Right Hand Seat

Sar Cancellation

Airservices Australia is currently running a campaign to remind pilots to cancel their sartime before it expires. When the sartime expires first Airservices and then AusSAR (Australian Search and Rescue) have to put time, manpower and effort into trying to find out if there is real cause for alarm or is it just because the pilot forgot to cancel it.

Each year some 12,000 sartimes are not cancelled by the due time. That is an average of 33 each day! Up to 1800 of those are passed to AusSar when the pilot cannot be contacted by Airservices within 15 minutes. Some pilots will smile and recall that they have on occasion been a few minutes over time but the expiry of a sartime is of real concern to someone who may be with a downed aircraft and needs urgent assistance. And that is why we need to see less uncancelled sartimes so that Airservices and AusSar can devote their resources to the real cases.

With that in mind Airservices has of late been distributing stickers and posters to pilots, flying schools and others to ask pilots to set their mobile phone alarm to 5 minutes before the sartime is due to expire. A good strategy and use of modern technology.
Other ways to help pilots remember that all important sartime are to attach a ‘Cancel Sartime’ reminder tag to their headset bag and have a ‘Cancel Sartime’ tag attached to the aircraft keys. A secondary benefit here is to prevent pilots taking the flying school aircraft keys home with them! Another way is to stick visual reminders onto the schools’ aircraft keyboard, entry doors and even in the loo! They all help. All good spin.

Now for the bad spin. When Flightwatch was in operation (remember Flightwatch?) it was possible to cancel a VFR sartime when flying inbound to the destination. That opportunity is very much reduced now. A pity because it assisted in cancelling sartimes before they expired.

Dual Or Solo?

For the past few years’ pilots of training type aircraft, at the holding point of tower airports, have been advising if the flight was dual or solo. The idea was to let the controller know if he needed to keep an eye on that flight as student pilots are more likely to need attention than experienced pilots.

That requirement apparently stemmed from a 2006 UK accident where a second solo flight student stalled when told to go around. The Cessna 150 crashed, fatally. The controller was trying to give priority to an inbound twin.

As the student’s instructor vacated the aircraft he advised that he was sending the student on his second solo flight. Two minutes later there was a change of controller and the new controller did not get that information. Hence the holding point was deemed to be the best place to tell the actual controller if it was a dual or solo flight.

Now with the new D class airspace requirements instructors and students here have been heard advising the ground controller if the flight is dual or solo when in the run-up bay getting a taxi clearance. Unfortunately that information may not get to the actual controller who will be overseeing the training flight into the air. The above was advised to Airservices and the reply was that the November AIP amendments may have a requirement for the solo student to advise ‘Student’ to the controller when at the holding point. Regardless if that does or does not happen it is recommended to all instructors that the holding point is the best place to inform the controller if the flight is dual or solo.

Mayday, Mayday!

In the emergency procedures in the ERSA book, EMERG-1, are listed phraseologies for both Mayday and Pan call situations. In both situations the location is far down the menu of information to give. Given that in some circumstances a pilot in distress may not be able to complete a full emergency call one could think that giving the location is one of the most important things to advise. Ask any mariner and the reply will be to get the location out pronto. When this column suggested priority for the location the reply was that the ERSA priority was ICAO best practise. Airservices did however say that the sequence is a recommendation only and the circumstances and the pilot will determine the priority.

For this pilot the location will be high on the transmit menu, in case it is not possible to complete the rest. Perhaps instructors should consider telling their trainees that the location is very important to advise. Food for thought.
Fly safely!

Contact Dave by email at [email protected]