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Communication with air traffic control (ATC) involves exchanging safety-critical information between pilots and air traffic controllers

Successful communication relies on the use of standard phraseology whenever possible.

Effective use of your radio, as well as maintaining a good listening watch also make for safe and effective communication.

Most standard radio transmissions and readbacks are in a format that enables both the pilot and the air traffic controller to relay required information efficiently and effectively.

The use of non-standard radio calls or readbacks affects the ability of ATC to understand your intentions and confirm that you have understood your clearance.

If your readback is incorrect or incomplete, ATC will need to confirm your understanding; leading to additional conversation, complexity, workload and frequency congestion.

This may also impact you or other aircraft by increasing the chances of incorrect information being passed or received.

You can check you are up to date with the current requirement by reading the AIP GEN 3.4 which details pilot radio call and readback requirements.

The components of an ATC transmission that will require a pilot to readback are:
an ATC route clearance in its entirety, and any amendments
any en route holding instructions
any route and holding point specified in a taxi clearance
any clearances, conditional clearances or instructions to hold short of, enter, land on,
line-up on, wait, take-off from, cross, taxi or backtrack on any runway
any approach clearance
an assigned runway,
altimeter settings directed to specific aircraft,
radio and radio navigation aid frequency instructions
SSR codes or data link logon codes
level, direction of turn, heading and speed instructions.

Pilots often fail to readback the taxi holding point (if given during a clearance) and the runway designator.

So remember to lock these ones away in your memory bank.

Pilots also often fail to read back a radio frequency change prior to selecting the new frequency.

This means that ATC cannot ensure that you have copied the correct frequency and will not know which one you are on if you select and incorrect frequency.

Good RTF discipline

Use standard phraseology whenever possible to prevent misunderstandings.

Keep transmissions clear and concise.

Thank about what you want to say before pressing the button in order to avoid rambling transmissions.

Stick to plain English in unusual or emergency situations where non-standard phraseology is necessary.

Make sure you’re listening on the correct frequency and the radio volume is at a suitable level.

If there is a long period of radio silence, do a radio check with ATC to ensure that your radio is correctly tuned and is operating normally.

Always listen before broadcasting to make sure no one else is currently using the frequency.

Do not transmit if another aircraft is about to transmit a readback.

If you’re unable to make a call at the required place or time because of frequency congestion, wait for a pause on the frequency then give ATC an accurate position report with your intentions.

Speak up if you think there is any possibility that a transmission has been addressed to, or answered by, the wrong station.

And also speak up if you hear two stations over-transmit.

There have been some safety occurrences where pilots are unsure if a tower is active or if CTAF procedures apply.

If you’re unsure, listen to the ATIS.

If the tower is not active, the ATIS will be information ZULU and will include the time of activation and the CTAF frequency.

A listening watch is vital for the safe conduct of your flight.

Make sure you:
actively listen to all transmissions
use the information gained from listening to build your situation awareness
and to assist you to see-and avoid other aircraft.

Effective radio communication between pilots and ATC is critical to safe operations.

In the event of a radio failure, after checking the most likely cause of the radio failure ensure you follow the communication failure procedures detailed in both the Emergency Procedures and Local Procedures sections of ERSA.

More pilot safety information is available on the Airservices website at bit.ly/pilotsafety for short.

If you have any questions or you’d like to provide us some feedback, please email us at safetypromotions@airservicesaustralia.com.

Thanks for watching, have a safe flight

Pilots are now returning to the airspace after long periods of inactivity to what is now an increasingly active and complex airspace.

Other airspaces in Australia are comparable to Brisbane in terms of activity and complexity, however controllers at the Brisbane tower are currently seeing a spike in airspace infringements – more so than in other similar airspaces.

Brisbane’s parallel runway and large volume of heavy RPT traffic create an active and complex environment.

Brisbane TCU’s proximity to Amberley and Archerfield also contributes to the airspace’s complexity by increasing both volume and type of traffic.

In particular, we’re seeing more aircraft than usual entering Class C airspace without clearance and, in a portion, failing to respond to ATC attempt to contact them.

These actions can result in potential loss of separation, including with fast-moving RPT and high-capacity heavy jet aircraft.

They also cause increased workload for ATC, and may result in delays for other airspace users.

The following are some of the areas you need to be particularly mindful of while operating in this area as they are currently identified as airspace infringement hot spots.

Infringing airspace in this area, The Class C steps north and west of Brisbane, can lead to a loss of separation in Class C airspace containing a large volume of IFR arrivals to and departures from Brisbane.

It can also lead to increased workload for ATC and may result in delays for other airspace users.

To avoid an airspace infringement in this area, it is important to climb and descend at the correct times, as climbing too early or descending too late could lead to accidentally entering the 1500, 2000, or 2500ft Class C steps.

When tracking northbound from Archerfield through the 1500ft Class C step, track east of the TV towers.

Use Lakes Samsonvale and Kurwongbah to remain clear of the 1500ft step before climbing.

When tracking southbound to Archerfield, track below the 2500ft step west of the TV Towers.

Use Enoggera Reservoir and Mt Coot-tha TV Towers to remain clear of the 1500ft step.

Stay vigilant of your altitude, keep a listening watch on the radio and comply with instructions from ATC.

Stay vigilant that the Brisbane CTR is only 4NM to the south of Redcliffe.

Infringing airspace the Archerfield CTR can lead to a loss of separation but in Class D airspace with a large volume of IFR arrivals and departures.

When tracking inbound, make sure you’re at 1500ft and outbound at 1000ft.

If flying within the D666 and D672 training areas, leave a buffer under 2500ft to remain well below the lower limit of Class C airspace above.

This will help to prevent you from unintentionally climbing into the 2500ft step without clearance.

Infringing airspace in the Amberley CTR can put you at risk of loss of separation with military aircraft or activity.

In order to operate more safely in this area, make sure to…
familiarise yourself with significant VFR points in and around Amberley airspace.
stay vigilant of your proximity to the step within the Amberley military CTR and check restricted area status with NAIPS before your flight.

Plan to pass to the north of Lake Manchester at or below 1500ft.

If deactivated, as a courtesy reconfirm the status with ATC before entering.

When AMB is not active, Class C lower limit is 4500ft.

In order to avoid infringing military airspace around Greenbank firing range check the latest NOTAMS and carry out a preflight NAIPS location brief to determine the current status of Greenbank airspace, R627.

Stay vigilant that surface to 2000ft is active daily and it’s a good idea to check your status at 2000 – 3500 ft.

Remember too, that D623, D673 and D672 are in close proximity to this airspace, so make sure you have taken this into consideration when planning your flight.

In general, to avoid an airspace infringement in any area it’s important to:
familiarise yourself with the airspace you will be operating in
and operate in accordance with local procedures in ERSA
stay vigilant of your altitude
keep a listening watch on the radio and comply with instructions from ATC.

Request your clearance well before reaching the CTA step (five minutes prior is a good guide).

Remember, if you are unsure, contact ATC for assistance.

More pilot safety information can be found on the Airservices website at bit.ly/pilot safety for short.

If you’ve any questions, or you’d like to provide us some feedback, please email us at safetypromotions@airservicesaustralia.com

Thanks for watching. Have a safe flight!

Tim: Thank you everyone for joining us this afternoon at our controlled aerodrome’s webinar we have uh we’ve had hundreds of people register and jump on board with us this afternoon from all over Australia, so we certainly do appreciate the fact that you’ve joined us here today.

My name is Tim penny I’m an Aviation Safety Advisor I work out of CASA’s Melbourne office and I’ll be your host uh this afternoon and it certainly is good to have our subject matter expert Anthony Macbeth from Tamworth Tower.

Anthony’s given us a wave there I hope you can see him in the corner of your screen.

I certainly hope that there’s someone else up there in the tower doing the controlling while you’re talking to us Tony because you’re facing the wrong way.

But no that’s lovely so just a few housekeeping things to start with, so thanks very much for joining us we certainly know that your time is precious and we also understand that people’s attention spans are limited when they’re in a webinar environment but we certainly aim to make this webinar as useful as possible to give you some short and sharp information to take away and apply to your own flying, whether you are flying commercially or you’re a private pilot.

If you’re flying in controlled airspace all the time or only an infrequent visitor to a controlled Aerodrome we want to basically make your operations in the controlled Aerodrome environment as safe and efficient as we possibly can.

We have large numbers with us this afternoon, we certainly do.

The registration has been quite amazing actually.

I think we had over 500 register as of this afternoon and Landy who’s in our Brisbane office, she’s the moderator, she’s kind of controlling all the buttons and dials just to make sure the technology works okay and we have bandwidth and all the rest of it.

We have just muted everyone for the moment and turned their cameras off just to make sure that everyone can hear what’s going on and we get through the presentation smoothly.

We will actually be recording this webinar so Landy will hit the record button because it’s our aim to put our webinar on CASA’s Pilot Safety Hub on the CASA’s website and the link to that Pilot Safety Hub can be found on the home page of CASA’s website

On your screen you should have across the top of your screen a little chat bubble, looks like a little cartoon chat bubble.

If you click on that we can see if you want to put in some questions.

You can type in some questions on the right hand side of the screen and we will try and get to as many of those questions as we can, time permitting a course, but if there are any questions or comments that perhaps we don’t get to we’re certainly going to chase those up.

We’ll certainly chase those up after the event.

It’s our intention to hopefully get all this done and dusted as much as we can within about 45 minutes or so.

We find that for most people that’s about the the normal attention span at these types of webinars so if everyone’s happy I’m going to just kick off and introduce this topic.

I’ll talk for a little bit and then I’ll hand across to Tony up there in Tamworth to take us through his presentation and hopefully we can learn from the subject matter expert himself so after the welcome and housekeeping I’ll just give you a quick little agenda.

I’m just going to present a brief overview and then I’ll introduce Anthony to talk specifically about his topics as a controller at the coal face then we’ll have hopefully some question and discussion time and then I’ll wrap up at the end.

And as I said we’ll hopefully have this done in about 45 minutes or so.

So really a lot of this centers of course around Air Services Australia.

Air Services is authorized to, you know, by CASA, to operate under civil aviation safety reg part 172. and we oversight Air Services and we also audit and inspect their ongoing activities.

We also license air traffic controllers as well under CASR part 65 and CASA also implement ATC’s medical standards as well through the issue of what we call a Class III Medical.

And Air Services, just like any other operator around Australia, is subject, of course, to other pieces of oversight such as part 99 drug and alcohol testing because it is a safety sensitive Aviation activity, of course, and as I said earlier, they’re regularly audited and inspected, so really what’s the size of the industry that we’re talking about here?

You can see there that we have about 29 civilian ATC Towers across Australia and Air Services, according to their website anyway, look after about 11 of the world’s airspace.

They manage more than four million aircraft movements carrying almost about 160 million passengers around Australia every year, and at last count there’s about a thousand civilian air traffic controllers.

Bear in mind, of course, in the air traffic control world we also have the military that run Air Traffic Control Towers at places like William town near Newcastle, Tyndall, and Catherine and Darwin, etc. and they also have a number of air traffic controllers looking after military controlled airspace.

Please also be aware just at this juncture everyone that Air Services is not CASA and CASA is not Air Services.

That can sometimes be a bit confusing.

We used to be married together until about 1995 when the Great Divorce happened and CASA is now the regulator and Air Services is the air navigation services provider, so we are two separate entities but of course there’s a lot of crossover and correspondence between the two organizations.

So controlled aerodrones, which is really why we’re here to talk about today, controlled aerodromes are primarily, primarily they’re a service to the aviation community and the traveling public.

They are a service provider, an air nav services provider, and what they provide through controlled aerodromes is really an enhanced level of safety.

I’ll let Anthony talk more about those specifics as we go through our presentation this afternoon but really one of the things we have to always just be aware of is that ATC is there to provide a service to the public.

To drill down a little bit more so we don’t have, you know, a free-for-all that our busy aerodromes around Australia, ATC are there to provide an orderly flow of traffic, both VFR and IFR, not only in the air but also on the surface of these controlled airports and into and out of the control Zone Air Services.

Air traffic controllers provide separation Services sequencing and also vital traffic information information to help pilots in the air manage their own workload and we’ll talk a little bit about that as we go through the presentation.

So really they are an essential service in Australia and also around the world and we’d certainly be lost without them, especially at these busy airfields.

Now when we talk about controlled airports, in a lot of people’s minds especially those people that don’t fly often or people that may have done a lot of their training outside of controlled airspace or if you spend a lot of your time out in Regional Australia, controlled aerodromes can certainly be intimidating to a lot of Pilots.

Now a lot of pilots, and potentially a lot of pilots that have tuned in this afternoon to get a few hints and tips from our webinar this afternoon, they might have had little exposure to such airfields but they may want to expand.

They may want to expand their own flying or maybe have needs in the future to go to airports that are controlled and of course we’ve also heard these horror stories over the time and I’m sure every pilot that’s tuning in with us this afternoon has probably got a story where they’ve been fearful of, say, of either doing or saying the wrong thing and maybe you know people have been growled at by by air traffic controllers.

Hopefully that’s the thing of the past and there is probably also, you know, within the private sphere of flying, you know, an underlying fear along among some people of going into controlled aerodromes but please, please, please remember that ATC are in fact here to assist pilots and they’re certainly not robots.

Please remember also that, you know, controllers are human as well and may suffer exactly the same type of frailties and they’re subject to the same types of things that we as pilots have to deal with every time we go flying.

So air traffic controllers, you know, they’re subject to such things as a lot of human factors like distraction, losses of situational awareness.

Air traffic controllers can also suffer from things like information overload because I’m sure Anthony will agree in busy airspace when everything’s happening all at once that’s something that they have to guard against.

Air traffic controllers also can suffer because they’re human from things like fatigue, stress, even breakdowns in communication and even, on the odd occasion, according to Anthony anyway, error, because they are human and even ATC do commit errors from time to time and just like as aviators as pilots they work in a very high consequence environment as well and, just like pilots, air traffic controllers are trying to do their job as best as they possibly can so they can assist you to do your job as pilots as best as you possibly can as well.

So in many ways it’s a two-way partnership and that’s one of the things that we’d like to emphasize today, this two-way partnership approach.

So if everyone’s happy with that, just a few more things I thought I’d just manage to talk about before I hand over to Anthony:

They’re a valuable resource and what they do, air traffic controllers, they help us as pilots manage our workload and they provide additional layers of safety especially at those critical phases of flight often when we find ourselves with high levels of workload, and they might be times, as you can see there, when we’re close to the ground, takeoff, approach and landing (that kind of makes sense), in bad weather, also if we are perhaps unfamiliar with the local Airfield there, or the airspace surrounding it, or if we’re dealing with emergencies.

Those busiest phases of flight are when we can particularly utilize the resources that ATC have at their disposal to assist us in managing our workload.

So ATC is a is a significant workload management resource, so all of us as pilots we should never be reluctant to actually make use of them.

And it certainly is, as I said before, a two-way partnership between pilot and controller and, successful or safe Aviation can’t work in these environments unless that partnership is working.

ATC are also an extra set of eyes and ears that can help pilots see the big picture.

They can see things we can’t but also by the same token we can probably see things that they might not be able to see as well, so although ATC might not be in the cockpit with us that relationship is incredibly, incredibly important and there are responsibilities on both sides of the fence for that relationship to work at its absolute best and it should ideally be a two-way partnership.

So I think it’s a really important thing to remember that a really good knowledge of the different roles and responsibilities, and also I suppose an expectation of what each side
of the relationship can contribute to, is really really important and that’s probably one of the major things that Anthony is going to expand on when he chats to us in a few minutes.

So just to take this a little bit further before I hand over to Anthony who’s patiently waiting up there in Tamworth, please remember that you as the pilot, as the license holder sitting behind the wheel, you are still the piloting command.

ATC cannot fly the aircraft for you and Anthony will talk more about that later, and secondly, preparation is vital.

We want to give ourselves as pilots the best possible opportunity for a safe and efficient flight regardless of the airspace that we’re in so making use of all the tools we have available to us will certainly go a long way to making the flight successful and as stress-free as possible.

So things like the AIP, dusting off the ERSA, making sure it’s the current edition and having a really really good read of the local procedures at each of these airfields, delving into the the mysterious wonderful world of NOTAMS where there are certain little key things that we can miss if we don’t have that actual discipline to go in and have a look at some things that may have changed, and don’t be afraid to seek advice.

Seek advice from senior pilots.

Seek advice from instructors.

Talk to other pilots.

Dive onto the Air Services website as well.

The Air Services Australia Safety Promotion Team are putting out more and more information as we go along so their website is becoming increasingly important for getting hold of that good generic safety promotion info depending on whatever types of operations you’re flying or what airspace you’re flying in.

And at the end of the day most ATC Towers have their phone number in ERSA and if there’s a particular question or an issue that you’re stuck with always consider perhaps giving them a call.

Probably best to not try and call them when, you know, things are things are fully busy in there and they’re working really hard at a busy time of day, but I’m sure most air traffickers are more than happy to just answer a query when the phone rings and just provide local pilots with some guidance.

So that’s just a bit of an overview of kind of where we’re going and where all of this sits.

What I’m going to do now is I’ll ask Anthony to take control of the presentation if he doesn’t mind from his little perch up there in Tamworth and I’ll ask Anthony to flick across to his next slide.

This is Anthony Macbeth he’s a tower controller based up in Tamworth in New South Wales, so thanks very much for joining us Anthony and we might just start, if you don’t mind, with maybe a brief rundown of your career thanks Tim.

Anthony: Thanks for the introduction.

A big thanks to Gail Rutledge who put all my presentation together.

So my name is Anthony Macbeth.

Most people know me as Tony.

I’ve been an air trafficker for 27 years now.

So I had 10 years in Brisbane and the rest of the times been here in Tamworth.

In that time I’ve held various ratings from Oceanic to Sydney arrivals East, to here in Tamworth, non-radar approach and obviously Aerodrome.

I’ve also done work for Air Services head office in Safety and in National Checking.

Prior to being an air traffic control I was a jackaroo and also a CPL with a grade 2 flying instructor rating.

Unfortunately that’s now lapsed but I did a fair bit of work with Gunidar Aero Club.

So the first thing I want to talk about is the role of the tower controller.

Our basic role is to stop aircraft hitting things, either each other or terrain.

So we get aircraft safely on and off the ground, prevent collisions between aircraft and prevent collisions between aircraft and
the ground, and then do things like provide MET information, Aerodrome information, enroute information and that sort of thing.

When you’re dealing with regional towers particularly, most of the time you’ll be dealing with either class Charlie or class Delta airspace.

Now there’s still three towers that have class Delta – correction – class Charlie procedural airspace, being Tamworth, Albury and Alice Springs, but obviously the main differences between the radar environment and non-radar is the way the information is presented.

So in radar you have a large screen, look at the screen and most of the time the radar controls we use either five miles or three miles and a thousand feet, generally speaking.

Non-radar, depending on where you are, but most of the time we use colored cardboard strips and we use different separation standards such as visual, we use line features, vertical separation, lateral separation where we’ll use things like VOR radials or GNSS tracks.

In a non-radar environment we require a lot more reports because, while we have a screen, we can’t use it for separation so we’ll ask for reports to confirm your position, distance, altitude, that sort of thing.

So that updates our mental map as to where you are and how we’re getting you and how we’re keeping you safe through the airspace.

The biggest difference between class Charlie and class Delta airspace is, in class Charlie I have to separate VFR to IFR, in class Delta I have to segregate VFR to IFR, which means
in class Charlie if I have a VFR and IFR aircraft I have to have a published separation standard so vertical, lateral, line feature, that sort of thing.

In class Delta if I have a VFR aircraft 12 miles to the north and an IFR aircraft 15 miles to the south I can say those two aircraft there’s no collision risk exists so I’m happy.

So that’s why you’ll find sometimes in the class D or class Charlie airspace you’ll be pushed down into the class Delta airspace because it does make the separation a lot simpler.

So we see the two difference between ground and tower frequency.

So if we have a look on the screen there I’ve taken the screenshot of the Tamworth ERSA and you can see there’s a SMC frequency which is Tamworth Ground and Delivery, and then the tower frequency.

Now Tamworth’s a bit special because we have two runways, so I have a separate tower frequency for each runway.

What Ground does is gives you your airways clearance, taxi clearances and that sort of thing.

Tower will give you departure instructions, departure things like take off clearance, landing clearance

When it’s busy here in Tamworth we have a separate person sitting on the ground and a separate person in the tower frequencies.

When it’s quiet all the frequencies are combined so that’s why sometimes you hear the same voice when you swap over between frequencies.

Now some of the trips and traps.

Wake turbulence is a funny one.

Well funny is probably not the right word.

If you do a search on YouTube there are plenty of clips of the effect of wake turbulence on lighter aircraft.

Looking at the chart there, most Regional Towers will use time-based standards for their departures.

It’s rare for the Regionals to get a super heavy coming in.

The only place I know of that gets supers is Alice Springs when they’ve had the A380s come in to the parking area there.

Heavies are quite rare as well.

Rocky probably gets a few with the US military, again Alice Springs, not too many others.

Medium aircraft are the most common ones.

So things like the dash 8 400 series of mediums, Boeing 737s and a lot of the military jets.

Now depending on where the heavier aircraft rolls and where you roll from depends on the amount of time, it’s either three minutes or two minutes in general, and again generally it’ll be something like lineup, expect delay due wake turbulence.

Another bit of a trip or trap is special VFR.

Now again, special VFR is a bit of an interesting one.

If conditions are below normal VMC, by day, at pilot request, within a CTR or CTA a pilot can request special VFR which means they have to remain clear of cloud and for fixed-wing visibility greater than 16 – correction – visibility at least 1600 meters or greater, and for helicopters at least 800 meters or greater.

Now one of the main things with special VFR is we have to separate special VFR from IFR, so we do have a condition that, provided an IFR flight won’t be delayed we can approve special VFR.

But just keeping in mind it is at pilot request, we can’t force you to take special VFR.

Tim: Just a quick question on that from myself while I’ve got you here Anthony, special VFR – do you use that primarily to get people out of the zone or to bring people into the zone?

Anthony: Both.

Tim: Okay.

Anthony: Once upon a time it was for just exiting and entering the Zone but it can also be used for circuits now as well, it can be used for operating within the zone. But yeah, for both entering and exiting the zone

Tim: Yeah and one of the things that pilots need to remember is that, once they clear that controlled airspace, then the normal VFR or VMC criteria apply.

It’s only relevant when you’re in that controlled airspace.

Anthony: That’s right.

Tim: Cool.

Anthony: Probably a bit of a trap with special VFR that we have seen is pilots request special VFR to get out of the zone and the conditions get worse so they can’t get back in because it then turns to full IMC, so it’s something just to make sure with your situation awareness of the actual conditions when you’re requesting special VFR.

All right, so what can pilots do to help us to help you to make operations safer and more efficient?

My first point:
When in doubt ask, every time.

I’d much rather go over clearance several times than have a misunderstanding which leads to a safety issue.

I might be getting a bit tetchy if we get to the eighth time and we’re still going over it but I’d still rather do that than us have an issue.

So always keep that in mind, when in doubt ask.

If you can, if you haven’t put a flight plan in, on first contact with ground or with the tower when you’re inbound let us know your intentions.

So something along the lines of “Tamworth Tower, alpha bravo charlie” with inbound details or overflying details or circuit details, departure details, area work, whatever it is give us a hint.

As I spoke about before, we use different coloured strips so if you give me that hint when you first start talking, I can grab the right coloured strip and then that starts my mental processing, who you are, where you are, what I have to do to get you in.

As Tim already alluded to, if you’re going somewhere that you not familiar with or you haven’t been to for a while or you’ve heard it’s a bit tricky, give the tower a ring.

If I go back to the role of Ground and Tower, you can see down here there’s a tower number.

So it’s usually listed in ERSA.

Give us a call.

We can then talk to you about what you want to do, what’s the best way to get in, what sort of trips and traps there are as you come in, all that sort of thing.

So yeah don’t ever be afraid to give the Tower a ring.

I really appreciate it when pilots do give us a call.

And even if you’ve given us a call when you’re coming into somewhere you’re not entirely familiar with, either the first time or you haven’t been in for years, as part of your transmission use the word “unfamiliar”.

Now that’s not an admission of ignorance, and it’s not an admission of guilt (for want of a better word), it’s just letting us know that you’re not entirely familiar with the local area or the local procedures.

It changes the way we deal with the pilot because it means that we won’t ask for maybe more obscure positions and we’ll probably treat you a little bit differently.

So yeah, the word unfamiliar works really well.

Now going back to the “when in doubt ask”, if the clearance or the instruction doesn’t make sense or if you can’t comply with it let us know.

Don’t just blast on through, let us know and then we’ll come up with an alternative.

Now always important: Use standard phraseology.

If you use the words I’m expecting and I use the words you’re expecting, again we stay on the same page and we’re hopefully going to have a good day.

Obviously there are times when standard phraseology isn’t appropriate but we’re possible use standard phraseology.

If you’re coming in VFR have your VTC handy.

I might ask you if you’re coming into Tamworth “Are you familiar with the New England Highway?”.

If I hear you say “I’m not but I’m looking at my VTC now”, that fills me with a lot more hope than “I don’t have a VTC on board, where is it?”.

So have your VTC handy.

If I ask you for a position and again it doesn’t make sense just let me know.

And I know I’ve already said it three times, but when in doubt ask.

And if it comes to that point, ask in plain language, as in, I give you a clearance, it doesn’t make sense, just say to me “Do you mean me to do such and such?”.

Okay, common mistakes pilots make and what we can do to avoid them.

Probably the biggest one I’m noticing at the moment is read backs.

Know what you have to read back.

Now we as controllers have very firm requirements about what has to be read back and we will chase you and chase you and chase you until we get what we need.

Now yep, it might seem pedantic and it might be a bit of a pain, but it’s our safety backup to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Okay, frequency issues.

Avoid stepping on other transmissions.

Try to avoid swapping from one frequency to the other and blasting straight in try and listen for two or three or four minutes before you enter the control Zone before you make your first transmission so that you get some situational awareness about what’s around you and what’s going on.

I know it can be difficult in a busy environment to get your message across but particularly on that first contact have a listen out so that you’re not over-transmitting anyone.

Think about what you want to say before you press that button to avoid ramming transmissions.

Look, I do the same.

Keeping in mind that the press to talk button, both the ATC press-to-talk button and the pilot press-to-talk switch is the world’s best brain removal tool.

You can sit there, and you can practice, and I’ve done it myself when I first came here, I’d practice “DURI GAP, cleared DRUI GAP direct Tamworth 3000 45 miles”.

So I’d say that to myself, say to myself, press the press-to-talk and all that come out would be “uhhhh”.

So keep your transmissions concise and please try and practice what you want to say but just keeping in mind that the first few times, that press-to-talk it’s deadly.

Tim: Hey Anthony, just while you’re talking about using the radio, a quick question from Chris, one of our guests.

Anthony: Yes.

Tim: What are the most common things pilots don’t read back? What’s one of the most common things they usually fail to read back or get wrong?

Anthony: It’s been a combination just recently, it’s actually been everything but probably here in Tamworth one of the main things is crossing active runways, crossing the grass runways.

Always gotta read back, even if the runway is closed, if it’s wet or whatever, the crossing of the runways has to be read back.

That’s probably the most common one for us, but it’s been elements of all common airways clearances recently that I’ve been having to chase, which is, yeah the last couple of months I don’t know why, but it just seems to be a bit of a thing at the moment.

Tim: Yep, cool. Thanks mate.

Anthony: Okay, so what can controllers do to actually help pilots?

Okay, one of the big things is weather information.

If you’re out west of here and the weather’s poor you can make a request, I mean if you’re outside a VHF-range call through sector, “can Tamworth advise what the weather’s like there?”.

You have a person sitting here who’s an approved weather observer who can tell you exactly what the weather’s doing.

A lot of us have a lot of local knowledge about weather patterns here, what storms, do what fronts do, what fog does and that sort of thing.

So that’s one of the big things we can do.

Technical advice.

Now when you call a tower you may not be speaking to a pilot but you may very well be.

However, again here in Tamworth, we have access to at least three lamies who are very happy to share their expertise free of charge.

So if you have a technical issue, make it known and we can get some advice for you very quickly.

The other thing with the technical advice is you never know who’s listening.

So about six or seven years ago there was a 210 at Moree that was having a great deal of difficulty getting his gear down who tried everything and a dash 8 came onto frequency here.

The captain asked me “Do you know anything about that 210 at Moree?”.

So I called sector and they said “No he’s still trying to get the gear down”.

What the captains then said was “My co-pilot’s got several thousand hours on 210s”.

He advised a solution, which I then passed on to sector, who passed on to the 210, who tried it and got the gear down.

So you just don’t know who’s listening.

There may be someone with infinitely more experience on your aircraft type that may have a solution that you haven’t thought of yet.

Navigation.

If you’re navigationally embarrassed or geographically embarrassed, again, please speak up.

We have some really good surveillance tools with ADS-B and even with the radar we may have to climb you a bit but we should be able to get you around this area.

Most areas have radar coverage within sort of four to five thousand feet above sea level.

Here in Tamworth we have ADS-B coverage on the ground so we get very good coverage there.

The other thing is, again, you have a lot of local knowledge.

So if you’re within VHF range of Tamworth and you describe what you can see there’s every chance most of the controllers here will be able to pinpoint where you are and get you back on your map.

So anytime you’re feeling unsure, speak up.

Medical’s a bit of a strange one but most towers have a direct line to their local hospital ED.

We certainly do so if there is a medical issue on board or if you need an ambulance or if you need assistance call us.

We can call the hospital, we can call the ED, we can get the advice you need really quickly.

And as I alluded to, the local knowledge is a big thing.

You’ve got controllers like myself, I’ve been here for 17 years, I grew up to the west of here and I did all my flying training here so I know the area.

If you have a problem please feel free to call up.

I know I’ve said it a few times but when in doubt ask.

As I said I’d rather go over it several times so we’re all on the same page and don’t ever be afraid to speak up.

If you speak up and there’s a problem we can get it fixed.

Okay, my very last slide.

Thank you very much for attending the webinar.

The little QR code will take you through to Airservices Airspace and our Safety Teams.

And I’ll have a look at the chat, I know there’s a couple of questions I’ve been able to answer but I’ll have a quick look at the chat and if Tim would like to take control of the webinar and we’ll continue on, thank you very much.

Tim: Lovely, thanks.

Thanks so much for that Anthony.

Thanks Martin, who just who just texted in “Thank you highly informative and reassuring”.

No, well done mate, thanks.

Only a couple of slides to go guys and then we will have a little bit of time to dive into a few questions.

Really just to sum up these key points.

I’ll just reiterate what Anthony was saying with his considerable expertise.

What can we take away?

When in doubt ask.

Please, please, please never assume or guess, and if you’re unfamiliar it’s not a black mark against you.

Just let them know and they’ll hold your hand.

If you can’t comply, again, let them know and they’ll be duty bound to give you an alternative.

It might mean you might have to orbit or an airways clearance may be delayed or there might be some extra track miles, but please let them know if you can’t comply.

Standard phraseology is a big one and I know that can be a bit daunting if you don’t fly often but that’s when we need to get into the books and seek advice and seek help.

And it’s actually quite amazing the resources that ATC have to provide us with assistance when we’re in flight.

And really, at the end of the day, one of the things I want to just emphasize is it really is a two-way partnership.

They can’t do their job without us, and flying into these places we can’t do our job without them.

So please jump onto our Pilot Safety Hub, just before we look at some of these questions, jump onto our Pilot Safety Hub for more information.

And really the motto of our Safety Hub is “Your safety is in your hands” and it’s up to all pilots to take that initiative and make use of the myriad of safety education product that’s actually out there in industry right now that all the aviation safety agencies are providing.

You know, even if we fly privately or, you know, we may only fly infrequently, we can all aim for excellence and try and commit ourselves to really bettering our safety knowledge no matter how experienced we are.

So look a big thank you for everyone that’s, you know, taken the time and effort to come along and join us this afternoon.

That Pilot Safety Hub has all resources in it.

We’ve previously looked at things like non-controlled airfields, we’ve looked at flight planning, we’ve looked at at weather and forecasting as well.

You’ll find on there links to podcasts, videos, worksheets, maps, booklets and all sorts of other great information.

We do have another webinar coming up in the next few weeks.

This one falls under that controlled Aerodrome topic and it looks specifically at Runway Safety, especially the risks associated with Runway Incursions.

And that Runway incursion webinar, registrations will open for that really soon and that’s going to be held on Thursday the 15th of June, kicking off at one o’clock eastern time this time.

We do have some time for some questions, Anthony.

Have you opened up the chat section mate?

Anthony: I have and I’ve just got an answer for Warwick Dalo on the Code One at Archerfield Tower.

Tim: Yeah, do you want to just work through some of those mate in the time we got left.

Anthony: So for Warwick I’ve just got a text from the boss at Archerfield.

He said “Code One means they’re going to do a practice engine failure after a touch and go and it’s usually completed prior to reaching the upwind threshold”.

Tim: There you go, beautiful.

And we also had another comment earlier Anthony about someone visited Camden in the tower once and they had what looked like a radar screen.

I think they were talking about the TSAD.

Do you just want to talk about what the TSAD is and does?

Anthony: So this is the TSAD, if I can find the button which I can’t in a hurry.

I might need someone younger and smarter to find the button for me.

So it’s not a radar screen, it’s a picture of a radar.

So like I said in my presentation we can use it to-

It’s alright Bevan, I’ve got my best Bevan on the job, he’ll do it now.

We can use it to look at aircraft and it would let us know in a situation where the aircraft are, but I can’t actually use it for separation.

So I can use it for situation awareness, so I can use it for identification, so if you say “I’m 35 miles north at 6500”, I can look at this and say “Okay, yes you are”, so then that starts my situational awareness.

If you are geographically embarrassed and you’ve climbed to 6500 and I see you on there squawking ident, then again I can work out where you are.

So it’s what’s called a TSAD, or a Tower Situation Awareness Display.

Tim: Yeah and you can’t actually use that for separation can you?

Anthony: That’s correct.

Tim: Yeah, okay so it’s a situational awareness tool.

Anthony: Yes.

Tim: Other questions that have come in, we’re recording all these so we will get to everyone, but I’ll just take a smattering.

Greg texted in “What does squawk code 3000 do in the class D environment?”

Anthony: That’s the squawk code for I think it’s… is it VFR in class D?

Tim: Yeah.

Anthony: So it’s 1200 in class G, 3000 in class D.

Tim: Correct, yep.

Anthony: So it’s just a symbol on the screen.

Tim: Okay, it helps you paint on the screen.

Anthony: Yep.

Tim: Another question, “When entering over a reporting point and you say “I’m overhead whatever that point is”, would you prefer us to be overhead when we start that transmission or maybe a little bit earlier so that we’re overhead or about to be overhead at the end of the transmission?”.

Anthony: Probably when you’re a little bit earlier.

It depends very much on how close the position is to the boundary as well.

If it’s close to the boundary obviously it’s better to start prior to the position so that we’ve got time to process the transmission and then the clearance and then read back before you actually enter controlled airspace.

Tim: Yep.

Anthony: What we prefer here is, if you’re not coming via a VFR approach point, is to report at 10 miles prior to the boundary.

So if you’re coming in above 3500, that’s at 25 miles for most of the airspace in Tamworth.

Tim: Cool, thank you.

Peter texted in, said “I’m planning to overfly a class D tower that has class C above it. Do I contact the Tower or Center for clearance?”

Well I suppose it depends on what airspace you’re in.

Anthony: Depends very much on what height.

So somewhere like Tamworth, Albury, Alice Springs, if you’re 6500 or above, you contact Center.

If you’re below 6500 you contact Tower.

For most of the rest of them, if you’re above 4500 contact Center, below 4500 contact Tower.

Except for Rockhampton/Mackay and Hobart/Launceston which are Center.

Tim: Yep, okay, alright.

Anthony: So yeah, it just depends very much on the altitude.

And that that’s where giving the particular Tower a call can make a big difference.

Tim: Yeah, lovely.

Matt texted in “If I need to enter class C”, so entering class C, “from outside of controlled airspace, do I contact Center first to get a code and do they provide the clearance in?”, because Matt is actually more used to operating in the class D environment and contacting the Tower directly.

Similar to the overfly, depends on the height and depends on the tower.

So coming to Tamworth, if you’re entering class C at 6500 you contact Tower directly.

Above 6500 contact Center.

Even then they may hand it straight off to the Tower if they’ve got nothing in the way, they may end up saying they’ll talk to us and we’ll organize a clearance through.

Tim: Okay, Baden texted in, “If you struggle with the ground phase or, you know, with the taxi phase of your flight on the ground, I’ve been informed that if you request detailed taxi you’ll actually get guided point-to-point while taxing. Is that true?”.

Anthony: Perfect phraseology.

And again when you come off the runway you just say, “Tamworth ground alpha bravo charlie for sigma, unfamiliar. Request detailed taxi.”, and I will give you exactly bit by bit.

So I’ll say, “Taxi take taxi left. Cross runways.”

I’ll watch you until you get towards the next taxiway that you’ve got to go then I’ll say, “Take taxi right.” and I’ll give you specific instructions to get where you need to go, so that, perfect thing to say.

Tim: Yep, okay.

Yeah, a lot of the flavor of many of these questions coming in is basically, “Who do I talk to on First Contact?”.

Anthony: Yeah.

Tim: And I suppose that’s when a really good detailed look at the airspace chart and your altitude should give you that information.

Anthony: That’s right.

Tim: A quick question here from Iman talking about flight following.

That’s a service that Airservices provide if you are within radar or ADS-B coverage and you are suitably equipped, you’re in class G and they’ll provide you with navigation assistance, traffic information, they’ll also hold a SAR for you.

So if you are in and around airspace that you are unfamiliar with, or the weather’s getting a bit iffy and you’re being pushed up against terrain and things like that, that could be something to consider.

But ultimately if safety of flight is of issue get that clearance and they’ll do what they can to assist.

What else have I got just before we leave?

Here’s one for Archerfield.

Anthony: No, I can’t answer that.

Tim: But that’s right we will get to that Kevin.

Don’t worry we’re recording all this, we will get back.

What else we got?

Anthony: I’ll take a screenshot of that and pass it on.

Tim: Yeah, we’ll get back to all you guys.

More on flight following, yeah.

Oh, here we go: Ben, “What’s the best way to prompt or ask ATC if you have been told to extend a leg of the circuit such as downwind and you’ve gone well and truly past your anticipated turn point?”.

In other words, and I’m just reading between the lines here Ben, “What do you do if ATC seem to have forgotten about you?”.

Anthony: Speak up.

Tim: Speak up.

Anthony: Yep, so best way is something like, “Alpha bravo charlie is ready” and basically say something like, “Alpha bravo charlie, ready for base”.

That will then prompt the controller to go, “Okay, why are they still on downwind? Okay”, it may be the controller hasn’t forgotten they still need you to extend downwind because of X, Y or Z, or yeah, okay, things work, turn base.

So yeah, use the word “Ready”, so yeah Ben the best way is, “Alpha bravo charlie, ready for base” or “Ready for crosswind” or whatever it is.

Tim: Yeah, I hope that answers the question.

And here’s a quick one, “At night, if you’re requesting a position from an aircraft do you prefer a radial?”.

Anthony: With procedural, Towers always prefer a radial.

So if you’re giving me a position I want distance and radial and altitude, and then that updates my mental map as to where you are what you want to do and how far you’re out and how
long I’ve got to react.

Tim: Cool, I hope that answers that one.

Gareth you’ve got a big one there but we’ll record that and get back.

Yeah, look that’s about it.

What have we done?

50 minutes, that’s not too bad is it?

I know people have a relatively limited attention span with webinars and all the rest of it, and it is late in the day or getting towards late afternoon.

Look I’d just like to take this opportunity to, on behalf of everyone that’s tuned in around the country, to thank Anthony for his time sitting up there in his little perch in Tamworth.

Really good information from the subject matter expert.

I hope we’ve dispelled a few myths and maybe even reduce some of the anxiety that a lot of pilots feel whenever they have to interact with with ATC.

Please can I just encourage you to dive onto our Pilot Safety Hub again, have a look at the resources there.

And the registrations will be open really soon for our next webinar, Thursday the 15th of June starting at one o’clock looking at Runway safety and looking especially at the scourge of those Runway incursions.

And we’re going to be interviewing a senior airline pilot and a member of our national Runway safety group here in Australia.

So we’ll let everyone go.

Thanks very much for joining us and we certainly look forward to catching up with you next time.

All the very best, bye.

Anthony: Thank you all.