On The Airbands

The technique involved the hams obtaining a flight schedule of departing aircraft from various airlines and working out approximate E TAs for a position located approximately half way between Sydney and Melbourne, as the crow . . . or airliner flies!

They would then both aim their sophisticated and bulky beam antennas at the lofty position of the high level airliner, usually cruising between 33,000ft (FL330) and 39,000ft (FL390). One looking up and north, the other up and south. And as the story that was printed for hams Australia-wide to see, the two operators communicated Sydney/Melbourne, a distance of 644 nautical miles, due to their signals each travelling in the vicinity of 300 nautical miles, hitting the bottom of the target airliner and bouncing off to the destination city.

Yeah? Sounded like a bit of a fairytale to me . . . until I had an example of enhancement happen literally right overhead my own backyard. Admittedly the rather incredible distance ‘achieved’ by the hams is a little less impressive in my case.

I live near Sydney Airport and have difficulty, due to owning a home located in a valley, monitoring the Sydney ATIS on frequency 115. 4MHz. I did however have the frequency constantly programmed into one of my radios and constantly scanned it. One day I noticed the usually ‘dead’ ATIS frequency fluttering and spluttering, then the audio appeared, and what did you know, I had a strength five signal! At the same time, on the 279 degree radial out of Sydney Airport, a Qantas 747-200B was just overhead my home, and the engines were clearly audible above the now loud and clear ATIS signal!

Remembering the ham radio article, I thought to myself . . . “I wonder ;. . “, and then later decided to leave 115. 4 manually selected on the radio to wait for another aircraft. Sure enough, right on cue, when the aircraft was overhead, the frequency came alive and remained alive for a half minute or so. After further experimentation, I concluded that the larger the aircraft, the longer the reflections were heard by my scanner radio, and that everything was relative to the size of the aeroplane. Boeing 727s for example reflected the signal as they passed overhead for only thirty seconds compared to almost a minute and a half for Boeing 747s. Douglas DC-10s bounced the signals for a little less time, around fifty seconds!

I was totally intrigued and filed it away to tell you about but never really got thechance to deal with it in detail as I have here. If you can add anything on this subject that may be of further interest to readers, please write to me and describe your experiences in detail. The address is Bob Bell, ‘On the Airbands’, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek 2611.

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A Traffic Officer with Ansett Airlines in Sydney was having a quiet ale with me recently and related a story from the DC-9 era which is well worth telling.

The star aircraft is VH-CZD, painted up nicely in Air Vanuatu colours, about to depart Sydney for Melbourne on a domestic run.

There was a problem, relayed of course to the Traffic Officer, concerning a double-seated passenger from the flight. In airline parlance, ‘double-seated’ means two passengers have been allocated the same seat.

Our Traffic Officer friend went on board Charlie-Zulu-Delta to sort out the mess, being called in by the Chief Flight Attendant when the error was discovered. Ron journeyed forth, fully realising that on this fully booked flight he was going to have to politely ‘bump’ someone (remove them). But as he stood talking to the two gentlemen claiming the seat 15-A, he noticed the aircraft pushing back, and realised the doors had been shut. He quickly sought out the nearest flight attendant and had her go up to the sharp end with a request to return to the bay. The aeroplane had been despatched with the hapless Despatch Traffic Officer on board.

Message back from the flight deck crew was “Sorry . . . we’re late anyway, and we’re not getting any later. ”

It was really quite a pleasant afternoon in Melbourne that day according to my friend. He ought to know. Before returning to Sydney he had plenty of time to admire the Melbourne weather!

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Clint McKenzie from Campbell in the ACT was recently flying some circuits at Canberra to, as he puts it, “keep the dust off his CSU and RE TRAC endorsements”. He took a friend from work, who was at the time doing his Restricted Licence and who had been advised by his Instructor to practice his radio procedures.

The workmate was doing fine, with little prompting, until they were cleared to touch and go, maintain runway heading. They were abeam Mount Ainslie by the time they received further instructions.

TOWER: “Charlie Sierra Hotel, make right circuit. ” WORKMATE: “But there’s a hill in the way!” TOWER: “Miss the hill, then make right circuit!”

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A flight service briefing office, somewhere in Australia . . .

A sign, posted for all to see, reads . . . ”An instrument rating indicates the holder has received enough training to know when he should stay on the ground”.

Touche!

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From Jean Baker, our American correspondent, who writes for the excellent magazine ‘Monitoring Times’, with her column ‘Plane Talk’.

Mike button accidently depressed, aerobatic single-engined aircraft involved.

PILOT: “I fell outa another damned roll, am I ever screwed up? TOWER: ”Aircraft that just transmitted the obscene radio call, this is A!-Jstin Tower, say to me your callsign!”

PILOT: “Listen Tower, I’m not that screwed up!”

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I am pleased to say the trip to the United States courtesy of Qantas to attend the absolutely fantastic Monitoring Times Convention 5, 6 and 7 October was great. We travelled on board Qantas 11, the 747-438 ‘Longreach’ non stop to Los Angeles, and then on to the venue in Knoxville. On board service on the flights was excellent, great meals, and everyone was extremely pleasant and tried to make our trip memorable, which it was.

We got to ride the flightdeck several times both ways in the jumpseat courtesy of very obliging Qantas crews, so a big thank you to the people responsible.

I have collected an enormous amount of material which I will be presenting in ‘On the Airbands’ on a regular basis, relating to

the differences in our two airways systems, the unique humour found on flight decks in the States, so different from ours, and details of some new and exciting ATC equipment used in the US.

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For persons still writing to me about ‘ The Australian Airband Guide’, it’s available from Airband Communications, PO Box 301, Chester Hill 2162. NSW. Price is $24. 95 + $3. 00 p&p.

If you’re into aviation monitoring, you need the book. Leave it at that!

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Wayne Jenkins lives in Western Australia, but I can’t decode his address on the photocopy of his letter he sent to Jim Thorn. He included two items which he thought may interest us.

The first incident involved a Darwin based civil Bell 412 helicopter on SAR duties for the RAAF.

The captain of the helicopter was having trouble with one of the two helipilot buttons on the aircraft being stuck down.

In desperation, he pushed the intercom button to demonstrate his frustration to the other pilot, but due to some further finger trouble with the transmit selector, the following call went out over Darwin Tower frequency: “It’s stiff and I can’t get it up!”

A very cool and professional sounding female Controller replied very quickly . . . “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with that problem!”

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The other item unfortunately is just a bit t-o-o risque for publication Wayne. I’m sure you’ll understand. I might add in retrospect that it involved the same young lady Controller at Darwin.

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Year: 1981. Dateline: Holsworthy Army Camp NSW.

Scenario: An airdrop into Holsworthy by RAAF Caribou from No38 Squadron at Richmond, assisting TLC Troop, 2nd Cavalry Regiment in the exercise.

OIC: ‘Captain Meathead’.

FREQUENCY : 44. 4MHz, VHF-FM, Army Aviation tactical frequency.

STORY TELLER: Ron Mackenzie (a Trooper at the time on thif ill-fated exercise).

The Caribou aircraft, laden with pallets containing full jerry cans heads towards Holsworthy getting clearance from ATC for the descent from 5,000 feet. The pilot called the ground based soldiers with the following message: “Five-one, this is Enfield 306, do you read, over. ”

Captain Meathead responded to the call, then the aircraft requested latest weather at the drop zone, to which Captain Meathead replied with several minutes of totally meaningless information.

The aircraft crew then said “We’re approaching you now”, to which the goodofficer responded with . . . “Yes, I can see you now!”

The aeroplane came closer, and Captain Meathead became alarmed at the erroneous track adopted by the Caribou crew . . . way too far out to the left, away from the designated and painstakingly laid out DZ (drop zone).

The Captain relayed his fears over the frequency to Enfield 306, to which the pilot replied . . . “Okay, then where are we in relation to you?”

Captain Meathead started a monologue of totally dumb, senseless and extremely confusing ‘instructions’, to which Enfield 306 retorted . . . “Look, which way do you want us to go?”

The Army Captain ordered the aircraft “to turn more to the right”, and was incredulous as the aircraft was piloted abeam of the DZ about half a kilometre, flying past several by now very amused Troopers.

Captain Meathead then informed the pilot that “you are level with us and going past now”. The Caribou was flown dead ahead, turned and disappeared behind a cluster of trees for a short period. The pilot advised “Going round, we’ll come back in again!” Sure enough, a few minutes later, the same aircraft appeared on the horizon and Captain Meathead again advised the Caribou skipper of an erroneous track, and started again . . . more to the right . . . more to the right!

The crew responded, but the Caribou stayed on the same flight path as before. Everything that happened the first time around happened again, much to Captain Meathead’s chagrin.

On attempt number three, with Caribou and Meathead getting a trifle edgy, and the Troopers having great trouble controlling their mirth, and making suggestions to the effect that maybe we have the wrong aeroplane Sir?

“Of course we haven’t!” was the confident reply, followed by . . . “Enfield 306, this is Five-one, look I can see you clearly, you’re doing exactly the same as before. I know it’s you, I can see the red motif on your tailplane!”

To which the Caribou crew replied with, “Two things we better clear up now, firstly we are over the Blue Mountains at this time, and secondly we don’t have a red motif on our tail, it’s yellow!”

(Need I say or explain more, except to say Enfield Red Motif was involved not in Drop Zone activity but was carrying out a series of well executed touch-and-go manoeuvres at the nearby Luscombe Field!

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Re July 1990 New Zealand Frequencies.

While I strongly appreciate contributions of frequencies from New Zealand readers of ‘On the Airbands’, I would request that all such contributions are confirmed first before sending them to me. Numerous errors amongst frequencies supplied by a New Zealand based reader have been pointed out to me by members of the Airways Corporation of New Zealand. I apologise to any reader detecting an incorrect frequency, but they must appreciate I do take contributions from NZ on face value, assuming contributors have ‘done their homework’.

As space permits, I will print the ‘correct’ frequencies.