Oscar, Ground" (Possibly with "pass your Message" added)
Aircraft: "Ground, Bristondia nine nine Oscar, three three two requesting start up for the Forbery, on the zero eight nine"
Ground: " Bristondia, nine nien Oscar, start approved ....ETC"

How can we reduce RT time?

Delete the first bit!

Just call ground and state intentions please!

Any fixed wing guys reading this - we are not interested in your life story and especially not when you end the tale with ready in five minutes - My reply is going to be "Roger, report ready!"

Blind

My pet hate is the few who say

"A very good morning to you sir, this is ABC123 Request........"
We all recognise each others voices so good morning, good evening is nice and cheery but at 05:55 when the RT is chokka, is it needed?

Bah Humbug

letMfly

Here's a question for the training captains out there. Do your trainees get any benefit from holding at Brimmond for forty minutes at a time?

I realise that you all have a very heavy training commitment at the moment (as do we in ATC), but on weekdays between around 1700 to 1930 there is a constant stream of scheduled traffic, which makes it very difficult for us to accommodate your requirements in the circuit - especially at night when we can't use multiple line-ups like we did in the good old days!

Data Dad: - "Just call ground and state intentions please!" This works fine for experienced controllers, but I have found that trainees are still hunting for the FPS when the pilot has finished stating his intentions, inevitably leading to "helicopter calling ground, say again".

On the subject of niceties, my pet hate is ATCOs who say "bye", as in "contact tower one, one, eight, one, bye". This could, and has been misinterperated as 118.15. It doesnt really apply so much to rotaries, but I have witnessed many fixed wings trying to contact Scottish on 124.55 instead of 124.5 because of this.

throw a dyce

Actually 40 mins at Brimmond was only an example.I had a Blistows who kept on trying to get circuits with the cloud base almost on the deck.We had to go into Safeguarding(Cloud ceiling 300ft or less) and he still wouldn't give up.How is any Tower controller supposed to separate that,especially when the circuits are supposed to be carried out to west.In fact I thought it was getting b y dangerous.I just to go back to ramp.