Full ATC - Behind the scenes

hello and welcome to part 3 of my series exploring the differences between aerodrome and air traffic services in the UK today I'm at Red Hill which has full air traffic control and the main reason for that is that the airfield is based right next to London Gatwick the UK's second busiest airport in this episode we'll visit the tower to see the controllers at work and demonstrate from a fixed-wing pilot's perspective how to operate when ATC is in charge some aerodromes with full air traffic control will require you to obtain a clearance to start your engines it will usually say so in the published aerodrome information at Red Hill clearance to start is not required most aerodrums with full ATC will have an ATIS frequency the automatic terminal information service it's a fancy name for a recorded message that spells out to a pilot what runways in use the weather pressure and any other pertinent information I'm picking up Red Hills ATIS now before calling up the a test is usually updated every 30 minutes and every new update is identified with a new letter of the alphabet in this case uniform this should be read back to the controller so that they know you have the latest information I'm going to call up now for taxi 20 a1 on board our bound to cross the cross one eight one three seven six chromium I now must follow the taxi instructions I've been given some aerodrums with full ATC will use multiple frequencies so in addition to tower they may have ground approach or even radar if Red Hill had a ground frequency that would have been who I'd call first once power checks are completed we head to our clearance limit in this case holding point and as usual I say because we're adjacent to and below controlled airspace at Red Hill I've been given very specific departure instructions I must abide by them additionally note that I've only been given permission to line up I haven't been given clearance to take off yet clear for takeoff my turn come on scrappy temperatures are precious all in the green PSB creeping up now that's 50 here we go and that's basically all there is to the departure the controller we were speaking to there was Phil right Red Hills senior air traffic controller I asked him if being surrounded by Gatwick controlled airspace made things tricky it does yes we've got limited air space to play with we have a letter of agreement we've got week that says what we can do what they will do and slightly segregate the traffic yeah the biggest restriction is the height we're limited to 1,500 feet even though you're ATS air technically goes up to dot's mm above 90 so goes up to 2,000 feet above the airfield and unlike some places we still have that so if Gatwick wish to use that we have to ask us yeah it's not seeded to them in any way yeah and from it from a pilot's perspective then I mean being full ATC what does that mean for pilots how do you differ from say some of the other pair of drones with different types of services we provide navigation control service within the ATS ed which essentially we sequence the traffic in the visual circuit and the pilots so expected to follow the information and instructions that we give them essentially you control everything that goes on both on the ground on the moon on the we've got authority over everything moving on the ground and it's information and instructions to aircraft in the air to prevent collisions and yeah although the pilot is ultimately responsible for where he flies and how he flies we give him the sequence than we expect them to fit in and conform to that I haven't done the research here but just thinking anecdotally there can't be that many grass Aero drones that have four air traffic control so why is it that you have full air traffic control here it's really down to the location that we are on partly within the gamma control zone and at the time ATC was put into mid Hill it was very complex we had Bristow helicopters flying training school here got the tiger club and we were very intense movement going on and it needed to be controlled in some way we had a mid-air collision over the m23 m25 junction between a pa-28 and the tiger moth and that really focus the CIA on the activities that were going on here and one of the recommendations coming out of that was they wanted full AGC ATC in at Red Hill and they were looking at all the air fields around the m25 at that time and Wickham was another one that had an incident and again they are swayed to see to go in there and do you find that having ATC is is a real asset for the aerodrome I mean I know that you have you have you asked you are still quite busy er you know I don't know what your movements are like before but you seem like quite busy aerodrome there's always something going on you have the air ambulance here and the police helicopter too don't you yeah we do we've got a complex traffic so yeah big ATC does mean that if we spot something going wrong with an aircraft in the air we can issue instructions to it straight away so if we see it's likely to infringe that way we can tell the pilot we don't have to wait for Gatwick to ring and say tell this pilot to do this so we can issue an executive instruction straight away now lots of aerodrums use visual reference points to guide traffic in and out of there aerodrums and one thing I noticed about coming to Red Hill and operating from here is that you make very effective use of those visual reference points don't you because that is effectively how you flow the traffic and deconflict the traffic from each other that's essentially it because we don't have the facility to join things overhead at 2,000 feet into a standard circuit or standard join we've had to use v RPGs to filter the traffic in in sequencing yeah and deconflict me inbound from the air balance which is why we're very particular toilets use to correct the RP depending on the runways at venues obviously if you're flying here because of gap weight you're going to need to have a good look at a good briefing of the aerodrome procedures but that shouldn't frighten people from coming here actually should it I mean I'll be honest with you I mean in my early days I wouldn't have come anywhere near Red Hill for fear of making a mistake do you find that's quite common it is and it's like anything you read documents and it looks really complicated because there's all these words and you've got to do this got to do that but actually you must have seen from your flying it's actually quite straightforward you know you seen work out which be our peers you're using to come in and out by and long we shot accurate on your height keeping stay below 1500 feet when our maximum is 1400 feet going out yeah the procedures are designed to ensure you don't infringe controlled airspace it's time for me to demonstrate a typical arrival now at an aerodrome with full ATC I've already picked up red hills ATS I've descended to keep calling up for joining instructions basic service report with runway two six left in use inbound traffic from the east is routing via South Godstone railway station outbound traffic to the east routes like God's tones VRP Gothel Scalia trapped you please Hallie come to one three five sure to get the air borne out towards these keep good lookout for traffic we're south coast and railway station Australia after a rupture make a straight approach to six left and report file the police helicopter comes down you're probably a right side of this station like straight in approach to six plus copy III 738 ready I got facial fuel running like car meets pa pa come down your right hand side shorty looking stopping in sight Gullfoss chromium copper strip marrow snakes go off foster I'm here g6 left kid laughs - 8 0 1 v dot v lands to sleek line of commissary [Music] girl foster omiyage locate the right cross cross cross runway one a back pocket okay right across the grass request for your car okay hopefully this series is helping you better understand the subtle yet important differences between aerodrums here in the UK please share this video and if you're a student pilot why not share it with your instructor and/or Flying School in case they want to share it as well next time I mix with the heavy metal at Southend Airport it's in Class D controlled airspace and in addition to the tower controller there's a radar controller - the video is out on the 22nd of November 2019 my early bird supporters could watch it now visit my website to sign up for my safely my friends you

Channel: The Flying Reporter

Views: 21,879

Keywords: Full ATC, Radiotelephony, General Aviation, The Flying Reporter, Redhill

Id: lso0yGTdElw

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019