Conflicts Please Advise

[Chuck Finley]

As long as people don't understand that excessively
long transmissions render the frequency useless, this
problem will persist.

The ultimate version of "ACTPA" is a stuck mike, which
completely shuts down the freq. I guess many private
pilots don't have a problem with stuck mikes, either.
Maybe they think it makes them rock stars or something.

Once you understand that when it gets busy, time is
precious, then people can start to see the virtue of a
shorter radio call which contains the same information
as a longer radio call.

I am NOT advocating speaking quickly. That's worse
than useless. But, you have a budget of syllables.

Compare this:

"Vee Oh Jay, Final 24"

with

"Maule Foxtrot Victor Oscar Juliette, turning left final runway two four Smiths Falls touch and go. All conflicting traffic please advise Maule Foxtrot Victor Oscar Juliette at Smiths Falls on one two two point seven oh"

My call is SEVEN syllables.

Your call is FIFTY-FOUR syllables, consuming 7.7
times as much of the precious time on the freq.

Sir, That's 2 syllables over the 500 allowed.

[omgwereallgoingtodie]

sometimes I wish they would advise though , or even acknowledge

last week was out at practice area, 2500ft and below, forced approaches.

position call consisted of call sign, altitude, position and what I was doing (forced approaches)

I was in the SW corner as there were quite a few people in the area. I'd agreed to stay in my little corner.

I could see someone above me (maybe 1000ft, I'm crap at judging height distances) happily circling around the exact same area , albeit above me. probably doing upper airwork

I could see them but occasionally I'd lose sight of them as I orbited my field. I was mildly concerned that at some point I'd overshoot as they were spiral diving or something.

Some acknowledgement that they were aware of my position calls might have been nice.

And no I don't say it before anyone asks

[Colonel Sanders]

I think I've mentioned this before, but anyone
who relies upon their VHF comm while VFR for
traffic separation, is going to die.

You must use your eyeballs. They are not optional.
Regardless of what your young instructor told you,
the comm radio is just a bonus as far as traffic
conflict and resolution goes. It has endless failure
modes.

Don't bet your life on something that easily breaks.
If your young instructor doesn't understand this,
have him send me an email and I will try to explain.

[Shiny Side Up]

Some acknowledgement that they were aware of my position calls might have been nice.

But maybe they weren't. Sort of part of the whole point with the radio thing. Never assume because you made a call that:

a) Someone heard it, or

b) That they heard it and understood it, or

c) That they heard it, understood it and are going to do something about it.

The possibilities of the other pilot not knowing where you were at and what you were doing in spite of your radio call are almost infinite.

The question is why you chose to continue to operate in close proximity to someone you weren't certain knew that you were there. I say this a lot, but it would do a lot of people a lot of good if more people had to ride a motorcycle in traffic to have the epiphany that goes along with it.

It drives me figuatively (possibly litterally) insane when pilotssee other airplanes and then don't endeavor to avoid them expediently. Rather they will keep flying at another airplane but increase the frequency of talking on the radio as if it provides them with a shield against the possibility of collision.

SSU: how cringeworthy.

That's not the half of it. Now imagine the radio call I gave above, but put a long "uuhhhm" between every word. Yes, every word. Really makes it sound like someone's brain is slipping out of gear when they're talking. I heard that one day over Northern Saskatchewan, so being the evil person I am, I called him back with a "uhhhm can uhhm you uhhm say uhhhhm that uhhhm again?"

The irony of course was lost on him and he did indeed repeat the grotesque string of verbage.

The world made up for those tortuous sounds later when the same day I saw a pair of Beavers on Floats flying formation across a lake.

[CpnCrunch]

last week was out at practice area, 2500ft and below, forced approaches.

position call consisted of call sign, altitude, position and what I was doing (forced approaches)

I was in the SW corner as there were quite a few people in the area. I'd agreed to stay in my little corner.

Isn't the concept of a practice area a bad idea? Concentrating a whole bunch of planes doing airwork in a small area. I always try to avoid them even when I am doing 'practice' stuff.

[omgwereallgoingtodie]

4 planes all working in the small bit of uncontrolled airspace - we organised ourselves so that one of us stayed NW, one NE , one SE, one SW of a landmark.
no problems. except for the one plane who was above me.

Eventually I turned around and came home because I was spending more time trying to avoid them than I was doing what I needed to.

I only get to fly once a a week at the moment so solo lesson cut short because I ran out of sky.

Capn Crunch. - I'm not sure what other options I have around here that don't involve me spending 0.5 at least on the Hobbs trying to get somewhere clear.

[Shiny Side Up]

Here I thought that training out of a busy airport was something that enhanced your flight training experience....

[omgwereallgoingtodie]

In some ways yes. In others no.
I've never claimed otherwise.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The practice area near my home drome recently instituted a dedicated advisory frequency. All the local instructors use it quite effectively by each announcing what part of the area they are going to use. Conflicts tend to be quickly dealt with and there has IMO been a significant increase in both safety and training efficiency

Of course you still have to keep good look out but the problem is now invariably some dumb ass in a private SEP, that barrels right through the practice area without saying anything or making any effort to avoid obvious conflicts.

[Jojo]

Hi guys !

I heard a RCAF C-130 doing low altitude patrols using this "any con...." today.
I lost faith.

[cgzro]

You guys will be happy to know its happening in French too!
Heard a chopper pilot do it yesterday near CYND complete with repeating his transmit frequency twice.

[PilotDAR]

I heard a RCAF C-130 doing low altitude patrols using this

Perhaps it was a newbie copilot, while a grey haired captain listened on in horror!

This subject is a "them and us" divider. "Us" (old pilots) don't do this, because we are watching where we are flying. We might reply to such a call, though we might not, if we are laughing too hard upon hearing it. "Them" should still watch where they are going, because the radio call will never be enough to assure safety.....

"Us" will not become "Them", I hope "them" one day become "Us"....

[Pop n Fresh]

OK, I'll explain part of why I have done it when I have in the past. Hopefully I won't accidentally say it ever again.

I'm not flying nearly often enough to be relaxed around other traffic in an uncontrolled area where no one will call up to say, "Juliet Kilo Charlie, you have traffic at 11 o clock and 5500' traveling 230 degrees type unknown." So I can reply, "Juliet Kilo Charlie, looking for traffic." Spot the other plane and then proudly announce. "Juliet kilo Charlie, with traffic." I see the other plane for sure, everyone is happy.

Even in class C airspace where both of us are being told pretty specifically where and how high to fly the ATC people seem kind of nervous telling me about the other crazy pilot as if we're going to get too close if we don't both confirm we see each other right away. "Juliet Kilo Charlie, do you have the A-330 traffic in sight yet?"

Holy monkey, if these planes are that deadly in a control zone how much more unpredictable will they be when it's anarchy in class G or where ever we are?

"Please if you're within 100 miles of me say something so I can look out for you before we clip each others wings or something."

Rational? No, but too many other people did it and it just felt better to ask sometimes.

[AirFrame]

You guys will be happy to know its happening in French too!

Mon dieu!

And it'll be twice as bad en Francais as it'll take at least twice as many syllables to say the same thing.

[girouxc]

Use 4 key word:

To Who
From who
Where we are (altitude very important)
Where We go (or intentions)

The pilots/students I fly with coming with some previous experience and use those looooog useless transmissions are telling me they learned it this way.

I cut it short and ask to ear only essential infos and consider radio time as precious ressource.

... In the training area and in the pattern.

When they understand the point they find it obvious and do it short after.

[triplese7en]

I think it's obvious that you should tell whoever you're talking to who you are! So when you make a radio call in uncontrolled airspace, tell them 1) your 3D position (bearing and distance from a known point plus your altitude), and 2) your intentions. That's it.

3D position and intentions.

And keep it short.

[Colonel Sanders]

I don't bother with altitude. Over 99% of the time,
it just doesn't matter:

"Ten north, inbound two-seven"

And that's it. Only if someone else is ten north
does my altitude matter. Obviously I will be
descending to join the circuit via overhead. If
someone can't figure that out, well, maybe they
should take up golf.

Talk less. Fly more.

[triplese7en]

I'd be inclined to say "ten miles north, inbound runway two-seven".

Operators in the boonies in Ontario like to say as little as possible, as fast as possible. "Sandy papa alpha bravo ten south two seven in eight." If you're not actively listening to the radio you're gonna miss one or two details of that call.

I'm not asking for a paragraph, I just want a call that is short and concise, spoken at a decent rate, with appropriate breaks/pauses. No, I don't want to hear on 26.7 what runway you're landing on.

[Colonel Sanders]

The key to good R/T is to not talk too fast,
with the minimum number of syllables to
convey the same information. That yields
the highest signal-to-noise ratio. This is
important when the frequency gets busy.

For me "ten north" is unambiguous. We
do not use furlongs or meters or light-years
as units of aviation navigational measurement
in Canada.

When I hear "ten north", that means ten miles,
with no possible confusion.

Similarly, when I say that I am "inbound two-seven"
or "inbound one-four" there is no confusion that I
am intending to land on rwy 27 or rwy 14, respectively.

"two-seven" and "one-four" do not refer to lanes
in the bowling alley near the airport. Nor are they
the names of restaurants. They are not even altitudes.

Fewer syllables yields an objectively superior radio call.
That doesn't matter to most people, who jabber on
endlessly about useless nonsense, because they feel
important when they transmit on the radio.

[Shiny Side Up]

New thing learned for the day: the french "confleet" is as irritating as the Anglo "conflicts" upon repetition.

[Colonel Sanders]

Recently I taught someone to land a Pitts, which
I am sure is easy for all the AvCan posters, but ...

Anyways, we do a circuit pretty quickly. About
2.5 minutes. If I was a typical private pilot,
enamoured with the sound of my own voice,
I could probably completely tie up the UNICOM
frequency with useless crap, making it impossible
for all the pilots at all the different airports who
share that frequency, to get a word in edgewise.

However, I elect not to do that. Instead my
radio calls are only thusly:

"Tee Pee Ess, downwind zero six"
"Tee Pee Ess, final zero six"

And that's it, that's all folks. I am waiting
patiently for some dinglenuts to try to tear
me a new one, for not mentioning the airport
name.

However, I have been actively flying at this
particular airport now for over a quarter of
a century, and I happen to know that no
airport sharing that UNICOM frequency
(including the ones in Quebec and NY) have
a runway 06.

So, when dinglenuts tears me a new one
for not mentioning the airport in my radio
calls, I will politely ask him if he has a
runway 06 at his distant airport.

When he says no, I will tell him that my
radio call is not for his airport, because
it does not have a runway 06.

This is pretty complicated logic for a pilot
to follow, but I believe that with some
practice and concentration, they can step
up to it.

[Pop n Fresh]

"Uhhhhhh... Ten North, could you say again what you're north of?"

There must be better frequency use there. I was flying here and we could hear radio calls intended for a couple of airports many many miles from the one we were going to use which for some reason had the same frequency. The only reason I knew was they included that info in the call. "Three Hills traffic." Not sure why they sounded nice and clear being so far away.

[Colonel Sanders]

There must be better frequency use

I know. Everyone has at least 720 channel radios
(not everyone has 760, I have learned) so there is
no excuse as to why busy uncontrolled airports must
share common frequencies. On a sunny weekend,
it's insane. Trying to deal with NavCan on this issue
to get frequencies changed is like trying to reroute a
glacier.

This is yet another reason why the radio is useless
and you must LOOK OUTSIDE.

Dumb suggestion: take some of the uncontrolled
airports on 122.70 and move them to 122.72 and
122.77. For 122.80, move them to 122.82 and
122.87. I know, too simple. Maybe we can have
an all-expenses-paid Senate inquiry look into it
and after ten years of travelling around the
country feeding from the public trough expense
account, they could get back to us with a 10,000
page report. Probably wouldn't cost more than
$10,000,000. A real deal at $1,000 per page
and as any bureaucrat will tell you, there is no
cost to a 10 year implementation delay.

[Pop n Fresh]

They are adding position reporting frequencies due to necessity now they have closed the FSS units.

126.7 possibly will not even available soon. Could cause some excitement during the transition.

[Colonel Sanders]

re: 126.70

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_ser ... _in_Canada

Canadian FIC are gradually phasing out the use of 126.7 MHz for FISE (Enroute Flight Information) and are instead utilizing discrete frequencies.

This is to decrease the frequency congestion often experienced on 126.7. These frequencies are found in the CFS Canada Flight Supplement.