Andrew H - 948774
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Posts posted by Andrew H - 948774
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Good post Matt.
Some additional information for pilots who may not have dealt with the 'Sydney Director' position before. This position is the 'final approach' position who positions you onto the approach and completes the final spacing.
1) On first contact with director report altitude cleared/heading
'Director Virgin889 descending 6000, heading 340'
2) If you have been told to 'Expect Independent Visual Approach', also report your assigned runway in sight as soon as possible.
'Director Virgin889 descending 6000, heading 340, 16R in sight'
3)If you have been told to Expect Independent Visual Approach', Director will confirm the localiser frequency. This should be read back.
'Virgin889 director, descend 4000, 16R localiser 109.5, 25 miles to run'
'descend 4000, 109.5 Virgin889'
Hopefully a heads up on this information will assist some pilots. I don't expect every pilot to know this but it will help things run a little bit smoother and everything counts!
See you there.
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Well there is no point taking the whole thing too seriously - pure madness! At times it did resemble organised madness though...thanks to all the pilots for flying.
If I sounded stressed at times, it is probably because I was...no hard feelings though. On occassion I heard a pilot scream 'bloody hell!' as he roared towards 34. Memories.
Just a couple of tips...for big events like this PLEASE do not accept STARs you can't fly. If we know...then we will vector you early rather than see...ohh...he is drifting, oh he just veered off final towards SHEED and is gonna give me a heart attack!
Tip2: When you get 'departures frequency 119.8' in the airways clearance, that is so tower can avoid repeating it when he hands you off to departures controller. Don't contact the Departures controller at the holding pt...that happened about 6 times tonight.
Oh and remind me to strike Korea off my 'places to go' list.
EDIT: Praise to Nick Togias for doing so well. Sequencing them so as not to require taking them off the STAR was near on impossible. You did very well though.
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Thanks John. As one of the participating controllers I have to say that, although a tad rusty, I thoroughly enjoyed this event. Congratulations to Jake, Alex and Ben for keeping that big blue mass separated...as far as I know there weren?t any virtual fatalities.
I instructed some enroute holding, mainly to spread out the big clumps of traffic. Aside from that, I think the biggest objective was just keeping them all separated and then fancy sequencing second.
Bravo to all involved.
Andrew
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Hey all,
Well the time has come, and tomorrow I'll be boarding a plane bound for Paris. For the next 9-10 months I'll be working in a highschool in Nogent sur Oise, which is situated about 30km north of Paris. Mostly I'll be taking english conversation classes and other areas where a native speaker can prove useful.
Unfortunately I will be limited in my access to a computer. Apart from the computers at school, I'll probably be visiting cybercaf?s to check email etc. As a result, I will most likely be absent from online ATC for the entire time.
How will I cope you ask? I don't know. But I'll be taking my headset just in case the opportunity arises to plug in for an hour or so.
I'll try to post a few updates over the course of my stay.
Take care,
Andrew
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Firstly let me say that I also believe it is inappropriate for a controller to make you disconnect in order to force a callsign change.
To this, however, I should add that I am slightly puzzled by the attitude 'this is just a hobby'. The IATA code QF is not a valid two-letter designator (as far as I know), so in the interests of contributing to realism for ATC who are providing you a service, I would do my utmost to follow real world practices.
I know in the grim dark days when I was a newbie, I was guilty of using NZXXX or QANTASXXX, QFXXX callsigns. When the correct way was pointed out to me I was more than happy to adapt, satisified in the knowledge I had learnt something.
Putting this particular controller's actions aside, would it detract from your experience to use the correct designator? If anything it is a nice way of contributing the realism experienced by the controller so I wouldn't hesitate to adapt.
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Thanks for the compliment John. I really enjoyed the flow of traffic tonight. The convergence of traffic all overhead CB really made things confusing at some points - trying to discern which tag was flashing at you.
As far as coordination goes...setting a 'ding' sound to go off when someone called me on override REALLY helped. I felt coordination betwen AY TWR and myself worked very well most of the time. Alex H, who spent some time at real life melbourne centre, told me the windows 'ding' is very similar to the real life ding so I used that sound. Whether that is the case or not, it sure helped!
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Hi guys,
The AIP indicates that when conducting Independent Visual Apchs to parallel runways eg 16 34L/R YSSY, approach/director should advise runway, circuit direction and the localiser frequency. I always do the first two but haven't bothered much with the localiser frequency. Do you think it could be useful practice online to include the localiser freq at some point?
It could be realism overkill, what do other ATC think?
Edit:
Just as a ref AIP ENR 39.3 "Pilots will be advised of the runway expectation and localiser as soon as practicable after first contact with Approach/Director".
From what I can gather it actually applies to all approaches to parallel runways be it dependent or independent.
Anyway...discuss away!
Regards AH
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It would have taken only ONE of those to call a SUP for the problem to get logged' date=' and if there was not a quick SUP response it becomes the first step in identyfying a lack SUP presence.[/quote']
I just wanted to add what my response to this pilot actually was. I did use the .wallop function twice, however there were absolutely no SUPs on from any region. I then asked a senior controller to have a word with him, which he kindly did.
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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a ... Saturn-V rocket?
Now I know that any night of online ATC will provide the controller with many amusing situations - this is VATSIM after all - but tonight...tonight was special.
As SY_APP I had the delightful task of controlling a Saturn-V rocket as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere. Flight plan: YSSY VIA MARS AND GANEMEDE (I kid you not). I admit that issuing descent instructions was slightly difficult as it hurtled towards 16R but on the whole only a few passenger aircraft risked being obliterated. The same aircraft who seemed perturbed by their TCAS going haywire as the rocket passed within miles of them at 1000kts GS.
This same chap also made us chuckle with the callsigns MAVERICK, POOP along with APOLLO 11. Sorry POOP, sorry if I sounded abit annoyed with you because as you quite rightly pointed out to me in private message 'we are all here to have fun'. Thanks POOP. I had a blast. :rolleyes:
I hope other ATC get to experience the exploits of POOP.
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Great work Alex! It would be great to use this method of sequencing more often.
A quick worked example:
You have 200 track miles till RIVET, the time is 0830Z and you have been instructed to cross at time 0855Z. What is the required groundspeed?
You are required to travel 200 track miles in 25 minutes
200nm / 25 minutes = 8nm / minute
Required Groundspeed = 8nm x 60
= 480 kts
So... Miles per minute = distance to run/ time
Required GS = Miles per minute (from above) x 60
Of course the ATC should do a quick calculation themselves in order to be sure they aren't setting you some unrealistic requirement and the pilot should inform us if they are unable to comply. :eek:
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Generally a good showing of GA aircraft flying between YRTI and YPJT. Apologies to Shannon for telling you to track via Swan Lake....afterwards I realised that couldn't be right - thats the name of a ballet not a river running through Perth. :eek: Jandakot Tower seemed to be having fun - its good to see GAAP aerodromes being utilised. Can I suggest a BK online event in the coming months.
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EOM - End of the Month?
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Tonight's Sydney Online event was a great deal of fun to participate in, and I just wanted to thank all the pilots for providing a good flow of traffic throughout. In addition, it was nice to see pilots handle the challenge of a handoff to the Sydney Director position when they had perhaps never encountered it before.
Well done to all.
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I have to say my 5+ hrs on ML-CAN_CTR were absolutely fantastic. All of the pilots handled the speed/hold instructions really well and it made our job that much easier. Despite the huge amount of traffic I didn't bare witness to any major stuff ups...all seemed to go reasonably smoothly. Maybe I was just on the right side of the TMA
A big thankyou to John Keech whose work on FLOW was pretty unreal...you were also the source of a good excuse when pilots pm'd me saying 'why am I waiting so long in this hold? why is that guy going ahead of me?' my reply: 'i'm not deciding the sequence' :-)
ATC Panic Stations - Sydney
in Regular Events
Posted
Thanks Jake.
A couple of points in the post-panic review:
*Flow was fantastic. Rob should be employed by AsA. The flow was traffic was consistent and well spaced.
*The use of AUDLEY2 star should be reconsidered for any high traffic YSSY events. While it is good from a flow perspective knowing the miles exactly, there were problems.
I'd say 40% of pilots flew it correctly...the rest either didn't turn downwind,base and just kept tracking ... or wandered. Thus the circuit got wider, everyone else was getting tracked out further. More work for Director to realise it is happening, correct them, then slow others down or vector others....just my two cents. It would have been easier to know that everyone was being vectored. And most people can follow a vector!
*APP guys were brilliant...sorry about the coordination...it was either talk to you or let someone go through the localiser! I had to ignore you from time to time
*Staggering of ILS approaches onto the parallel rwys while factoring in wake turbulence separation was ... a nightmare! Sorry to the few guys who had to drag race the guy on parallel approach...lets say it was an IVA and call it a day! Rob suggested two director positions next time? An idea out there to be considered.
Have fun and THANKYOU FOR FLYING...I love every second of it!
Andrew.
A