Airport Marshall Conducts Crucial Safety Checks | Bristol Airport S2 E4 | Our Stories

thank you Bristol's annual Balloon Fiesta is underway on the ground 120 hot air balloons will shortly be climbing slowly into the air and floating away on the Wind foreign just a short flight away from the airport where air traffic control is keeping a close eye on the launch Charlie Bristol Charlie Rogers the Bristol kin h1005 the 2000 foot wind at Bristol airport about four minutes ago was 260 at 22 knots the air traffic controllers provide the balloon Pilots with detailed wind and pressure readings they're also well aware that without any propulsion system the balloons will simply go where the wind takes them with this morning's winds reaching over 20 miles an hour at 2000 feet there's a real chance that the spectacle could easily turn into a potentially dangerous situation for the airport kickoff time for the balloons also coincides with one of the busiest times of day at the airport [Music] planes taking off and landing and over 100 balloons in the sky it's going to get very crowded [Music] the airport's radar can pick out aircraft at all levels but spotting a hot air balloon is a lot more difficult it's certainly one of the balloons there about six miles Northeast of us moving away to the Northeast away just south of filton [Music] we can see the balloons now they're just getting the Airborne on the horizon there they're Trucking about zero seven zero degrees which is going to take them to about two miles south of filton they're looking out towards the airport you can see the airport over there let's give them a call in a minute all of these events have to be integrated with the operations at the airport and the routine operations of something in excess of 200 commercial flights a day we start preparing several months in advance for all of these events and the cooperation we get from the organizers in almost every regard is superb Bristol radar this is hot air balloon golf x-ray Romeo Lima Delta now the problem is on radar we only see them if they're moving with a reasonable speed on otherwise we'd see everything that everything's not moving so because they're moving so slowly the radar is designed not just not to see things that are moving very slowly so that's one of the problems but also the balloon itself doesn't give a one a really good reflective surface to get a signal from anyway a cosine is golf x-ray Romeo Lima Delta and we are in the middle of the pack climbing out of Ashton Court at this time uh 1 500 feet qnh1015 and drifting to the east [Music] foreign operators uh some months in advance to ensure that the balloons stay away from the airport and the flight paths that we control we designate part of the airspace around the airport here to the balloonists up to 2000 feet normally so that they can fly just when they want when they need to we're conscious of the fact that they have a spectacle produced for the for the public so it's a big event we want to support that and we do everything we can to try and make it happen as they want well we're now flying parallel to the Bristol Runway 2-7 approach and so we're keeping an eye on their traffic we've talked to them introduced ourselves amongst this massive 120 other balloons we try and avoid everybody talking to them at once because otherwise they get overloaded so two or three of us just talk so that they're aware of what's going on and what the balloons are generally doing on on operate not about one thousand five everyone one second Crystal balloon golf Lema Delta that's understood morning Julian nice to see you that's that's the Sacco or the actual air traffic manager they call him now we've got surface wind here at the airport showing in this case it's two ones already degrees at 13 knots the wind up a lot at two thousand five thousand feet it's very often much stronger than that so the balloons will be drifting quite fast so from our point of view it can be a blessing in disguise in that it can get the balloons out of our hair quite quickly albeit for the balloon Pilots themselves I should think life can be fairly exciting at times so far all's going well but as a large jet begins its approach some balloons are in danger of getting too close but actually getting the message across is going to be difficult this is a general broadcast to all balloons Please be aware that Bristol's approach is active mayor please stay quiet at the moment this is a general broadcast any balloon balloon Summerfield am I clear to climb just um to the left of the Kenshin rugby ground over here uh General broadcast from balloon it's a general broadcast from balloon control please all other stations keep quiet please keep clear of Bristol's approach they have a heavy aircraft approaching within the next 15 minutes one five minutes this applies to all balloons in the bath tension area symmetry all please stay off this frequency at the moment it's vital the message gets through to one balloon in particular it's balloon golf Victor Romeo Victor India on this frequency there is a heavy aircraft coming in Runway two seven Bristol south of bath you should be on the ground or at low level in the next 10 minutes this applies particularly to golf Victor Romeo Victor India Victor Romeo Victor India heads for the ground and the Airbus gets clearance to make it Final Approach I think one of the main problems that Bristol have are with some of the fixed-wing airline people who operate out of other airports foreign airports where they're not used to having balloons and the Bristol operators and of course air traffic are very used to it and integrating the two into a safe air traffic operation but some of the people from outside the UK are really get quite nervous when they see balloons in what they know to be regulated airspace but of course they soon realize that it's perfectly well controlled and safe as it would be if they were aircraft in balloon terms what goes up must always come down and if possible as gently as it can this is balloon golf Lima Delta okay in a minute after working in your Landing positions it should be very gentle but remember you're facing backwards don't get out until I say it's safe to do so even though you may think we're on the ground and finished [Music] you'd have to stay on the end now go backwards [Music] what did you walk out what you want yeah hello hello back at the airport the problem of the hairs is getting worse now they're even starting to use the main Runway that's the exact reason why we're having to trap these hairs you know we've got them entering the runway and vacating off at the end the hazard does exist there is a potential for that hair to cause a problem if you compare a hair to a bird in terms of density the actual weight of the animal as well it's got the potential to cause problems so with them going on the runway and all the rest and coming straight off down the end it's certainly in our eyes is a problem basically it's like all animals the same as Birds they don't have any they don't really have a fear of the aircraft going around and certainly their hairs don't appear to although they tend to as an aircraft may approach it may tend to move off at the last minute sometimes that is is a problem because if it's on the edge of the runway and it decides to run in front of the department aircraft then obviously you've got the stroke risk there this is one of the reasons why you can't use scaring devices against such creatures because they're within the environment they've got used to all the aircraft and all the rest of it so if you have something out there with flashing lights making unusual noises the chances are they it before they're going to get used to it there's no doubt about that and they tend to do what they want to do and when they want to do it rather than shoot the hairs hairs Jim Callaway has laid traps but so far without luck well certainly nothing in the Trap at the moment but there's obviously been signs of activity nearby so it's actually a track this comes through here and it's obviously something's been having a look at it so things are looking good because obviously the hairs have got used to the Trap within their environment and this is obviously one thing if you move something strange into an environment of creatures such as the hair and then obviously they're going to be shy of it for a day or two to things seem to have settle down quite well what we need to do now I think is to put a little bit of bait in the Trap so to speak so I'm going to get some decent hay in place in the actual trap and hopefully that will tempt the hairs to make that extra little bit of a step go inside the Trap [Applause] foreign season Bristol operates more than 1 000 commercial flights a week each one requires a martial like Dave Curran to see it safely in and out again okay so uh these suggest taxing down and as soon as it comes into the view I'll give him a little wave so he knows where he's got to go [Music] the only thing you need to be aware of is if there's a Hot Wheel so in other words if um if the the Pilots use the brakes quite hard then uh the the wheels the tires may be on fire so you have to keep it aware of that especially the foreign Pilots they tend to break quite hard the runway's not very long here so the larger planes they do break quite hard so there's a lot of things you have to keep into mind fire and things like that really [Music] just in case the captain wants to release his brakes you let him know you've put the chops in that's it what thousands of departing passengers don't always see is people like Dave and his colleagues giving their aircraft a final check over before takeoff before the initial pushback we have to check all the doors and hashes are closed we're waiting for one passenger at the moment so front door's open thank you what I look for is uh there's no oil patches or anything by the undercarriage and check it's not chopped and then come around here I've had it before where there was a flap left open from one of the engineers he put some oil in an aircraft and he left it flat the counting flat so uh that's it's putting the rules now we checked the engines as well just give it a quick check the pilot does this anyway but we just checked that all the panels are okay obviously the rear door you have to check the rear doors that closed the toilets have been service to check the panel on that's closed [Music] the other door the hole make sure that's okay same as the other side just check the tires sounds the same as the other side the whole doors open I think we're waiting for a bag or a pram so we'll leave that as it is that's it really up to now that's what we can do but Dave's job isn't finished when the walk round's complete he'll also be driving the pushback vehicle we're closing up now Stern bringing the steps in and then they close the door and remember the whole doors open so uh that's all done shots are taken away now so in a sense the aircraft is mine what he'll do in a minute is he'll give me the sign for breaks off and then which direction he wants me to go [Music] this is the only time where you do actually feel there's a lot of money in front of you you've got to remember all these passengers as well they're off on holiday and if you do do anything then uh you're gonna mess up their holidays and just give me clearance at two now so it's gonna start number two engine slowly start bringing it around foreign foreign [Music] [Music] otherwise um the captain sees me then he might think that this is the crew but there's also headset man as well okay just give me the thumbs up it's always a little bit of Pride getting it on the line because uh obviously there's a guide and more than times you uh you get it on the line sometimes you don't depends what mood you're in really this is another one of our traps we've got here in fact look at the grass you can see there's actually a track it's coming away so I'm not something's come away this way but you can see it's definitely been some activity in and around here Jim Callaway is checking a second trap and things are looking more hopeful ah yes fact something's definitely been able to actually see some drop-ins so this one's looks a lot more promising than the actual other one we've got um obviously they're now getting used to it it's in their in their territory the reason why we've got the cone there is it's a necessity for us to do this because the guy comes out top in the grass and also we've got various people coming up and down this part of the Airfield driving on the Airfield at night need to get to various sites so we've got to actually put a cone out there to make sure nobody drives over these traps we've been very kindly lent these traps by a gentleman who worked as part of a team on capturing and relocating hairs before so it's very um very important that we look after his kit as well no hairs then but some fresh grass in the Trap has Jim a little confused I'm not quite sure the way hairs behave but whether that's actually been put the hair has decided to stick that in there I doubt it but uh I'll just check my colleagues it's about unusual going on here [Laughter] Dave Curran is coming to the end of his shift with a final Britannia flight to see safely in his evening however is going to be spent rather differently [Music] [Music] I was raised on rock and roll and it was it was new everything was new the Elvis the Little Richard Jerry Lee Lewis it was all new at the time and it's just through the years of growing up I watch videos and listened to all the records and it's just something that excited me so and it's the style that I like to play and this is where Dave plays his favorite music at a seafront hotel in Western Superman [Music] a lot of my friends are rock and roll people and I'm a member of the club so when you go to these clubs um although they don't have Cliffs or anything like that they they do there's a lot of support for rock and roll I think it it may be a bit dated with the cliff I'm not sure but it's just a style that I like and uh it may come back one day you never know [Music] the biggest thrill I guess is at the end of the night when um everyone's singing the songs that I've I've done on a gig and everyone's in a good mood there all happy and I think I've done the job I've done the job if you have a crowd and they're a bit Conservative then it's hard to feed off a crowd like that but generally they I I managed to get them going and then I feed off them they feed off me and we have a good night some crowds are hard to get through but they do enjoy it at the end the amount of gigs I've done and I thought I'm not going down well but at the end of the night they come up to you and they say it's a fantastic night we've had a nice time and then I think I've done that you know [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] but if music plays such an important role in his life how did Dave end up working at an airport I love Aviation anyway and I was doing this professionally and I just wanted a bit of a change and I thought what else could I do and I felt aircraft let's see if there's anything with aircraft so I went to Bristol International and got a job I've been there six years now and um yeah I like it up there it's nice it's totally different to this totally different to this so two separate lives foreign Bristol next week Dave gives you some Frampton a helping hand on their way to Cyprus say bye-bye again [Music] Jim and Mike Go plane spotting put in the fog it's all a little hazy it happens already built Amsterdam that's nice foreign [Music]

Channel: Our Stories

Views: 16,447

Keywords: Our Stories, Documentary, Observational Documentary, Real Stories, Full Episode, Full Length Episodes, Full Documentary, Fly On The Wall, Yearbook, Real Life, Documentaries, Real Lives, Behind The Scenes, bristol airport, airport, airline, easyjet, airline documentary, airport documentary, behind the scenes airport, behind the scenes airline, baggage control, airplane, airplane documentary, cabin crew, airport check-in, international airport, airport story, british airport

Id: D6zRf-8uOaQ

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 12 2023