Safety in the Skies

I've picked this up at a couple of places on the web and it's worth repeating.

A recent article at the BBC told the story of whistle-blower in Air Traffic Control who claimed that the controllers are deliberately sequencing aircraft closer than is necessary in order to meet targets for aircraft movements. He claims this is common-place and potentially impacts safety.

This is interesting for a couple of reasons.

1) From a process point of view, the process allows controllers leaway to do this sort of thing (apparently with the collusion of their management). Is this a process issue? Should there be stronger controls? Is the procedure designed well enough?
2) From a flying point of view, are we comfortable that the system can deal with aircraft being this close? I know that on several occasions flying in to Heathrow as a commercial passenger the aircraft has had to go-around because the plane in front hasn't vacated the runway yet. The go-around procedure is meant for just such an eventuality, but to need to do this due to air traffic issues is stretching a point, I feel.

So as a passenger would you rather arrive on time, but in a potentially risky situation, or later than advertised but safer? I know where my vote is going

Any thoughts or comments from you?

Visit an ATC Unit !

I don't know about you, but I find that I understand how things work much better when I get in there and start seeing things up-close and first hand.

Telling me something will only get me so far. I have to see it in action.

That's why, when I listen to the guys working the air traffic control in the UK, I always want to know how they are dealing with requests, what the conditions are like in the room and what I can do as a pilot to help them to help me

I was delighted, therefore, to learn that many of the air traffic control units in the UK will open up their doors in May to allow visitors.

The event is being organised by the Airspace and Safety Initiative and encompasses MOD facilities, NATS facilities and a couple of other units such as Cambridge, Blackpool and Inverness.

More details are available on the website along with contact information to book your place. The events are free but spaces are limited. You must be a holder of a pilots licence (NPPL, PPL, BGA certificate etc). Those attending will be required to show their licence. If you have not pre-registered or cannot produce your pilot licence you will not be admitted on the day.

Hopefully you will be able to make it to one of them, and if your going to Farnborough, I might see you there!

Flying in the US. Part Two

In one of my earliest posts I talked about how I had learned to fly in Orlando, Florida. I want to go into some more detail about that training to help you understand if you want to take that decision yourself.

In the earlier post I mentioned several of the advantages of using somewhere like Kissimmee as a base for flying. These included Air Traffic Control and ATIS experience, no landing fees and excellent weather. But I want to talk about the downside for a few moments.

Downsides:
The school I used (which will rename nameless, but was a flight training organisation based in Orlando), is one of at least two based at the airport. They do helicopter and fixed wing training as well as PA28, C172 and the full ATPL course. The facility has training rooms, an IFR simulator and full weather and briefing stations. They have a complement of instructors who do FAA and JAR training as well as instrument training and all the associated ATPL ground school classes. All in all it was a well organised school. But the downside to this is that it was always incredibly busy. There was a shortage of instructors, a shortage of planes and a shortage of slots. Any weather delay compounded the problem dramatically. Luckily I had a dedicated instructor which helped immensely, but I met folks out there who were on limited time courses and were simply not able to get the hours they needed and went home disappointed.

Added to that were the issues of the chief pilot. He was a dour Englishman who was being pulled in too many directions at the same time resulting in him not having enough time to do anything. As chief pilot he was responsible for administering and marking all exam papers, reviewing and finalising all flying documentation, authorising all student flights, dealing with the 'head office' area located on a different site as well as performing all the skills tests. For a small school with 5 or six instructors and a constant stream of students that would be acceptable, however for a large school with up to 15 instructors and literally dozens of students this was a major overload of work for him. I remember one day waiting almost 4 hours for him to return from a skills test, complete a set of documentation, make a dozen phone calls, hold a meeting with three guys from the aircraft hire section and have his lunch, before I was able to go in and request an exam paper from him which I completed in 45 minutes and waited another 2 hours for him to mark. As this was a critical exam needed to progress my flying hours it effectively meant I spent 6 hours of one day unable to fly. Extremely frustrating! In addition to this my dedicated instructor was also unable to fly and therefore lost a days earnings.

Upsides:
So what are the upsides? Well, assuming you can get yourself airborne, the upsides are tremendous. I've already mentioned the weather which is usually good and - even if it isn't - is usually very predictable - if the weather forecast said rain showers at 10 am you would get rain showers at 10am. It made planning flights very easy! There is a great deal of freedom in flying across the pond. Whilst they are, obviously, governed by the same rules and regulations we are, the implementation of those rules has resulted in a more liberal attitude. What do I mean? Take PPR, for example. "Prior Permission Required". it is a prerequisite of most UK airports, aerodromes and landing fields. You have to contact them prior to departure to inform them that you will be arriving and when. Now I'm not saying there isn't a good reason for this (for some tricky approaches - such as those into Fairoaks which is under the Heathrow Class A airspace - it is usually a good idea to get a briefing), but why, then, can I take off in Orlando and pretty much fly where I want without having to let anyone know my destination and then land randomly at whichever field appeals to me? I've already told you how I flew into Melbourne International Airport on a whim for a touch and go, following a 737 on finals. I also trekked out to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral for some flying and - whilst the space centre itself is restricted, I was able to spend several hours doing touch and go's at Merritt Island which is the nearest field still on the Cape Canaveral peninsula. My first solo was taken at a field called Winter Haven near Cypress Gardens. It's another field with good concrete runways and a nice, tricky approach that takes you over a large lake just prior to touchdown (Extremely interesting if attempting a short field landing. Imagine aiming for the water as your landing spot and flaring out to land right on the end of the runway. A little scary!). All of these landings were done without PPR and none of them cost me a cent. There are no landing charges.

ATC :
How many of you have worked in a complex, ATC managed traffic pattern? There aren't many fields in the UK where this happens. Shoreham is one (although the definition of 'complex' in this case might not mean the same thing). At Kissimmee the airport is a genuine working regional airport with traffic arriving from all points of the US and the Bahamas. As well as training pilots there helicopters, tourists coming in from Key West and environs as well as a host of corporate jets of various sizes heading in from New York, Chicago and the West Coast, not to mention a group of P51 Mustang's based at the field doing military style 'bank-and-break' maneuvers over midfield and peeling off to land in sequence. Throw a 10 or 15 hour student into the middle of that with air traffic control and you get some interesting situations which, I feel, are unique to the area.

On more than one occasion I have been asked to extend a downwind leg to allow a jet to make an instrument approach. I've also been told (while on short finals) to 'go-around' because a Cessna Citation was approaching behind me and would have been forced to go around himself (jet's being more expensive to 'go-around' on than a little PA28).

Summary :
There is no doubt in my mind that the US is geared more towards the pleasure flying end of the spectrum than the UK. Things just seem 'easier' and less hassle when flying there. The weather is good and predictable, the costs are lower, and the administration overhead is lower.

Why wouldn't you fly in the US?

Wing Strike!

No doubt you will have seen the footage of the Lufthansa Airbus hitting it's wing during a crosswind landing.

For those of you who haven't, the video at the link was taken by a couple of guys standing underneath the approach lights in Hamburg as the plane came over during some pretty nasty weather. Obviously it was crabbing in at an angle to compensate for the crosswind. As it approached the runway it straightened up and started to float down to the surface. Suddenly the right wing lifted, the left gear struck and the plane tipped over striking the left wingtip on the ground. The pilots executed a go-around and landed without incident a short while later.

Now a couple of things strike me about this (and I'll get onto how this affects private pilots in a moment)

1) Moments before landing the plane drifts across to the left of the centre line and assumes a much more crabbed position than previously
2) Apart form that this didn't seem to be anything more than a seriously windy crosswind landing

So what actually happened? Well I assume that this is similar to the 777 crash at Heathrow recently in that there will be lots of opinion and conjecture, but very little known about the truth for a while. However, it is probably fair to say that the pilots were comfortable with the approach right up until the point the plane's undercarriage touched when, it appears, a gust of wind tipped the right wing up causing the result you saw.

But the question does present itself of 'When should you execute a go-round?'

I've flown many, many landings during my training when the conditions included something of a cross wind on approach. Personally I find these landings more fun and challenging and like to do them. But they're not easy.

There are 2 schools of thought for flying crosswind approaches in single engine planes. One is the 'crab-and-kick' approach (similar to the A320 Airbus in the video) where the plane is flown in level but crabbed into the wind, the pilot kicking the plane straight with the rudder just prior to touch down. (This video shows that it can be done on really big planes as well!). The second school is where you always fly the plane down the centreline of the runway but counter the crosswind by banking the plane into the wind (Wing down). This effectively puts you into a constant turn which is counterbalanced by the wind pushing you back. That's the way I was taught.

Both of these have benefits and downsides. The downside to the first approach 'crab-and-kick' is that you are susceptible to any sudden gusts of wind from one side which can upset the balance of the plane by pushing one wing higher than the other (as, I believe, happened in Hamburg). The downside to the second approach is that, by definition you are coming in with one wing lower than the other. This means that the chance of a wing strike increases. This is also the reason larger planes don't do this. The benefit of the second approach is that you can consistently keep the plane on the centre line of the runway without having to worry about drifting off left or right in a crosswind.

So how does this apply to us private pilots? Well, ordinarily we would like to be in a position where we only land when there is a minimal or zero crosswind (ideally we would like to land right into the prevailing wind!). But that doesn't always happen. There are many reasons for this: What happens, for example, if you're local airport/airfield has a perfectly good runway heading into the wind but some student has made a particularly hard landing and blown a tyre on their PA28 thereby rendering the runway u/s until they change it? (Yes, I was that student, but in my defence I made a perfectly good landing that time: it was the heavy landings earlier on in the session that caused the problem...) Now all the other planes in the circuit are having to land on the crosswind runway. Everything from 5 hour beginners to experienced Gulfstream are landing into a right to left crosswind.

This is the time when your airmanship really comes into play. Crosswind landings are tricky for the reasons I've already said, so knowing when to make the 'go-around' call and when not to becomes even more important. Chances are if you're coming in 'crab-and-kick' then you're going to have to anticipate any sudden gusts which would send you off the centreline. Depending on where you are in the approach (Long Finals, short finals, over the numbers) your reaction is going to be different. I always work on the basis that if I'm in a situation where I'm going to have to work hard to make the landing then I'm going round. This could be because I'm too high, too low, too fast, not mentally prepared (doesn't happen often, but when it does I'm definitely going round), way off the centre line or when the runway ahead isn't clear. I would much rather do another circuit and make a good landing than struggle to get down, make a mistake and end up as a statistic or a video on Youtube.

If you're coming in 'Wing-down' then the same principals apply.

Always make the call as soon as possible. If you're with the instructor he or she will respect you for displaying good airmanship. If you have passengers they will appreciate you making the landing smoother and more comfortable. If you're by yourself it will give you another approach to practice, another circuit to do and more flying time. It's a win-win situation.


So should the Lufthansa pilot have made the go-round call earlier? I know I probably would have done. From the point about 4 seconds prior to the main gear landing when the plane started to drift off to the left. That would have been my go-round point.

I wouldn't have made the news headlines in such a spectacular way, but my record would be blemish free and Lufthansa would have one less piece of maintenance to worry about...

photo (C) Lars Trejau