On The Airbands

* * *

And now, Major Rundle contributes to ‘Airbands’ with an incident that took place early in 1989. It was a rather claggy day in Brisbane and Army 024, a Bell 206 helicopter was completing a RW19 LLZ approach prior to flying an overshoot back to Oakey, home of the School of Army Aviation. Ansett’s VH-ANA, a Boeing 727 is awaiting lineup clearance:

TOWER: “Alpha November Alpha, short delay, one Nomad on final”

VH-ANA: (pause), then . . . “a Nomad?” TOWER: “Sorry about that . . . it’s a helicopter!” ARMY 024: “We’re a Gomad!”

VH-ANA: “You’d have to be, flying one of those!”

Thanks Ross. See you at the next airshow.

* * *

Sat night/Sun morning at 1500 Zulu, 5643 KHz, I monitored Qantas 12, a Boeing 747SP calling Honolulu. Qantas 12 stated “they had been monitoring the HF maritime distress frequency 2182 KHz and had copied a strong signal from an emergency survival beacon”. Position of the Qantas ‘heavy’ at the time was given as 03° south, 174. 30° west, roughly between Canton and Phoenix Islands. Qantas 12 requested the Coastguard to assist, but later, still monitoring the signal, the aircraft called Nadi Radio stating that they now believed the signal was emanating from an ocean location within the Nadi FIR. (It’s so hard to tell on HF, it could be 100 miles or 1,000 miles away!) The aircraft was, as best as they could DF’ing the very strong signal. About the same time, a fishing trawler had exploded and then caught fire in the Tasman Sea, with all but one crewman abandoning ship.

Sadly, the crewman left on board had perished by being burnt to death as he lay sleeping between watches in his bunk. A great many maritime disasters result in distress calls being picked up by high flying airliners. It was just unfortunate that on this occasion, fate had ruled that no one was to survive. The crew that abandoned ship were still missing at time of writing. ‘On the Airbands’ will now include HF frequency listings, covering the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, Europe, Middle East, Africa, India and domestic Australian HF. Pacific listings are presented this issue. Ron Brans of Croydon in Victoria was one of the bevy of HF enthusiasts who wrote to me and persuaded me to run more regular HF air frequency lists. The only stations I won’t be paying much attention to is the Latin American networks which operate much of the time in Spanish. As that language is not widely understood in Australia, including by your author, I think that it’s reasonable to delete several South American nets, notable exception SATs.

* * *

Winter 1978, VH-RMB, a Lockheed Electra from the ‘Wombat Squadron’ was en route from Brisbane on a routine cargo run, departing Brisbane 2am local and at about 100DME from Brisbane, a large Pyrenean mountain dog in a front freight pallet began to bark. By stretching the cord of the Flight Engineer’s microphone, the fun loving crew were able to transmit the dog’s barking to all and sundry listening on the frequency.

VH-RMB: “Woof woof woof!”

BRISBANE CONTROL: (without any delay) “Romeo Mike Bravo, copied your position, say again your level!”

The dog repeated the performance on descent into Townsville, to which the air traffic controller replied: “. . . I didn’t know that you guys carried hosties on board!” (Sorry girls!)

Thanks to Captain Peter Macmillan, who at the time of the event was the First Officer on that early morning run. I have credited you Peter, as you didn’t indicate you wished to remain anonymous. Hope to hear from you again with more good ones from the ‘Wombat Squadron’. (Will the 146 boys be just as innovative? Ed. )

* * *

John Rodger, of Deception Bay, just out of Brisbane, writes to share with us a conversation monitored between Brisbane Tower and the inaugural flight into Brisbane for Continental Airlines, late in 1988.

As most readers of the feature are aware, Brisbane Airport has a widespread layout with a fair distance for international arrivals to taxi, between the runway and the terminal. As we take up the story, the DC-10 is taxying just after touching down.

TOWER: “Continental, welcome to Brisbane. ” DC-10: “About time, we’ve been wanting to get in here forever. ”

TOWER: “Continue on taxiway Alpha, th&n turn right and then left, the terminal is four kilometres away. ”

DC-10: “It sure looks a long way. ”

TOWER: ”There’s a party going on in town for you guys at Alice’s Rock Cafe to celebrate your first service. It’s Halloween you know. ”

DC-10: “Alice’s isn’t a gay bar is it?”

TOWER: “No sir, certainly not, it’s a nice restaurant. ” DC-10: “I see”

TOWER: “A reminder sir, at the end of taxiway Alpha, turn right then left to get to the terminal. It’s some distance isn’t it?” DC-10: “Sure is my friend! Will this lead us straight to the party?”

Thanks to John Rodger of Deception Bay, Qld. Believe it or not John, I do know your hometown and have been there.

* * *

I have on my letter file correspondence from several readers who are into HF airband monitoring wishing to know what ‘Block’ altitude assignments mean.

‘Block’ assignments are requested by airline pilots not wishing to limit their operations to a particular altitude. Rather than request a definite flight level, instead, they request, for example, ‘Block FL310 through FL350’ and if cleared to that ‘block’ cruising level, they are free to climb and descend at will without further contact with the ground station between FL310 and FL350. If they want a level outside the block, they have to ask for a cancellation of the block assignment and the new desired level to be assigned to them. Blocks are tools for experimentation with wind components and while in a block,an aircraft may be subjected to climb and descent on a continual basis until the most favourable wind component is located. It is certainly no secret that pilots chase favourable winds just as mariners used to do. Selection of a poor operating altitude due to wind could cost the company hundreds of dollars in fuel and significant delays to their operating schedule.

Both Continental Airlines and United Airlines are constantly making use of block altitude assignments. Blocks are usually allocated if traffic is two thousand feet above or below the parameters of the block.

* * *

Matthew Nickelson of Cleveland in Queensland provides a few favourite HF radio frequencies: USAF bases in the Pacific area on 8967, 11176, 13201 and 18002 KHz, including Yokota, Hickam, Clark and Anderson. Matthew also lists 10018 as a good civil frequency for the Arabian Sea, Bombay and also Karachi and 10066 for the Bay of Bengal,Colombo, Madras,Calcutta and Rangoon. He listens to New York Aeradio and Santa Maria Radio (North and South Atlantic frequencies) on 5550, 6577, 8825, 11396 and 13306 KHz. Both 5547 and 5574 KHz are listed by Matthew as his favourite ‘West Coast USA’ frequencies. Thanks for your letter Matthew.

* * *

Michael Tungyep from in Queensland presents a situation from his trip to the United States mainland and Hawaii. He was a passenger on board a DC-10 from the mainland to Honolulu, just after the merger of Western and Delta Airlines. Aircraft and crew from Western worked under the Delta title although their uniforms and aircraft liveries were most definitely still Western!

On landing in Honolulu, a female flight attendant made the arrival public address announcement, concluding by saying . . . “Thank you for flying Delta, err . . . sorry folks, Western,no . . . ha ha, I was right the first time, you are flying Delta. Thank you. Phew!”

The Captain had obviously been monitoring the cabin PA announcement and came to the aid of the hapless unfortunate with this rather quick tongue in cheek statement: “Yes ladies and gentlemen, thank you for flying Delta. We do of course sometimes spell it W-E-S-T-E-R-N on the outside of the plane, but that’s just to confuse the competition!”

(And the Flight Attendants too, it seems!)