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So how hard is it for ATC to recognize aircraft radar returns without a transponder? Malaysian Flight 370 is currently believed to have stopped transponding and did a U-turn, and I'm having a hard time understanding why it took this long to realize that it may have come back and over Malaysia in an area that reportedly has good radar coverage.
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Mar 11, 2014 20:27
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The Ferret King posted:I've tried to keep up with the reports periodically, could you link any stories you find regarding the radar data used for that flight so far? I was going off the CNN I had on in the background while working from home where they've been showing the transponder lost point and where the new radar information makes them think the plane went. Then again, during the same reporting the anchor did an appropriate serious face and announced that CNN had learned it is possible for pilots to *turn* *off* the transponder, which as a pilot makes me go 
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Mar 12, 2014 00:26
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Did a tower tour today for the first time which was fun. Amazed they were able to cycle like 200 pilots through the tour, but what I really learned is I need to fly in there with "information Giraffe" now. Towers usually start off on the same letter for the ATIS so I am likely to see G around the same time of day assuming nothing breaks the once-an-hour update cycle, right?
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Mar 23, 2014 06:13
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KodiakRS posted:The best (worst) have to be the FRDMM and TRUPS arrivals into DCA. They both have a serious helping of I don't know. For best I kinda like the Portsmouth RNAV 16. Especially if you come in from the 
fordan fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Apr 26, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 21:10
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and are a royal pain in the rear end to fly because they have waaaaaay too many speed and altitude restrictions.
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The Ferret King posted:You mean western and southeast? Derp. Yes.
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Apr 26, 2014 09:50
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The Slaughter posted:Can confirm that Philly approach won't let you do opp direction anymore at all. Somewhere else (norcal?) wasn't allowing them either, citing a 'new rule' etc. Makes it a pain to get traffic advisories for vfr practice circling approaches which is counter to safety... I'm kinda ok with more limits. During my private pilot training my instructor & I were just taking off again from a touch and go and at like 100 feet AGL at Northeast Philly when someone doing an opposite direction practice approach flew overhead at around 500 feet. Controller had been trying to raise them for a couple minutes but never changed us to a full-stop landing (or better yet, an immediate 90 degree turn and go around); guessing the other instructor turned the radio down to provide instruction. Controller wasn't happy when they came back on the radio though no phone numbers were given.
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Aug 14, 2014 07:09
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fknlo posted:Looks like the CTI schools finally started throwing enough money at Senators to get a bill introduced. Representatives!  Looks like this is where the text will be once fully processed: https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/5675 Also, there's all of three legislative days left before the elections in November.
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Sep 24, 2014 22:02
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unnoticed posted:I asked this in the pilot thread but didn't get a response... There's this: quote:!FDC 4/3282 (KZAU A0016/14) ZAU IL..SPECIAL NOTICE..CHICAGO, IL..CHICAGO ARTCC OUT OF SERVICE. TRANSITING OPERATIONS PROHIBITED UNLESS AUTHORIZED BY ATC. OVERFLIGHTS CAN EXPECT REROUTES AROUND ZAU DESIGNATED AIRSPACE. THIS NOTAM REPLACES FDC 4/1552 ZAU 1410042000-1410132359 Not sure how much It'd apply to VFR flight.
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Oct 9, 2014 04:55
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kmcormick9 posted:No comment. Did it seem like it was an Angel Flight or similar type of flight? Though I thought they usually used call signs like "Compassion."
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Mar 4, 2015 01:20
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What, if anything, does ATC do with people calling in to report that they'll be flying model aircraft? When done within 5 miles of an airport the model aircraft pilot is supposed to contact both the airport operator and the tower if one is present under P.L. 112-95, section 336(a). My assumption has been that it might get noted on the ATIS and maybe called out to aircraft approaching from/departing towards the location but generally accepted without pushback if they aren't looking to do something crazy like fly at 1000ft AGL or 0.5nm away from the airport on an extended runway centerline.
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May 6, 2015 16:46
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Tommy 2.0 posted:I thought they were already doing sleep studies or did I miss something? I suspect it was a remark about the arbitrariness and capriciousness of the FAA who suddenly decided "Overweight? Go get a sleep study even if you lack any other symptoms" before they backed down somewhat by actually using more involved medical criteria to decide who needed to be screened for sleep apnea.
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May 21, 2015 15:08
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Tommy 2.0 posted:It used to be that you would get medically DQed if you had/developed it. Now you if you GET it, you go through a whole bunch of tests and studies, get a cool machine to sleep with, and get back on status. Getting hired with it? No clue. Buddy just went through getting back on status after being diagnosed with sleep apnea so I'm paraphrasing the hell out of it I am sure. Right, but figuring out if you had obstructive sleep apena used to be between you and your doc. Then the FAA Federal Air Surgeon announced out of the blue like a year and a half ago that to get the medical certification that most pilots & controllers need, anyone over a specific BMI (no other symptoms needed) would be required to prove they didn't have OSA via a sleep study or to present documentation about how their OSA treatment is going to get a Special Issuance. I believe this included getting a recording CPAP machine to show how often you use it. Insurance might or might not cover a sleep study if the only criteria used to determine its need was BMI. The FAA had all the advocacy groups yelling at them and legislators starting to introduce bills that'd restrict the FAA's ability to do this so they backed off the initial proposal and came back in January with a calmer one that has a range of symptoms (developed by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine) that need to be met and graduated responses that aren't all "go do a sleep study." Still think it's overkill given how many other more critical flight-affecting health issues aren't part of a flight medical and rely on self-reporting. So spin the wheel and find out what arbitrary new rule or policy the FAA will adopt next!
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May 21, 2015 18:54
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How about tree, fife and niner? I usually end up forgetting for 3 and 5 and am probably about 50/50 on 9. (Ferret King is welcome to respond to this post.)
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Jun 11, 2015 04:20
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MrYenko posted:The fact that we're still using completely analog radios fifteen years into the twenty-first century is a triumph of bureaucratic inertia over common sense. Analog AM is probably the right mode for aviation. FM and most digital formats I'm aware of have the capture effect where only the strongest signal makes it through, which isn't desirable when you have a stuck mike on frequency. With AM you can hear both stations.
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Jun 11, 2015 19:10
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Jealous Cow posted:And by "perfectly okay" he means legal per regulations. Spoken like someone who hasn't flown an aircraft with no electrical system. But do we even know he wasn't using a radio or transponder? Assuming he had a radio and was using it, he'd still mostly likely be talking on the CTAF frequency for his airport and not to ATC if he had just popped up; I know when I leave my uncontrolled field VFR I'm probably staying on CTAF and not looking to talk to ATC for flight following until I'm at least a few miles or few thousand feet of altitude out of the pattern. Whether the Cessna had a functional transponder that was turned on seems up in the air. I'd assume the altitude the F-16 was at was sufficient to get a transponder return from the Cessna if it was there, but if the Cessna was climbing into coverage there may not have been time for the return to reach ATC and for ATC to issue a warning. I'm assuming the F-16 doesn't have a TCAS system that'd trigger off a Cessna transponder, though the F-16 obviously does have its own radar (that should be decent at spotting primary returns I'd hope). edit long after the fact: CTAF - Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, a radio channel used at an uncontrolled airport for pilots to self-announce their position and intentions. "Berkeley County traffic, white Cessna on final for runway 6, full stop, Berkeley County" VFR - Visual Flight Rules, probably defined before but flying in clear weather where collision avoidance is primarily the pilot's job via "see and avoid" Flight Following - Flying under VFR but talking to ATC who will give traffic alerts on a workload-permitting basis. TCAS - Traffic Collision Avoidance System, a system that looks for transponders of other aircraft around the aircraft and warns of conflicts, often providing a direction to fly to avoid it. Usually found on airliners and large aircraft but not smaller general aviation aircraft. fordan fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 8, 2015 20:54
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Jealous Cow posted:Most of my opinion on flying without radios comes from a mix of reading ASRS Callback and a certain pilots forum full of idiots. That certainly narrows down which forum. And if the aircraft has a radio and transponder, I'd agree not using them is dumb absent some good reason like a malfunction or a dead alternator. But there are definitely aircraft out there that have no radio or transponder, like the awesomely fun Cub on floats I got my seaplane rating in. It had magnetos for the engine and a 9 volt intercom system for the CFI to tell me what I was doing wrong and that's it. Fuel level being indicated by a wire outside on the cowl that lowers as the float in the tank does.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:23
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Pope Mobile posted:What's wrong with magnetos? The C-172s 95% of student pilots fly in have them. What do the other 5% use? Even the fuel-injected modern 172 I learned in used magnetos. I was pointing out what in the aircraft had electrical power. Apparently there was a radio and it was being used: quote:According to Bill Salisbury of the Berkeley County Rescue Squad, the Cessna aircraft left the Berkeley County airport just a few minutes before the crash. The plane was likely headed toward Myrtle Beach, and was in radio contact with the county airport during its flight, he said. http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/07/07/officials-f16-cessna-c150-small-plane-collide-in-midair/29816379/
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Jul 9, 2015 20:45
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Sorry, not a rant at you Apollo. You have no idea how much smart and safe pilots are appreciated by ATC. It is just guys like the cessna that hit the F-16 that ATC MOURNS over and we end up getting pissed at the FAA for not making it harder for them to do stuff like this (or EASIER to talk to ATC!). So the mid-air is obviously the Cessna's fault because he wasn't talking to ATC? The F-16 didn't have a responsibility to see & avoid as well, which is understandably difficult at the speeds they tend to fly but does have radar that should be pretty good at locating primary returns with or without a transponder? If the Cessna turns out to have had a transponder that was turned off than the pilot is either a dumbass for having it and choosing to leave it off or he made a fatal mistake. Don't know if we've seen any info on its status or the altitude of the impact vs where ATC radar coverage starts in that area; I haven't seen any yet. But regardless, he wasn't IFR and he wasn't in controlled airspace so he's not required to talk to ATC, especially if he was still participating in the CTAF from his departure airport. And even IFR aircraft have the responsibility to see & avoid outside of IMC. There are lots of things that aviate legally and generally aren't talking to ATC and may not even have transponders. Hot air balloons, gliders, ultralights, powered parachutes, old airplanes without electrical systems, etc. Sounds like you want to ground them all. The Ferret King posted:I actually filed and activated my very first VFR flight plan a couple weeks ago. I've been a controller for 6 years and a pilot for 5. Lockmart's been pushing and promoting their (admittedly nice) improvements to their flight service website. Sounds like someone took it a bit overboard.
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Jul 10, 2015 23:13
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hjp766 posted:Do US airports that are registered/known not automatically get an Air Traffic Zone (ATZ) (basically a circle of automatic CAT D style airspace centred on the field) a la UK. In the U.S., class D airspace is used around smaller airports with an active control tower (or class C or class B for bigger airports). Many/most uncontrolled airports (including ones with towers that are closed for the night) are class E airspace in a circle around the airport down to 700 ft AGL and class G below that. Some are G up to 1200 ft AGL in the busier airspace in the east or 14,500 out west.  Here's a shot of the sectional showing the Air Force base the jet was flying to which has class C airspace, Berkeley County where the Cessna was departing from. The magenta ring with a gradient indicates class E down to 700 ft inside and the pink line is the direct route to Myrtle Beach which was supposedly the Cessna's destination.  From reading other forums, it appears that F-16 pilots often have their onboard radar set to reject targets going 75mph or slower to help avoid automotive ground traffic from appearing and the accident was between 2000 and 3000 feet. Having a hard time imagining a Cessna 150 with two adult men climbing at any kind of rapid rate, so I tend to suspect there should have been something on ATC radar. So no transponder or inop transponder seems somewhat likely.
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Jul 14, 2015 13:52
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Also I want to say I thought I heard in the reporting that the F-16 was being vectored to an approach. So he wouldn't have been flying on a line that'd be on a VFR chart anyways. I think the depiction of localizers on the IFR charts is related to when there's a fix defined by intersection of the localizer and a VOR radial. May be off base here. In any case a VFR pilot probably won't be looking at an IFR chart. The arrivals and departure paths of aircraft in and out of class B airports/airspace is shown on the Terminal Area Chart though; here's an example around NYC.  You can see the lightweight arrowheads and jumbo jet with altitude ranges.
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Jul 17, 2015 16:05
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fknlo posted:Can you imagine the impact on the system if something like that was ever implemented? I don't see it happening unless some student in a C172 brings down an A380 or something along those lines. Again. I could maybe see up-ing transponder requirements to give class C airports a transponder veil for their outer areas out 20nm, but that won't happen pre-2020 with the ADS-B rollout happening and there already being concern about there being enough avionics shops and ADS-B gear made to cover the GA fleet that needs to upgrade by the deadline. Honestly I think we have sufficient protection for the most part: busy class-B airports have the 30nm veil in which transponders must be used (or a waiver from ATC sought) and most large aircraft more than 30nm out will probably be up around 10k feet and higher where transponders are also required. Most of your aircraft without transponders are usually going to be low and slow and airliners/cargo tends to be high and fast at least outside of protected airspace. It's the military that likes/needs to go low and fast, unfortunately.
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Jul 17, 2015 22:30
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The Ferret King posted:
Only a crazy person would turn down a transfer from Chicago to Hawaii as winter approaches...
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Aug 15, 2015 20:51
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The Locator posted:Not sure why a union of any kind would be supporting her opponent, who seems like would be more of a union-buster type person by far. And who sued an airport because they overfly his Palm Beach mansion/golf club and clearly has the temperament and clarity to understand ATC issues?
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Aug 8, 2016 03:53
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MrYenko posted:Trump spending significant time in Palm Beach is the number one reason to not vote for him. Obama's trips to Miami gently caress south Florida into a cocked hat. Trump coming down on the regular would be a gigantic gently caress-fest. Versus a 30nm TFR centered over his Manhattan home? Not that Hillary would be much better when home in Chappaqua, NY, but at least Newark would escape by a mile or two I think.
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Aug 8, 2016 14:31
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PT6A posted:We don't have to in Canada. Just pointing out that there is a successful (and ultimately GA-friendly) model for private ATS.   edit: although to be fair $67 per year is small enough to be lost in the noise of aircraft ownership costs. fordan fucked around with this message at 08:09 on Mar 17, 2017 |
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Mar 17, 2017 08:05
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Why is tree and fife so hated, but you can't really be involved in aviation without using niner?
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Jul 5, 2017 18:09
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MrYenko posted:I poked around at work and asked some acquaintances; Rumor mill says he asked for his clearance on the ground and was given a Seven Hour delay to release time. From one of the online aviation fora and people going back and finding the liveatc recordings it appears they couldn't depart on the active departure runway because of weight/performance/obstacle reasons and were told the only way they could depart the other way was VFR and picking up IFR in the air. And there was confusion between Ground and the jet over the intent: quote:08:58 BFI GND: ... you want to do a VFR pattern and then depart IFR Apparently Ground thought they just wanted to burn off some fuel before doing a normal IFR departure? And Vistajet thought the VFR thing was a formality and they'd get the IFR shortly after takeoff. I also don't think they realized or looked particularly hard at the VFR environment they were agreeing to enter. And who knows what the Ground controller told Tower.
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Jul 17, 2019 14:50
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