On The Airbands

Congratulations to Mr John Martin, of Wollongong NSW, who has become the first Qantas ‘Million-Air”. John’s the first Qantas passenger to have logged more than a million miles travelled with the airline. Fifty-two-year-old John has flown 220 times with Qantas; 70 times to London, 23 times to New Zealand, 12 times to the USA, and the rest of his journeys have been to South-East Asia and the Pacific. John has a special place in his heart for B747 VH-EBK, which was at one time the “City of Wollongong” now re-named and flying in the colours of Air Pacific.

Conversation between B747 skipper speaking directly to the crew of a DC-9 on control frequency of 129. 4, Sydney to Melbourne: “. . . . . yair, and we’re getting a good smooth ride up here at FL 390, only eight knots on the nose!” DC-9: “Terrific. ” B747: “You’re at 330 aren’t you, why don’t you request 370, it’d be much better than where you are now?” DC-9: “Can’t make it, we’re limited to 350 for a while. Hey. . . . you haven’t got a long string you could drop down for us to tie onto, have you?” (This contribution by Russell Bryand, Lakemba NSW. ) Scene: Sydney, on a beautiful, warm, cloudless summer afternoon.

B747 WHITE KNUCKLES 618 (pilot with broad American drawl): “Sydney departures, could you give me a track along the harbour, so that the passengers can enjoy the view?” DEPARTURES: “Whiteknuckles 618, approved, track along the harbour at 2000. ” WN618: “Thank you sir, thank you. ” Some minutes later. . . . . . . . .

DEPARTURES: “Whiteknuckles 618, are you ready to resume your climb?” WN618: “Yep. . . . that sure was a bee-oot-ee-ful dee-part- ure!”(pause) DEPARTURES: “best city in the world” WN618: “And the birds are fantaaaastic!” (I’ll let you guess what SORT of beach they flew over! Ed) (Thanks to Garry Pritchard, of Sydney NSW. ) Peter Gammie of Cleveland, Brisbane QLD writes to tell of an amusing situation involving two aircraft, one an F-111, and the other a Piper Tomahawk, at RAAF base Amberley. Just by the by, Peter is a restricted pilot with the Air Training Corps on weekends and holidays.

The day of the story, it was very routine, only two aircraft in the circuit. The F-111 was for runway 15, and the PA 38-112 was for runway 05.

F-111: “Amberley Tower, Macho 884, base, full stop” TOWER: “Macho 884, clear to land, check wheels” F-111: (Electronic beep heard emanating from F-111, meaning GEAR DOWN AND SAFE’ and ‘CIRCUIT COMPLETE AND SAFE’) TOMAHAWK: “Amberley tower, Papa Alpha Alpha, base, full stop” TOWER: (lapse of memory) “Papa Alpha Alpha, clear to land, check wheels!” NOTE: A Piper Tomahawk has fixed landing gear.

TOMAHAWK: “Papa Alpha Alpha – (beep)” THE BEEP BEING A MOUTH-MADE REPRODUCTION (* The tower was unable to find the words for a reply!) Gary King, who I believe lives in Melbourne (he forgot to tell me on the letter and envelope), has provided two priceless situations: Scene: Melbourne International Airport, runway in use is runway 34.

F-27: “Melbourne Tower, Foxtrot Foxtrot Sierra, right base, runway 16. . . . . err, correction, runway 34. ” TOWER: “Foxtrot Foxtrot Sierra, that’s a relief, you had me a little worried there. I thought you were going to back in!”

MELBOURNE CONTROL (to domestic widebody): “Whiskey Bravo Echo, you are currently five miles right of track and diverging VH-WBE: “Aahh. . . . thank you sir, yes, we’ve just flown through that forecast front, and its associated wind shift has just blown us off course, and we’ve already taken up a new heading, and will shortly regain the track. ” (No reply from the controller, but then a different youngish-sounding voice replies):

UNIDENTIFIED: A likely story!” (Then a D-E-E-P voice, obviously- ly the widebody Captain again): VH-WBE: “Yes, and just remember that son, you may be able to use it yourself one day!” A special note now to HF receiver owners. Sydney Oceanic Control Area, east of the coast, has been widely re-named relating to reporting points. In addition, Auckland VHF coverage has been extended to 200 miles, instead of 150 miles. First full AIREP position AKL to SYD, and transfer point HF to VHF when SYD to AKL is now at the 200 nautical mile location. Refer to AUS-RNC 9/NZ-RNC 2 for full details.

Until next issue, good monitoring. Look for an upcoming series entitled “A Day in the Life of. . . . “, where we’ll be looking at one day in the life of interesting people in aviation, such as Captains, ATC, Airport Managers, RAAF Pilots, all types of occupations that YOU’D like to know more about.