Ask Me About Air Traffic Control. You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Me About Air Traffic Control. You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

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JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

azflyboy posted:

A question on "hold short" clearances.

At SEA, it's pretty common to get a taxi clearance of "Taxi to runway 16C via bravo, hold short 16L at charlie". When we switch to tower (who controls both 16C and L), they commonly clear us to simply "Cross runway 16L at charlie", but don't specifically tell us to hold short of 16C.

My understanding had been that controllers were required to issue specific instructions any time an aircraft is going to cross or hold short of a runway, but I'm starting to think that was incorrect based on what I keep hearing in Seattle.

The controller is not required to tell you to hold short of your assigned departure runway, that is implicit in the clearance. From the 7110.65, 3-7-2(b):
"When authorizing an aircraft to taxi to an assigned takeoff runway, state the departure runway followed by the specific taxi route. Issue hold short restrictions when an aircraft will be required to hold short of a runway or other points along the taxi route.

EXAMPLE−
�Runway Three−Six Left, taxi via taxiway Alpha, hold short of taxiway Charlie.�
or
�Runway Three−Six Left, taxi via Alpha, hold short of Charlie.�
or
�Runway Three−Six Left, taxi via taxiway Alpha, hold short of Runway Two−Seven Right.�
or
�Runway Three−Six Left, taxi via Charlie, cross Runway Two−Seven Left, hold short of Runway Two−Seven Right.�
or
�Runway Three−Six Left, taxi via Alpha, Charlie, cross Runway One−Zero.�

So if they're going to hold you short along the way they need to specify, but it is assumed that you will hold short of your departure runway when you reach the departure end, unless specifically instructed to do otherwise.

Edit: Ferret has beaten me like a trainer wielding a strip holder.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2017 00:03

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:47

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

The Ferret King posted:

When an opportunity to smugly assert my knowledge arises, I feel a twinge in my brain. Like spider sense.

Fun fact, I've never worked anywhere that has actually used strip holders.

Both places I worked used them. I saw an article just the other day about another facility that got electronic strips and it made me super jealous. The last place I worked not only had strips, we had drop tubes and ARTS 2E

# ¿ Jul 1, 2017 00:26

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Tommy 2.0 posted:

I haven't looked at taxi instructions in a while. The whole "if not told to hold short of a point (including runway) you are allowed to cross all points to your assigned point" thing still in the .65? Paraphrased as gently caress.

Not quite. From the 7110.65, 3-7-2(c):
"Aircraft/vehicles must receive a clearance for each runway their route crosses. An aircraft/vehicle must have crossed a previous runway before another runway crossing clearance may be issued." You used to be able to say "Taxi to runway 36", which authorized crossing everything along the route but they got rid of that. I'm not sure precisely when though.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2017 17:40

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

fknlo posted:

We have the usual assortment of fat guys but one of the FLM's in another area is massive. Dude used to be in the military and was also a black belt in some martial art as well. Good enough to almost make the olympics kind of stuff. He got the diabeetus not too long ago and maybe lost a little weight but it's still only a a matter of time.

There's another guy in TMU that has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds at minimum over the past year or two. He wasn't quite as big as the FLM but he was a big guy. It's an impressive amount of lost weight.

I'm definitely a big guy, 6'2" 265lbs. So of course, when four of the fire chiefs wanted to come over and watch from the tower cab as their guys did a simulated response, I was the one to show them around. I was the smallest of the 5 of us by far, and the tower elevator got crowded with 3 regular sized people in it. I've never had to suck it in so hard in my life, and I was not completely certain the elevator would actually make it to the top.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 13:56

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Dog Jones posted:

Am I allowed to just buy / build an air search radar and operate it just for the hell of it? Are there consumer grade air search radars?

Without digging too deeply into FCC regulations, my guess would be no. I found this report if you're really interested/an insomniac.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2017 18:27

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

MrYenko posted:

Sitting in a briefing about Falcon 9 launches going forward.

Launch support causes huge delays for the airlines, pushing aircraft waaaaay inland over Florida that wouldn�t otherwise do so. Apparently the risk analysis came back and figured that leaving the Atlantic Routes open during a launch is an �acceptable risk.� The new Transitional Hazard Areas have a chance of incident calculated by some big-forehead at 1x 10^-7 or better, so they�re going to leave them open during launches. Aircraft have to stay on the airway through these areas, with no weather deviations available.

So I guess if SpaceX loses another rocket, flight crews get to play dodge-the-debris?

If they actually believe this 1 x 10^-7 number, that means you could theoretically launch one rocket per day, for 27,397.26 years!!!, without having an incident.

I don't doubt that they've looked seriously at the safety issues, but that number seems ridiculous on its face.

# ¿ May 5, 2018 18:38

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Vietnamwees posted:

What exactly needs to be 'kept separated?'

The kids who, at least according to Dexter Holland, are not alright.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2018 23:43

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

vessbot posted:

I always thought a "wheels up time" was just slang for EDCT, but one time they said "your EDCT is XXXX, call us in an hour for a wheels up." What's the difference?

You were right that wheels up and EDCT are generally interchangeable. In the case where an EDCT is a long ways away, you cansay something like that so that you can coordinate getting the aircraft to the runway on time. So let's say it's 1245, and the EDCT is for 1430. "UAL187, your EDCT is 1430. Contact ground at 1400 for wheels up". Then at 1400 he calls and you get him taxiied out to the holding pad so he can hit the road on time. The reason you don't taxi him out straight away is that, the further from the present time the EDCT is, the more likely it is to be revised, so it's not worth having him wait out on the pad only to have to come back to the gate because of the 3 hour rule when their EDCT gets pushed back.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2019 21:57

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

vessbot posted:

Gotcha, so it's equivalent to saying "call to ensure your EDCT is not revised..."

Essentially yeah, just keeping everyone informed. EDCTs are a huge pain in the rear end for all involved, because they're issued centrally and at least partially algorithmically, which makes them very difficult to understand and predict.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2019 22:22

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

MrYenko posted:

Quite a few of the centers that aren�t in BFE were built in BFE, but the city has encroached since then. ZMA was essentially cow pastures as far as the eye could see, built on a two lane asphalt road that was only paved for construction of the ARTCC. The next stop out of town was the Nike sites, and then alligators.

This is true for a ton of airports as well. Dulles was in the middle of absolutely nowhere when it was built, in fact the VOR at Dulles ("Armel") is named after the Armel farm, which made up a ton of the property on which the airport now sits. The old guys who had been there forever told me that Mrs. Armel used to monitor the local freq, and when they opened in the morning (it was not a very busy airport for a long time) they would say, "Good morning Mrs. Armel" and she would flick her porch lights on an off in reply.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 23:49

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

FrozenVent posted:

Am I reading it correctly that the approach into Las Vegas is �casino city here I come losing gramp�s money�?

Yep. If you wanna see some real bullshit, check out the FRDMM 4 and the TRUPS 4 into DCA. In English, the fixes for the FRDMM 4 are: Honor, Bravery, Courage, Pledge, We Will, Never, Forget, September 11

and for the TRUPS 4: SEALs, Ranger, Jarhead, PJ (pararescuemen), USA, We Do, Support, Our, Troops.

It's loving ridiculous and I couldn't believe it when they briefed us on these.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2019 18:13

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Mollymauk posted:

Alright day 2 of distance basics, my instructors are very pleasant, they made me change The Crimson Ghost picture that was my Zoom profile picture, this is so many acronyms.

My favorite was always MANPADS.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2020 02:54

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

azflyboy has the right of it, the best way I found was like he demonstrated, to group aircraft that look similar and then memorize their distinctive features. A quick example is the CRJ-200/700/900 vs the E-145. They both have dual rear-fuselage mounted engines, but the cowl on the E-145 covers the entire engine, while the exhaust nozzle of the CRJ series is visible extending beyond the cowling.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2020 19:06

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Mollymauk posted:

The K in military designators threw me off enough that I had to look it up to see why it was a tanker, didn't really see a great explanation beyond"T was taken and there is a K in tanker".

That's pretty much it, same thing in the fire service. Tower ladders get the T designation, Tankers (or tenders) get the K.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2020 01:13

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

fknlo posted:

It's absolutely ridiculous.

People have asked the OM on our nights what the plan is when we're on a normal schedule and multiple people in an area catch corona and they literally don't have one. I'm still pretty shocked that there hasn't been any confirmed in building spread even with the reduced staffing with how it looks like this stuff works.

I was continually amazed at how often my trainers told me not to bet on the come, and how often the FAA did just that with strategic planning. They did a redesign of some our airspace when I was at PCT, and we took on some extra stuff from both Cleveland and Washington centers, which would put the northwest part of the sector out of range for the Dulles ASR. They assured us that fusion would be online before that airspace came under our control, but there as no backup plan at all. You'd ask, "What happens if fusion isn't ready by the time this airspace becomes ours?
"Oh don't worry, it will be."
"Yeah, but what if it's not?"
"It will be, don't worry"

And what do you know, it wasn't, and we ended up working our north arrival sector on the ARSR for a while.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2020 19:21

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

fknlo posted:

Are those the ones that say I need 5 miles or 1000 feet and I'm supposed to prevent collisions between aircraft? Because that's all I know. I need to beef up on some obscure bullshit so I can write people up when I'm a supervisor .

For real though, I've only worked with maybe one or two people that knew and could apply any departure or landing rules and even they did one in, one out just like everyone else.

Yeah, the en route world is WAY different from the terminal world. One in, one out to a towered airport is typically only when you don't have radar coverage to the surface (which would be common if you're using an ARSR). We had one at PCT that we had to do one in one out (Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport, which everyone just called Martinsburg), because it sits in a little valley and we couldn't see guys down to the ground. MRB tower would call once they touched down and then we could send in the next dude, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2020 15:01

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

azflyboy posted:

I have a question about STAR's I was hoping someone could shed some light on.

Going into SEA from the east, we usually file via the GLASR 1 arrival, which has exactly one crossing restriction (JAKSN @12,000/250kt) when the airport is doing south flow.

For the last few months, I've noticed that instead of just clearing us to "descend via" the arrival, the controller tells us to "cross JAKSN at and maintain 12,000, 250kts", which is the exact same thing as the STAR, but with more words.

It doesn't seem to be specific to our airplane/airline, so all I can figure is that it's somehow tied to the lack of traffic from the pandemic, but I'm confused as to exactly why the controllers are seemingly giving themselves more work instead of just having us descend via the arrival.

As vessbot said, my guess is they had enough people make a mistake that some higher up put out an R&I saying, "Ensure that each aircraft explicitly receives the appropriate crossing restriction at JASKN" or the like. Every facility has some procedure that seems like it should be easy, but for some reason gets screwed up often enough that you have to do things manually to account for it.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2020 22:44

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Sagebrush posted:

SFO's tower (and I guess every other class B tower) is continuously staffed 24 hours a day, but there's basically no flights between 1am and 6am other than a couple of FedEx planes. How many people are gonna be up there during those hours? What do they do to pass the time?

I worked radar for Dulles for years, so not in the tower itself but in the radar room, and Dulles is much the same in terms of overnight traffic (there basically is none). Prior to the famous incident where the guy fell asleep in the DCA tower, we weren''t allowed to have anything but the 7110.65 (or other ATC manuals) with us at the position, so it was a lot of redbull and getting up to walk around to keep from being lulled to sleep by the whir of the fans in the darkened radar room. After that, they started to relax things, and we could bring books and even iPads (I'm not sure this was technically allowed, but the overnight supes always allowed it). That made it easier to stay up, but it was still lovely to sit there from 12-2:30 or 2:30-5 and talk to maybe half a dozen airplanes the entire time.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2020 18:22

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Sagebrush posted:

so what you're saying is if i wait until 2:30AM, i might have a chance of doing a few laps in the pattern on 28R?

Class B towers don't allow pattern work, come on man

# ¿ Nov 8, 2020 18:55

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

MrYenko posted:

Apparently the FAA turned off funding for Augusta to have a tower for the Masters this year.

SHOULD BE FUN.

Now if they can just quit supporting the goddamn EAA, we'd be set.

Man I hate EAA.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2021 21:32

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

Sagebrush posted:

Just because of Oshkosh, or it it deeper than that?

Yeah, I should say I hate airventure specifically. I don't really know anything about the organization otherwise.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2021 01:01

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

TangoFox posted:

That's pretty cool. I thought they were also testing this somewhere in conjuction with NATCA? I'm thinking Colorado or Utah? Anyone know?

I think Leesburg in Virginia (KJYO) has a remote tower, Saab was the contractor if I'm remembering right. I don't know if the controllers out there are unionized NATCA folks or not though, it's a contract tower at present.

# ¿ May 31, 2021 16:16

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

MrYenko posted:

The wailing and gnashing of teeth is going to be audible from the flight levels.

I'm glad I'm not a supe anymore for many reasons, but not now having to deal with the bullshit from whatever anti-vaxxers exist at my old facility is certainly in the top 3.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 20:15

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 22:47

JohnClark: Mar 24, 2005; Well that's less than ideal

MrYenko posted:

How are we this bad at IT? We�ve been using KSN for like two weeks and it�s already going away.

Federal IT in general is a disaster. I went from the FAA to the VA, and hoo boy were the computer systems bad there.

# ¿ May 16, 2023 01:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask Me About Air Traffic Control. You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

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