Black Square You’re There !

Black Square

This sign indicates that you are at holding point Alpha.

Yellow Array, You’re on the way.

Yellow Array

This sign indicates that you are on the way to Runway 27 and Runway 33 and by
the way it’s to the right.

Red and White Runway in sight.

Red and White

This sign for example indicates that ahead of you is the runway 15 or the
runway 33 (depending which way you turn).

This is not a complete list of all the runway signage you’ll see. There is
lots of it, go look up the rest learn what each of them mean. Hopefully with
those three aide memoires you’ll not take a wrong turn.

Big Runway

Checklists are not Do Lists! I’ve heard that a lot recently. Especially from American instructors. What the heck do they mean? You have a checklist. It has a list of items on it. You go down the list and make sure you’ve carried out all the items right? Don’t misunderstand me but the last time I was demonstrating my flying skills to an American, they watched me set up the aircraft for Take off, finger on the checklist items. Mixture (Full Rich), Throttle (quarter inch) etc. After an hours flying in the local area, she was convinced that I could fly alright, I’d just learnt to use the checklist all wrong. She had been thinking

“Jees. Can this guy even fly? He has to read all the items to start the engine!”

It is a common mistake, I’m told (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) that Checklist are used as do lists. Even high hour pilots do this. Eventually they discover their mistake and correct it.

Here’s an example from the commercial world. The handling pilot (not feeling well) had set up for approach. The captain read out

“Altimeter 992 millibars”

The First Officer read repeated

“992″.

Unfortunately the First Officer had 29.92 inches set on the altimeter.

That’s a difference of 500 feet. The verbal prompt alerted the captain to the error. Something that the Do List would not have.

One option for getting out of the Do List mentality is to get your instructor to read out the checklist after you’ve set up the aircraft, I know that’s not practical for a flight test (or check ride), but it starts to get you into the right frame of mind.

So set up the aircraft from memory (certainly important items should be memorized) and then check against the checklist. That’s why it’s called a checklist!

Anyone For Tea

I’m a great fan of London Information. Despite the name’s implication “London Information” is available all over the South of England and all over Wales. I remember the first time back from Alderney it was the first friendly voice after navigating across that great body of water called the Channel. It felt like a returning spitfire approaching the White Cliffs of Dover.

“London Information. Algie, here. Put the kettle on, looks like I’ll be back in time for afternoon tea”

“Glad to hear you’re back Algie. I’m putting the kettle on now.”

I recently had to use them flying to Caernarfon. Squawking 1177, which identifes you to all radar agencies as talking to London Information, which then allows them to get in touch with you. Talking to London also gives you a great insight on what else is going on in a huge area. From North Wales all the way to the south coast! At the end of the day it was good to hear that many pilots were “coasting in” – which was a phrase I had not heard before, meaning that they were crossing the coast at some location, such as Shoreham.

“G-ABCD, coasting in at Shoreham”

It sounded friendly. It sounded like they’d  put the cards in their spokes had cycled up to France and now they were just coasting in back down to good ‘ol blighty. That’s what it sounded like. And they were busy. Very busy. So busy that I didn’t notice that they couldn’t hear me when I tried to talk to them. Even though my radio was working before we left Caernarfon it was not working, or at least working intermittently by the time we were 10 minutes out. Luckily another useful transponder code 7600 came in useful. This alerted Distress and Diversion that somebody was flying an aeroplane with a failed radio. I could hear what was going on, but nobody could hear me. I could hear Swansea, talking about me. Discussing what type I might be a how fast I was and where I might be. Luckliy, after changing head-sets I finally fixed the communication problem and was able to assure Swansea that I was clear of their area. I was also able to pass on a message to D & D, who had found a 7600 and were trying to identify me. I’ve mentioned my visit to D & D in another article. Yet again I was grateful that somebody was looking out for me and that the system works.

So now all we need is a new transponder code to tell ATC when to put the tea on.

G1000 Traffic Display

With the G1000 system becoming ever more capable and with it being fitted to more and more aircraft, it’s probably time that you got the glass cockpit conversion! I’ve mentioned the Synthetic Vision system in a previous month (http://www.flyingfamilies.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320&Itemid=1). This is the display you can overlay on the PFD, but there is a wealth of information that can be displayed on the MFD too. One of these systems (if fitted) is the TIS (Traffic Information System). It is shown as one or two rings (depending on your range setting) on which are displayed detected traffic. To select the “Map – TRAFFIC MAP” page,  rotate the large FMS knob to the MAP choice. Then rotate in the smaller FMS button tot he “MAP – TRAFFC MAP” page.
If the unit is active the soft buttons on the screen will show a STANDBY | OPERATE choice, with OPERATE selected.
Your own aircraft is shown in the middle. If traffic is detected but out of range then a half yellow circle represents the traffic.

A solid yellow circle represents conflicting traffic in range of the system. A Solid white diamond represents traffic which is not in conflict in range of the system. A solid white diamond is “Proximate traffic”. I think this means not conflicting but it could conflict based on it’s current movements. A hollow white diamond is traffic in range but appears to be not in conflict.

Height trends are shown besides the symbols. An arrow pointing up if the aircraft is ascending at a greater than 500 ft/min rate and a downard pointing arrow if the aircract is descending at more than 500 ft/min.

Numbers above or below the symbol tell you abou the current height above or below your own aircraft. The number is shown below for aircraft below and above for aircraft above.

The range of the system can be set to 2nm, 6nm or 12nm, by adjusting the RANGE button. Voice alerts are generated whenever a new aircraft is detected and the system can even be configured to have a male or female voice.You can set the voice from the “AUX- SYSTEM SETUP” page under the “AUDIO ALERT” section.

Airplane Mayday

Those three words, the prefix to an emergency radio call, are often practised both in the USA and the UK. Despite the fact that the ICAO language is English this is based on a French phrase (“Me” “aidez” – contracted to M’aidez – help me) and even though Britain and the USA share a common language root, and both are signatories to the ICAO, they have differences in the standards used for their Mayday calls. These are sufficiently different that you could easily fail an FAA flight test by following the UK standard phraseology!

I was taught to remember the Mayday call with the acronym “RIP Louis Hoy”. I’m not sure who Louis Hoy was (I think he was the son of the narrator of the audio tape (yes tape) that I listened to on the way to the airfield during my training).

R – Reason
I – Intention
P – Position
L – Level
H – Heading

Naturally you prefix all this with the the station being called, your call sign and Mayday Mayday Mayday. An optional item is the level of experience of the pilot. I was always told to use tyro, which means in-experienced, which I certainly was at the time. So a typical UK mayday call could go something like:

“Mayday mayday mayday. Farnborough radar, golf golf hotel echo lima, Cessna 172, engine rough running. Intend forced landing, four miles south of Woodley, 2,300 feet descending, heading 160 degrees. Two POB. Tyro”.

Other optional items include endurance. In the USA the mandatory include weather and fuel remaining in minutes! A typical FAA mayday call would therefore be:

“Mayday mayday mayday. Kissimee tower, Cessna six eight zero zero, 172. Engine rough running, 10km visibility. Intend forced landing, four miles south of Epcot, 2,300 feet descending, 180 minutes fuel remaining, heading 160 degrees, 2 POB.”

Optional items include: ELT status (sqwawking; off; damaged, Visible landmarks (e.g Micky Mouse’s ears), aircraft colour (or color) and emergency equipment on board.

You see the similarities but as usual there are those nagging differences as well. So remember to keep track of the minutes of fuel in the USA and the colour of your aircraft. In the UK remember what tyro means and above all that in a real emergency you only need “mayday, mayday, mayday” and everybody will jump to help you!

Now that we have aviation for granted we need to go where we should go by navigation. Don’t let navigation distract you from flying at any time. Even when you come to use radio navigation, keep you aircraft properly trimmed and flying at all times. Now the interpretaion of this rule gets a little more murky.
If I told you that when you were lost you should make navigation your priority and ignore communication, I’d be wrong. Communication can rescue you when you get lost.
If on the other hand your communication failed (radio failure), then as long as you were in the right place and followed the radio failure procedure you’d be mostly OK.
On the other hand if you wanted to cross through a zone and you knew the Red Arrows were on the other side somewhere, but couldn’t get a word in edge-wise on the radio (radio failure), then you navigation should be adjusted to keep you away from the zone until you can communicate. Which is more important now?

Bembridge Track

And perhaps this is where the Navigate, Communicate bit comes from.

So, to re-phrase the rule in a less ambiguous way we’d say “Always aviate. If aviation allows, always navigate and communicate, but do navigation as a higher priority task unless you’re lost, in which case communication is most important, but keep up the aviation and if you must communicate but can’t then sometimes adjust your navigation to compensate, but don’t forget the aviation.” I think that’s so much more catchy than the original!