SAG Worldtour 2006 SAG-OMDB

[Alexandre Geahel 932157]

Excelent, I wont be available at OMDB for the 2second shift

[Opher Ben Peretz 882232]

Hello,

last night SAG vACC pilots flew the Worldtour 2006 second leg, VATAME providing ATC services for the Gulf area airspace. More than 30 aircraft departed within just over an hour. I would like to thank all for their contribution, and ask participants to add their inputs here. From my viewpoint as VATAME event coordinator, a few points:

a. The event went really well. ATC was understaffed due to one no-show and tower hardware problem some 30 minutes into the departures. Our ATC pre-briefing did not work out as planned due to personal problems, resulting among other things in tower, a new controller for OMDB and key ATC player, not participating in the briefing. However all these issues only slowed somewhat the clearance delivery rate, as GND also provided DEL services, contrary to the plan. Other positions expedited traffic flow and countered routine issues only.

b. The pre-planned traffic, spread over 3 separate routes, helped UIR traffic management, and this could be incorporated in future m[Mod - Happy Thoughts] fly-ins, notwithstanding arrival issues.

c. After the traffic left our airspace, I opened India's Chennai Control, which covers the route between Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur and Djakarta FIRs, for a substantial portion of the flight. Nicely separated tracks enabled good ATC service. The very large sectorfile I have, lacking details on the east side, slowed down the ASRC display refresh rate. However, the interesting thing for me about this leg was to provide ATC on this 1200NM wide FIR with 600NM radar range limitation. Main observations:

1) Aircraft coast when slightly away from radar center focus.

2) Voice and text communication are impaired.

3) Aircraft lose the controller in their client controller list.

4) Loss of neighboring ATC in ASRC controller list, unlike published data, when slightly away from the common FIR border.

 

Cooperation with Kuala Lumpur Control, manned by HKG staff was fine.

 

I understand the frustration of pilots waiting to get clearance, sometime over 10 minutes. They should also, listening on radio, try to understand the other guy who spent many hours and personal resources for preparation, then came on his free time to make their event enjoyable and as real as it gets, while working at his limit to manage ground and clearance operations. They could also bear in mind that he is communicating on other channels with other ATC, and trying to troubleshoot ATC problems, some but not all of which were described above, as event coordinator. A pilot call stating that his p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]engers protested the delay, will in such circomestances only further delay all flights, contributing nothing but further frustration.