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.

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!