Well here's your chance. I was down by the old YYC the other day and happened to have my little camera and scanner with me so I thought I'd turn them both on at the same time and see what happened. The video clip below is the result.
This is my awesome little scanner. An Icom™ IC-R2. It's a tiny little thing, only 4 inches tall not including the antenna, but it's got inner bigness.
I've had it for about ten years and used to use it in my work to accurately inform myself of the arrivals and departures of my clients at YYC. Of course there are monitors all over the place in the airport which supposedly tell you the arrival and departure times but I learned so long ago that they are not always faithfully updated and, to put it bluntly, were often full of... inaccuracies.
I was going to post just the video but I decided that it might be slightly less boring if i gave a bit of color commentary about what you are hearing, just in case you don't understand it all. This seemingly small decision will no doubt turn this into probably my longest post ever. Oh well! You will find the commentary below the video clip.
OK, so first we see a little rubber band powered plane coming in to land on runway 34 from let’s say… Moose Jaw. As soon as it’s past the threshold of 34 the tower tells Westjet 255 to line up into position on 34 and “be ready for an immediate” takeoff. (‘cause there is another plane coming in to land on runway 28 that he needs to be out of the way for.) (Runways 34 and 28 are intersecting runways which can be used at the same time, just not at the exact same time at the intersection for obvious reasons.) Tower then tells that other plane approaching runway 28 (Empress 467) to slow “back to final approach speed now please”. (This will give Westjet 255 a bit more breathing room to take off in time.) Empress 467 acknowledges.
We see Westjet 255 moving into position on 34.
Tower tells propeller boy to expedite off the runway onto exit C3 and to contact “south ground on frequency 121.9” (a different guy who controls the traffic between the terminal and the runways)
Tower then gives a heads up to Empress 467 that a 737 will be rolling (taking off) from 34 as he is coming in to land but that Westjet will be through the intersection of 34 and 28 when he is about a mile from the threshold of runway 28 so not to worry and that he is cleared to land on 28.
Another plane coming in to land on 34 begins to contact the tower when propeller boy just gets off the runway and the tower has to interrupt (step on) him in order to give Westjet 255 takeoff clearance so he will be away before Empress 467 lands on 28.
Tower tells Westjet 255 the wind is calm, to contact departure (yet another ATC) on frequency 119.8 when airborn and that he is cleared for immediate takeoff. (Immediate because another plane (Empress 467) is only 3 miles from the threshold of runway 28.)
Westjet 255 reads back the instructions and says good day. We then see WS 255 power up and start rolling.
Previously stepped on Air Canada 216 contacts the tower again to inform him they are coming in to land on 34. Tower tells him he is number two for the field (one other plane to land before him on 28, our good friend Empress 467) and to slow to final approach speed.
Tower tells AC 216 that the 737 landing before him on 28 will be through the intersection of the runways when he is short final and that he is clear to land on 34.
After a short wait we see AC 216 (from Vancouver) coming in to land on 34.
As we see AC 216 landing tower is talking to Empress 467, who has landed and is safely through the intersection, about where to exit the runway. There is a bit of confusion due to the tower assuming they were heading somewhere other than the terminal but it gets cleared up and ends with Empress 467 telling tower they are going to the terminal and gate D44.
Tower tells the most recently landed AC 216 to exit the runway at C4 and to contact the north side ground controller on frequency 25.35 (all the frequencies they use are in the one hundreds, so sometimes they just say 25.35 instead of 125.35)
Finally we see a just taken off Westjet 515 and hear him contacting the “departures” controller to give his current altitude 4800 ft and that he is climbing to 7000 ft. Departures tells him that he has been identified on the radar and gives him his next heading and clearance (when he reaches 6500 ft) to make a right turn and start climbing to flight level 250 which is 25,000 feet. The end!
Now wasn't that the most fun you've had in years!
3 comments:
John here: Now that was cool... I had to let the video clip play while I followed your explanation to make sense of the series of radio transmissions. Having your equipment would make visits to the airport much more interesting!
Hi John, thanks for stopping by. A scanner does indeed make the airport more interesting.
I remember years ago when I first got the scanner I was listening to "arrivals" and heard a Delta plane ask for permission to do a flyby of the tower before they landed. They were apparently unsure whether or not their landing gear was down and locked and wanted the tower to do a visual check for them.
Sure enough a few minutes later the Delta 727 (it was a long time ago) does a low level flyby and the tower informed them that their gear seemed to be down. Delta decided to land and the tower asked them if they wanted the fire trucks out for them or not and the pilots decided that it would be best to be prepared just in case so out came the firetrucks.
They ended up landing safely but lost all power and were stopped dead on the runway. The tower calmly explained to the Delta pilots that the need not worry as they could reroute all the other traffic to the other runway and that they would send a mule (tow vehicle) out to them to bring them in to the gate. The Delta pilots were extremely grateful for all the assistance and care given by the Calgary controllers and expressed that they were sure they wouldn't have been treated with such patience had they stranded their plane on the runway in just about any other city.
As everything ended well no one but those involved (and me) ever found out about it.
Cool post. Your reply after John's comment is a pretty good story too. I think it would be fun to have a scanner. Here's an idea: just like in the old days when the family used to gather around the radio in the evening after supper to listen to the radio plays, we should turn on your scanner at the next gathering, and listen to all the real life drama going on around us.
Post a Comment