Robin-42 Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 A well see you can't challenge the immutable laws of the Universe. One of which being, the QFI always wins the debrief! Which sets them up well for later in life when they make more exalted ranks. "The finger of blame always points outward." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob P Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Whilst we're on wake turbulence, back in 1990 I was a recently qualified PPL flying from Alderney to Guernsey. Settled on the approach in my little 2 seat Piper PA-38 Traumahawk, cue the RAF Sea King cleared to cross in front of me... Runway suddenly looks odd having banked 90 degrees from what it was... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blogs On Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 "A well see you can't challenge the immutable laws of the Universe. One of which being, the QFI always wins the debrief!" Been there. Having to give the CFI a severe listening to! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascoteer Posted January 7, 2016 Author Share Posted January 7, 2016 Which sets them up well for later in life when they make more exalted ranks. Sadly being a QFI did diddley for my promotion prospects... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentwaters81tfw Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Sadly being a QFI did diddley for my promotion prospects... Marshal-ess of the Royal Air Force? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 I'm one of those poor unfortunates who would've loved to fly, but had neither the nous to get into the Services, nor the money to do it myself (and now that I have the money, I can't justify spending it on what would be little more than an expensive diversion; I'm too old and too blind to do it commercially, and not rich enough to buy an a/c and do it regularly for fun. But I digress...). As a result of this non-achievment, I am alternately entertained by and annoyed at all these stories. Actually, I'm jealous as hell, you people have no idea how blessed you were. Keep 'em coming. But please leave time and space for plastic Hercules wrangling. Edit:'annoyed' isn't the word I'm looking for. Maybe 'saddened'? Not because of the stories, but because I never had the opportunity to live them. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miggers Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Know what you mean Rob. These rascals don't know how lucky they were. My few flying hours were done purely with a mate and a relative(I have around 20 hours unofficial stick time) and then everything else is Fs2004 Flightsim(no laughing you Albert and FJ types).. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Engineer66 Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) Vortex Wake Seperation, I remember it well (OK somewhat dimly then)! Just as I remembered Debs, however You forgot to include a category in your list of departure separations; Medium followed by a Peugeot 405... Back in the early 90's after failing dismally to join the RAF I managed to pass all the entry requirements to join NATS and train as a Controller. The training was divided up into sections, 1. The Basics (Aviation Law, meteorology, Navigation & Airport Ops) 2. Aerodrome (more Avaition Law and Aerodrome operating practices etc) with lots of time spent in simulators practicing before there was any chance we would be let loose with real hairy planes. Section 3 was Procedural training (With some Aviation Law thrown in for good measure...) and section 4 was 'doing it with Radar' The theory being that if your Radar failed you could still operate 'procedurally' I never made it to Radar as I was chopped after the procedural bit. Did a bit of a naughty and gave a civil 'puddle jumper' priority over a commercial B747 heading stateside during the final exams (A legal infringement apparently. Why didn't they teach us some Aviation Law!) Anyway back to the Vortex wake thing... After The aerodrome course, there was an interim period where we got to experience a whole host of different things and spent several weeks touring the country doing such exciting things as learning to fly (well OK 15 hours experience, with the objective of going solo at the end - me? P1 ) playing in wind tunnels at Cranfield and seeing what happened to a Bae Jet Stream when you feathered a prop on take off and more importantly as a course we were despatched around the country for OJT,. Yup On the job training, telling real Aircraft and not 'sprites' on a BBC Micro (remember them?) what to do! I was posted to Edinburgh for my OJT So off I went clutching my trusty yellow Air Traffic Controllers Licence to Edinburgh Turnhouse where I was appointed a mentor who also happened to be the Senior ATCO at the unit and was a 'bit of a character' to say the least. During week two or three, I can't remember which we were sitting there on a quiet day and SATCO decides he's bored and it would be a good idea to let me spend some time in the runway caravan at the South end of the runway (where the old tower was at Edinburgh you couldn't see the end of the runway or the hold so a caravan was installed with a bloke with a radio in it) As I was only a stude I wasn't allowed to go there on my own as the only way to get there was by driving down the runway, so SATCO decides to take me in Ops 1, a Peugeot 405 Diesel estate. By the time we got ourselves downstairs an into Ops 1 it happened to coincide with the departure of a B737 (sorry, can't remember the company or destination) So there we are sat at the intersection hold in our 405 and in front sat on the runway at 90 degrees to us awaiting clearance to depart from the intersection is our 737. "Do you recon we could catch him when he goes? Says SATCO "Dunno" says I "probably not" "Yeah easy" replies my intrepid mentor Next thing he is on the RT asking the tower for permission to enter the runway after the departing 737. Clearance is duly given and he's back on the RT 'informing the captain of said 737 that we intend to chase him down the runway! The tower then gives the 737 clearance to take off and he starts to spool the engines up whilst holding it on the brakes. At this point I can feel the car starting to shake as we are bloody close the the left wingtip! "Ah can dae that an all" says SATCO and buries the throttle in the carpet. The 737 releases the brakes and starts to roll, SATCO dumps the clutch and pulls out behind the 737' right behind the port engine which I'm sure was turned all the way up to eleven... Our trusty 405 goes forward 20 feet and at the same time lurches sideways about 5 feet with about 15 degrees of right bank... "F.....g ell" exclaims SATCO. "Ah'll no be daeing that agin in a hurry" as he gets our trusty steed pointing in the right direction and sets off rather sedately back towards ATC abandoning our planned visit to the caravan. (Possibly to go and change his underwear) So from this we can deduce that the minimum separation for a Peugeot 405 estate following a B737 is 'Never long enough'! I also discovered that a Peugeot 405 is desperately short of grab handles... Al Edited January 7, 2016 by Engineer66 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) All this talk of flight plans and the like makes me all the more pleased that I had a chap to do all that malarkey for me. No stick, no vote. Ah, wake turbulence. While I was at 819 we did a sneaky-beaky patrol on the back of a tanker up to the Barents. 4 crews + 2 Sea Kings with some (how shall I put this?) extra kit, as well as a Lynx on a Type 22. It being pretty much 24-hour daylight at the time of year the Soviets go bonkers on the Northern Fleet exercise areas, and we saw all sorts of stuff that I almost certainly should not tell you about. Obviously they knew we were there, and why (just as we always had a pet Primorye AGI sitting about a mile away during exercises in Ark), and most of the time they just let us do our thing provided we didn't get in the way. Sitting in the hover on the port beam of Admiral Kuznetzov (at the time a brand new carrier) watching them learn the dark art of true fixed wing deck ops was amazing. [i got some great intelligence shots of the Captain's dog being taken for a walk on the flight deck at the same time as a Helix was doing a ground run!] Occasionally, though, they'd be doing something they genuinely didn't want us to see, and in that case it could get quite interesting. One of the most exciting (but occasionally terrifying) sorties of my entire career was trying to find out why they were so anxious that we didn't get anywhere near an Oscar (which was actually the poor old Kursk, as in the later tragic disaster). She was doing something weapon-y in conjunction with a May (Ilyushin IL-38 - looks very like a P3 Orion), & we wanted to get as close as we dared. The May started to play chicken with us, flying straight at us and trying to use his wake turbulence to knock us out of the sky - or at least lose our nerve and go away. We kept this up for about 25 minutes, and got quite good at getting right in close to the submarine during the time it took the May to turn round & come back. Then there was a terrifying roar and a Flanker screamed over the top of us from behind what felt about 10 feet above our rotor head (in reality it must have been much more than that, but it felt unbelievably close, and no-one had seen it coming from behind us). I had to pull full emergency power (125% matched torque, which you could only use for c.10 seconds without knackering the gearbox) to avoid hitting the sea. We admitted defeat and ran away as fast as we could! I probably have to kill you now, cos at the time this was all highly classified... Edited January 7, 2016 by Ex-FAAWAFU 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyot Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Great story about your sneaky beaky escapades with the Ruskis,......are you sure its ok mentioning this still? While in the In the balloon over Queens Avenue at Aldershot one afternoon in the late 80`s, up at 800 feet and getting ready to jump we were buzzed by a Chinook from Odiham which seemed to be less than 20 feet above the envelope of the old Barrage Balloon,.......the downdraught really hit the balloon hard and the PJI dispatcher was livid but the four of us who were jumping all thought that it was hilarious,.....if a bit scary! The PJI later told us that he thought the balloon had been ripped as it bent into a very strange shape as the Wokka went over,....shades of the film `Aces High' and I wonder if the pilot was shouting `dakka dakka dakka' as he went over with his visor pulled down like a pair of old WW1 gogglesi! Cheers Tony 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 I had a birthday present of a ride in a PA-? Tomahawk thingy, the little scooter with a T tail and when the pilot asked me if I'd flown before and got the several (maybe four!) hours AE in Chippys and Sedberghs he said "well in that case you drive" and I'll just follow you along This did give my ego ( a fragile beastie at any time) quite a pleasant boost We taxyed out from the Warwickshire Aero Club office (At BHX by the way) and followed the taxyway to the edge of the main runway keeping an eye out for noisy stuff and had to hold until a 737 pootered by northwardsly I asked "shall we go now" "F off I want to finish this flight in an upright condition!" He was laughing and only used the capital letter, not the earthy full phrase we brown jobs were apt to So we dawdled there for two or three minutes, then when he cleared me to carry on I could still feel a bit of a wobble that wasn't there before as we set off to the runway in use by light traffic Yes I did all the trip in control One of the best presents my son ever gave me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) Great story about your sneaky beaky escapades with the Ruskis,......are you sure its ok mentioning this still?The fact that we went up there is not secret any more. What we did, what we used and details of what we saw might well be, so those are edited (though true) highlights. It is 25 years ago, though, and I haven't said anything that isn't public knowledge.If I can find it, I think I still have a photo of the Kuznetzov flight deck dog. If I find it, I'll put it up. Edited January 7, 2016 by Ex-FAAWAFU 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 819 (when not doing silly things NE of Norway) was based at HMS Gannet, better known as Prestwick Intermational Airport. Prestwick has a mega-long runway (I believe because it was the UK end of the Atlantic air bridge during the war, but that may be a myth). It us also relatively quiet, so fairly often you'd find yourself sharing the circuit with some vast 4-engined thing. On my final QHI check (annual check-ride) in the RN I had the dubious pleasure of trying to maintain adequate separation with one of these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-124 We gave up after 2 circuits, when even the Trapper had scared himself witless in autorotation, and decided to do it again the following day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascoteer Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascoteer Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 Sorry Rob but flying stories are going to be a part of this thread I'm afraid, speshully Albert ones. The only way we old farts can keep ourselves real I think is to wallow in our memories. It's that or wallow in our misery. Or is it wallow in our Whiskey? Yeah that would be nice! I'm never sure... Then again I never did know what was going on! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 I know all about old farts and wallowing, Debs, I'm a card-carrying club member. Like a lot of things in my life, aviation stories cause a pang, but it's still great to hear the war stories. All I have to share are scuba and coal mine stories, none of them interesting unless you're in those fields. And the scuba stories are very, very old now. Keep up with the tales, I'll be an eager reader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ascoteer Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandy Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 For true ATC (in)competence we really have to go to Guyana....I flew BN2A's and 206's there for 6 months...we had to file a flight plan (it was compulsory, even for pattern work!) at least 30 minutes prior to the flight. Why I don't know, but maybe they needed the time to figure stuff out.... Of course we had our flight plans filed well in advance, but then the weather would turn crappy and a storm would blow through...now we had to refile and wait another 30 minutes! Plus, of course, we had to co-ordinate with other students because if one had already filed for pattern work we were done for...they couldn't handle more than 1 aircraft in the pattern at a time so we wouldn't be allowed to go! If, on the other hand, we happened to be already airborne and practicing ADF holding (there were only 2 nav aids in Guyana, a VOR and an NDB, both at Cheddi Jagan International Airport) and an international flight was inbound, we would be directed to "hold south of the airport" - when asked for some slightly more specific instructions the reply would be "just hold south and we'll call you when you can come back" - no radial or bearing, no distance, nothing - just "south"!!! Some practice that was! And that was in severe clear VMC! Ian 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 (edited) Not so much incompetence, as 2 nations divided by a common language. 820NAS, 3 aircraft embarking in Ark by flying from Culdrose to meet her in the Southern North Sea. Bit gloopy weather in the middle, but warm so icing not a problem. Fine: transit VMC on top of the low stuff (5000' or so), then shoot a formation PAR at Bentwaters to get visual with the surface near the coast, and thereafter Grub Navy at 200' over the sea til we find Mum, probably under radar watch from the Bags, who were already on board. Brief complete. All goes as planned. A smooth handover from the clipped English tones of somewhere like Bedford or Luton. "Ringbolt Section, contact Bentwaters approach on blah blah". We chop channels, and a guy who can only be described as sounding like Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons comes on - thick accent or not, he marshals us to the top of the radar approach with great efficiency. I was a first tourist and had only just passed my Aircraft Captaincy stuff; it might even have been the very first time I led a sortie - but I had pretty limited experience. In particular, I'd only ever used UK air traffic, and probably 90% of that within 200 miles of Culdrose. I was expecting "Ringbolt Section, you are approaching descent point; prepare to lose height". Instead I got "Ringbolts, y'all are in the groove, prepare to slide", and it carried on in that vein. The guys in the other aircraft said it was the only time they'd heard a radar approach where every acknowledgement from the pilot was accompanied by audible screams of laughter from the rest of the crew. Edited January 8, 2016 by Ex-FAAWAFU 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 (edited) I think the best exchange I had with US ATC was flying into a desolate ranch airport in north Florida. The Unicom operator told me "November Fox Echo, y'all should park up by the FBO; shut down there and watch out for killer bees." Edited January 8, 2016 by Alan P 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fritag Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 We kept this up for about 25 minutes, and got quite good at getting right in close to the submarine during the time it took the May to turn round & come back. Then there was a terrifying roar and a Flanker screamed over the top of us from behind what felt about 10 feet above our rotor head (in reality it must have been much more than that, but it felt unbelievably close, and no-one had seen it coming from behind us). I had to pull full emergency power (125% matched torque, which you could only use for c.10 seconds without knackering the gearbox) to avoid hitting the sea. Great story - poor lookout............... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blogs On Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 (edited) "Watch out for killer bees." Well, that would make me sit up and take notice! Edited January 8, 2016 by Blogs On Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ex-FAAWAFU Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 Great story - poor lookout............... Hell yeah! Mind you, we'd have had our own radar in standby, I should think, so no advance warning, and there is a humungous blind spot right across the tail of a Sea King - and all of us were eyes firmly out to see what the maniac in the May was going to do next. But fair cop! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keefr22 Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 We chop channels, and a guy who can only be described as sounding like Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel... In similar vein, my son-in-law told me a story after one of his Afghan deployments that I found quite amusing. Their wokka had been cleared to land but then asked to hold while Kandahar recovered an A-10 strike package. Apparently there was a very efficient lady ATCO on duty at the time, giving clearences in very clipped English at 100mph. To A-10 pilot she says 'Yankee 01 blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah' Pause, then from ''Yankee01'' comes a very Southern drawl; "Maaaaammm, you...........hear............the...............speed...........I...........tawwwk,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,weeee-el...................that's...............the...................speed.................I..............think. Would...............ya......................bee...........so......................kind...............as...............to..............tell................me...................that......................again"!!! Well, made me laff! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentwaters81tfw Posted January 8, 2016 Share Posted January 8, 2016 This thread is brilliant, never mind the build. For someone with limited stick time, these stories are very entertaining. Never had any of the problems encountered here. 'Control' at Ipswich was always polite and correct, but all moves were 'at your convenience'. We did have to keep our eyes peeled for the occasional brace of Jaguars who would transit the airport unannounced at around 600 feet whilst aircraft were in the pattern. A word of caution from one of my instructors was to be extra vigilant if a call came in from someone inbound from Biggin Hill. Can't imagine why. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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