"Requesting lower"

"Milen Lazarov" wrote

It's not always about separation. Hearing a DASH-8 report moderate ice
while descending through 12,000 can be helpful too. Do I know where
exactly he is? Sort of, I know where he's going and how high he is.
Can I ask ATC where was the DASH-8 who just reported ice? You bet I can.

Good point. Another one is aircraft that are diverting to avoid buildups
and cells.

BDS

On Jan 19, 1:55 pm, "BDS" wrote:
"Milen Lazarov" wrote

It's not always about separation. Hearing a DASH-8 report moderate ice
while descending through 12,000 can be helpful too. Do I know where
exactly he is? Sort of, I know where he's going and how high he is.
Can I ask ATC where was the DASH-8 who just reported ice? You bet I can.Good point. Another one is aircraft that are diverting to avoid buildups
and cells.

BDS

One human factor that's been overlooked -- on late night flights, it is
often very very quiet aloft. I like the sound of a human voice from
time to time, it's reassuring to know the coms are working. Listening
in on aircraft to aircraft frequencies, and chatting as well, is I
think a safety factor. Pilots who make long cross country flights will
understand the reality of my point , others may appreciate at least the
theory.

It could even be a factor for sim pilots gaming a flight.



On Jan 19, 2:25 pm, "Tony" wrote:
On Jan 19, 1:55 pm, "BDS" wrote:



"Milen Lazarov" wrote

It's not always about separation. Hearing a DASH-8 report moderate ice
while descending through 12,000 can be helpful too. Do I know where
exactly he is? Sort of, I know where he's going and how high he is.
Can I ask ATC where was the DASH-8 who just reported ice? You bet I can.Good point. Another one is aircraft that are diverting to avoid buildups
and cells.

BDS- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Tony writes:

One human factor that's been overlooked -- on late night flights, it is
often very very quiet aloft. I like the sound of a human voice from
time to time, it's reassuring to know the coms are working. Listening
in on aircraft to aircraft frequencies, and chatting as well, is I
think a safety factor. Pilots who make long cross country flights will
understand the reality of my point , others may appreciate at least the
theory.

It could even be a factor for sim pilots gaming a flight.

It is. It's always a bit eerie to be the only living soul around with
a radius of a hundred miles. Just driving a car alone on a deserted
highway can do this, especially in the western U.S., where some
highways can look uncannily like the deserted road in the old movie
posters for _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_, which definitely
does not help at all. I think being in a small aircraft can only
magnify this feeling.

I wonder how astronauts in the command modules of Apollo flights to
the moon must have felt while thousands of miles away from their
colleagues on the opposite side of the planet. They didn't even have
a radio to listen to.

--
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Tony writes:

One human factor that's been overlooked -- on late night flights, it is
often very very quiet aloft. I like the sound of a human voice from
time to time, it's reassuring to know the coms are working. Listening
in on aircraft to aircraft frequencies, and chatting as well, is I
think a safety factor. Pilots who make long cross country flights will
understand the reality of my point , others may appreciate at least the
theory.

I think the ATC guys get just as lonely - I think I've had them start up the
conversations late at night more often than the other way around.

One sticks in my mind for some reason even though it was quite a few years
ago. The Wilkes-Barre, PA controller said something like "Hey, aren't you
guys the ones who make the sausages?" I was mistaken for another aircraft
with a similar call sign that flew the same route frequently late at night.
We had a nice chat for the few minutes that I was in his airspace.

BDS

Mxsmanic wrote:
Jose writes:

Situational awareness of where other aircraft are.

If you are talking to ATC, you have separation services from them plus
your windows in VMC, or all separation services from them in IMC. If
you are not talking to ATC, you have the windows. While hearing from
other aircraft might help a little, that presumes that other pilots
know where they are, which might be stretching things a bit if your
own situational awareness is poor enough that you have to depend on
other pilots. There's no reason to assume that they'd know more about
the big picture than you do.

Additionally, if you're talking to ATC, chances are that nobody on the
frequency is reporting his position, since ATC already knows their
positions. So listening to other pilots won't tell you any more about
where they are.

The only time hearing other pilots might help is if ATC makes a
mistake. In such rare cases it doesn't hurt to be able to hear
everyone, but that's considerably less significant than saying that
you actually need to hear other pilots.

Let's say you are approaching a uncontrolled airport with overcast at 1500
ft AGL and there are VFR pilots in the pattern. Do you think that just maybe
this is why there are more than one radio in most aircraft and in virtually
all aircraft that fly IFR regularly?




Degraded digital is very hard to make out, and easy to make out in
error. Degraded analog is still easy to make out. It has to be very
degraded before it's hard to make out.

I must be missing a magic talent, because frankly I can hardly make
out what people are saying on the radio even under good conditions.
I'm continually amazed that more mistakes are not made. My guess is
that pilots assume they've heard something through force of habit, and
since radio communication is pretty consistent (and deliberately so),
they are lucky enough that their presumptions are usually correct.


I have little doubt you are missing many talents and not all of them
magical.

Mxsmanic wrote:
John Theune writes:
Actually that's not true either. You need to be able to understand
other pilots in order to have a sense of what's going on around you.

It helps, but it is not mandatory. In theory, all you need is ATC.
And even if ATC is the only voice you understand, you should still be
safe.

And in theory, I should be able to obey traffic laws and stay safe, but
in practice you have to watch out for others. ATC can make mistakes.
For example, with two similar call-signs, if both pilots can hear all
the conversations, they can figure it out easier. Another example is
that of two airplanes being given clearance to land/takeoff/taxi the
same runway. Many many times crashes are avoided by alert pilots
listening to the common channel.

I was flying late one night when I heard ATC give clearance to land at
HPN to a commuter jet. ATC also gave an alert to my presence. When
the jet twice said they didn't see me, I flicked my landing light
on/off a few times. A few moments later, the jet called "Ah okay, have
him in sight now". That made me us both feel better :-)

Kev

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Jose writes:

Situational awareness of where other aircraft are.

If you are talking to ATC, you have separation services from them plus
your windows in VMC, or all separation services from them in IMC. If
you are not talking to ATC, you have the windows. While hearing from
other aircraft might help a little, that presumes that other pilots
know where they are, which might be stretching things a bit if your
own situational awareness is poor enough that you have to depend on
other pilots. There's no reason to assume that they'd know more about
the big picture than you do.

You fly sims, you don't know what you are talking about. Listening to other
traffic is a big help in picking up other traffic. Why don't you listen to
people that fly real airplanes for a change?

Danny Deger

BDS wrote:
I think the ATC guys get just as lonely - I think I've had them start up the
conversations late at night more often than the other way around.


I've gotten football scores along with IFR services late at night. Sometimes I
didn't know which of us is more like the Maytag repairman.




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

Gig 601XL Builder writes:

Let's say you are approaching a uncontrolled airport with overcast at 1500
ft AGL and there are VFR pilots in the pattern. Do you think that just maybe
this is why there are more than one radio in most aircraft and in virtually
all aircraft that fly IFR regularly?

I don't know the original purpose for two radios, but it cannot be
that, because there will be no VFR pilots (legally) in the pattern
with an overcast at 1500 feet.

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