On The Airbands

DEPARTURES: ‘Charlie Aplha Lima (not its real registration Ed. ), not receiving anything from your transponder. Please recycle; squawk three thousand with ident. ‘ AIRCRAFT: ‘Don’t tell me something else has packed up in this heap!’ DEPARTURES: ‘Come on now, it’s not really like that. . . AIRCRAFT: “I wouldn’t make a book on that pal!” Thanks for the letter Brett, your next story is equally as good.

It happened on the 8th of January this year on frequency 128. 8, belonging to an airline company. A conversation ensued between a female crew member and the operations controller. It went something like this. . .

OPERATIONS CONTROL: ‘Err. . . could you pass on to the Captain that a very important passenger has just boarded the aircraft. ” AIRCRAFT: OK. . . I’ll get the girls to bring him up front. ” OPERATIONS CONTROL: ‘Yeah. . . actually, we’ve been perving at her for the past 20 minutes! AIRCRAFT (male this time, obviously the Captain. . . ): ‘What was she wearing?” OPERATIONS CONTROL: ‘Not very much!’

Paul Delury, a student pilot from Yoking in Western Australia writes to tell of the following exchange overheard late one night, some months ago, at Perth Airport. Paul was using a Realistic Pro-30 hand-held portable scanning receiver: AIRCRAFT: ‘Perth Tower . . . good evening to you Sir, Silverbird two-four is on final for Runway two-one. ‘ PERTH TOWER: ‘Silverbird 24, good evening, runway 21 wind calm, QNH 1008, report when aligned on the VASI. ‘ A short pause followed, then back came the completely unruffled cultured English voice from the Boeing 747 . . .

AIRCRAFT: ‘Silverbird 24. . . umm, er, by the way, if it’s not too much trouble, could you turn the VASI on please?’ Thank you Paul for taking the time to write. Hope to hear from you again.

Bob Evans, from Wynnum, Queensland tells of media attention paid to the official opening of the Gateway Bridge over the Brisbane River on the 11th of January this year. Various TV station helicopters were in the area for the opening and the following air/ground conversations were monitored between an overworked but totally professional controller and the helicopter pilots: HELO PILOT: ‘And many thanks for your help. I bet you could use a beer now?” CONTROLLER (quick to reply): ‘About two cartons!” Later, a different helicopter pilot and the SAME controller. . . HELO PILOT: ‘You’ll be glad when the day’s over!’ CONTROLLER: ‘Nup. . . not really, I’m working tomorrow morning and then I’m back on again tomorrow night.

HĚLO PILOT: “You must have done something terribly wrong!!’

My sincere congratulations to my good friend John Conley. Managing Director of Australian Aircraft Sales, on the company’s recent 40th birthday. Because of its many and varied purchases of aircraft in Australia and overseas and their resale, AAS has played a significant part in the history of Australian aviation. AAS is, according to reliable independent sources, in the top ten aircraft dealers worldwide. Not bad for a venture that started unambitiously back in Broken Hill in 1946!

David Sparrow, who was on the flight deck of a Dove, bound from Hail to Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, tells this tale, which has been duplicated by our ATC men from time to time: RIYADH TOWER: ‘Hotel X-Ray, you are second in line after the Boeing 737 on your left. ‘ The pilot and David both searched the sky out to port, but all that could be seen was a group of Strikemasters zipping off to their training area and a DC-8 taking off. No 737! The Dove still had fifteen miles to run and they were not yet on finals, so the crew just carried on with vigilance. Being a good meticulous engineer, David turned to look at the starboard engine. . . and you guessed it. . . there it was, about five miles away and overtaking them. . . a Boeing 737 of Saudia Airlines. The penny finally dropped. The ATC man was viewing the situation from his position and not allowing for the Dove’s rather different outlook. If the crew of the Dove put themselves mentally in the ATC position, it surely would have looked like the 737 was off to the port side! Oh well, definitely a case of watching your ‘six o’clock’ when in foreign airspace!

Tony Gianiotis of Mullumbimby NSW explains an amusing little incident that his CFI (Chief Flying Instructor) experienced. It was originally written up and “logged” in the monthly Murwillumbah Aero Club Newsletter.

The story goes. . . Coolangatta Airport, with our CFI waiting his turn to enter the runway while a domestic Fokker Fellowship was on final. The CFI completed his pre-takeoff checks and looked up to see the F28 make a classic copybook touchdown, an absolute greaser. Everyone appeared to be mentally congratulating the pilot of the Fokker when a voice crackled over the radio, emanating from a Beech Baron in front of the CFI. “Very nice landing Sir!’ said the guy in the Baron. The jet rumbled to a full stop, then began a turn to backtrack on the runway to the nearest taxiway. All of a sudden, the F28 Captain accepted the adulation, took a “bow’ and then skited. . . “You should see it when I have my eyes open boys!

Greg Thom, a regular ‘Airbands’ supporter enquires what difference Aussat will make to VHF communications from the monitor’s point of view. Well Greg, right now, it won’t mean anything to you as at time of writing contracts with Aussat had not been signed by the Department of Aviation. Dish antennas at ground stations are ready to go in most locations at airports, but until the contractual troubles die down and get sorted out, Aussat will not be used by the aviation community. Even when it’s up and working, VHF signals from aircraft and ground stations will be fed to the microwave sites by radio and also landline and the signals in the 118 to 136 Mhz Comms part of the aviation band will be translated to frequencies in the 12 Ghz band, about 10 Gigahertz above what the Apollo moon landing spacecraft and the current Space Shuttle used.

Receiving gear to monitor those kind of frequencies is expensive if bought and very difficult to make if you prefer to build your own receivers. Chances are most monitors will continue to receive on VHF frequencies and be forced to ignore the microwave signals, firstly for the reasons already presented and also because antennas at 12 Ghz frequencies are very critical and they can be more troublesome than actually finding a receiver to tune in on.

My guess is that monitors will not gain from Aussat, in fact may lose out, as some high-flying aircraft crews who need to use HF in remote areas nowadays will be able to use VHF to a nearby newly built ground receiver station and as such, many previous aircraft contacts on long haul overland flights will become a thing of the past.

HF will disappear except for retention for low-flying traffic, such as VFR light aircraft too low on the horizon to get into the VHF earth station for translation to 12 Ghz. Oceanic HF will naturally be retained. So really it’s ‘status quo for monitors”, or very possibly something lost, not gained!

Peter Holden, of Scoresby Victoria, is the originator of the following gem: Scene. . . . Melbourne Control frequency 128. 5, outbound, sometime in 1984. . . . . . (sound of rushing air mixed with the musical high-pitch whine of a jets engines) then. . . . . “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. . . . . . ” The good skipper then went on to give a complete description of planned flight conditions, the Sydney weather forecast, finishing up with a big thank you to his “passengers” for flying with his airline! The transmission was followed by a number of gleeful comments on the content of the previous message by a very appreciative group of his peers flying other aircraft in the area, to say nothing of the chortling comment passed by the ATC man.

The aircraft in question was a domestic 8737, and as a result of his microphone being switched to COMM instead of CABIN, you could almost SEE him sinking low into his seat.

Rod Aldridge of Albury, NSW, was travelling to Los Angeles a few years ago and was passing through Auckland. His flight experienced a delay late in the evening and as it was uncomfortably hot, the Captain spoke to the passengers using the public address, suggesting that it was ‘perhaps cooler to remain in the aircraft, where he would leave the air-conditioning going, rather than wait it out, sweltering, in the Terminal”. And by way of explanation for the delay, he advised. . . “We have a small problem with the rear door of the aircraft’, which was a DC-10-30.

Rod just happened to be reading a copy of the Eddy-Potter- Page book “Destination Disaster’, prompted by the Turkish Airlines DC-10 crash, caused by a faulty rear cargo door, at the time of this announcement. He felt like transferring to a B747, he says, but couldn’t find one handy!

Until next time, good monitoring and feel welcome to write to me with contributions at the following address: Robert Bell, 68 Ashby Avenue, Yagoona 2199. You will be credited for stories only if you so desire and individual names and companies involved will be discreetly renamed to protect the parties concerned.