Airside access at Sywell fly-in

J.C. · Post by **J.C.** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:43 pm

Given a normal situation, if I am joining a busy circuit I can spot slower stuff in front of me and extend downwind to slot in ..no problem.
Although my ealier posting was a bit tongue in cheek my real concern is this...If I arrive over the holding point at the same time as a mass of slower traffic there will already be a slow snake all the way to finals. How do I slot in behind the snake?

Rod1 · Post by **Rod1** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:39 pm

John,

You already know that unless you can fly really slowly you have no chance so you have several options;

1 Do not bother going and whinge to the organisers

2 Study the booking times, find a gap and go for it, then whinge at the organisers

3 Barge in any old how and sod the daft instructions

4 Arrive Friday when the procedures will be normal and hope you are not wasting an entire weekend

I am going for option 4, but the weather forecast had better be good!

Rod1

Brian Hope · Post by **Brian Hope** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:12 am

Gentlemen, I agree that for faster aircraft the procedures appear to present difficulties. It might be useful if you ring Sywell and have a chat with them expressing your concerns.

J.C. · Post by **J.C.** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 7:37 am

I fancy option 3. Installing20mm canons friday afternoon.

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:45 pm

Fast aircraft could use their speed to arrive nice and early after a dawn t/o whilst us slowcoaches are sauntering along.

However I do feel it incumbent on the slower approaching aircraft to keep up a decent speed until short finals.

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 8:19 am

IIRC this procedure is no different to the instructions given for previous LAA Rallies at Kemble with the aircraft streaming in from Malmesbury. If the process worked then what is it that has changed to make it not work now? If the process was unsatisfactory then what representations did you make to get it changed?

Like it or not aircraft have different characteristics. The aircraft you choose to fly will to a certain extent limit what you can do. If you fly a vari-eze you won't fit in well on a short grass runway. If you fly something with a tail skid and a low crosswind limit you'll have difficulty on a long concrete runway with exits only at the ends.

You are the commander of the aircraft and it is your responsibility to ensure the flight can safely be made. If you're not happy that it can then don't go. Simples!

The idea of time slots for different traffic speeds is plain daft and totally unworkable. Even if people stuck to it slavishly you'd need a sterile period after the closure of the slow slot to allow a gap to develop and after the fast slot closed you'd get an increasing gap between the tail end of the fast boys and the first of the slower squadron. Result a gap in landings and fewer movements per hour.

J.C. · Post by **J.C.** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:22 am

Bearing in mind that slots have been imposed, there are differences Mike.

Plus I'm getting mighty tired of being told ,if I don't like it don't go! Thats not very constructive, and if everyone took that view no-one would go!The onus is on the organisers to get it right in the first place!

Let me make this very clear.. I DO intend to go, BUT I have very real concerns about the way the approach has been planned.
The rules clearly state no overtaking, if you catch up with the aircraft in front, turn back and try again.

Now lets look at that practice in detail. I catch up with the guy in front so have to turn back(into the flow of traffic?..Seperate issue).

There is no way the guy behind me in a slower a/c can catch the guy in front,especially as he now has the gap that I have created, so he carries on.
However IF he is in a faster plane, he will catch up so he has to turn back.

Repeat the scenario and it becomes clear that the snake travels at the speed of the slowest plane!

In the old rallies, you had parallel grass / hard runways. Lets assume the grass is on the left due to circuit direction. SIMPLES..slow traffic takes the grass, faster traffic overtakes on the right and lands on the tarmac.

Now, lets look at place like Popham. One runway, fast/slow traffic on approach and lots of it! SIMPLES.. Keep a good lookout downwind, adjust length of downwind and slot in as required.

We now have slots , so,SIMPLES you have two options

a) allocate slots on the basis of aircraft types,so that they are speed orientated,I.E. 15 mins for slow stuff, then 15 mins for medium,then 15 mins for fast./ Repeat.

Maybe you are not comfortable with the ability of the person allocating the slots to arrange the above, so go to plan b)

b)Publicise the landing times in the info I.E. aircraft with an approach speed of 40 knots or less on the hour to quarter past the hour ,from 40 knots to 50 knots quarter past to half past,50 to 60 etc etc( you get the idea.)

But Sywell have screwed up on that by publicly saying that they are not adhering to the slots ( so you might ask why have them).

There is still time for Sywell to ammend the procedures and I for one hope they do.
I imagine that someone from Sywell is monitoring this thread and I would welcome a response.
This post is put on here to be constructive and I hope Sywell have a brilliant turnout and a really brilliant weekend. They desearve no less, having stepped into the breach and being treated terribly by the higher archy of the LAA.(in MY opinion)

If any one from Sywell would like to comment on my post I would like to hear how they think I should deal with the (perceived) problem that I envisage with the existing published landing procedures.
If they can prove me wrong I will be all ears and you have my support whatever the outcome.

JohnMead · Post by **JohnMead** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:59 am

J.C. wrote:In the old rallies, you had parallel grass / hard runways. Lets assume the grass is on the left due to circuit direction. SIMPLES..slow traffic takes the grass, faster traffic overtakes on the right and lands on the tarmac.

That's not how we operated at the old rallies, the grass and hard runways were fed from separate holding areas on opposite sides fof the airspace (with any go-arounds returning to their original holding area), changing from hard to grass (and vice versa) on final was only if we offered it to you.

Sywell cannot adopt this system as they have only one holding area due to noise problems, this means the inbound flow must split on final ( and as a FISO unit with no dispensations they cannot direct the split); and go-arounds from both runways must re-combine into a single flow back to the holding area. In my view , Sywell is not a suitable site at which to re-instate the rally as we have known it.

J.C. · Post by **J.C.** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:44 am

John ,thanks for putting me right, its scary how the memory goes!
Fair play I stand corrected, but in principal its very similar ( although vastly superior due to the TWO holding areas).

I am sure you can see what I was trying to suggest though and your comments lend weight to my concerns about the suitability of the published procedure.

Nigel Hitchman · Post by **Nigel Hitchman** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 9:55 pm

Ive had a look at Sywell's procedures and think they have done a very good job and done their best to accomadate the maximum amount of arrivals. I note they have got an exemption for allowing landing on an occupied runway, as we always had for the Rally and as is essential for lots of arrivals. They have also adopted minimal radio calls just as we had before.
I cant see a big problem of catching up slower aircraft, you can always extend downwind or turn downwind early to do a wider circuit, just as we do now at Popham or other places and if its that busy you can always go around and try again. I also think there if there happens to be one slow Piper Cub infront of you as you leave Pittsford, they wont mind if you overtake them on a wide circuit, yes if there are 10 Cubs all ahead then you might need to make another trip around Pittsford.

The only difficulty I can see is getting a backlog of aircraft who have landed on the hard waiting to cross the grass runway undershoot, but as long as there isnt too much pointless radio chatter, the Sywell FISOs should be able to manage this.

I think these procedures are a vast improvement on what we have seen at Booker or Kemble this year and should allow an excellent turnout in safe conditions.

iancallier · Post by **iancallier** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 8:21 am

Corrr- a voice of REASON-well said, especially the 'NO NATTER' comment

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:50 pm

Maybe I'm being thick here John but:-
The distance from Pitsford to Sywell is less than the distance from Malmesbury to Kemble. As far as I recall the procedure at Kemble was the same as Sywell. It worked at Kemble. You have less distance to travel in the stream at Sywell so why does it not work for you at Sywell?

You don't like slot times, neither do I, but your "solution" would lead to someone arriving two minutes late having to stooge around for half an hour until the start of the next slot for his aircraft type. I'm not sure at all that I see that as an improvement (nor can I see people being disciplined enought to do it). As far as I can see the intention of the slot times at Sywell is not to make people stick rigidly to them but to try and even out the flow a bit by avoiding everyone turning up at the same time.

I agree that you have problems with aircraft of differing speeds, but you get that in any circuit. You make up for it if you are faster than the a/c in front by flying a slightly wider circuit and extending the downwind leg a bit. If you are the slower aircraft you fly a slightly tighter circuit and turn earlier than the guy in front. It soon adds up. Being 200 metres wider than the guy in front by the end of downwind makes you travel 600 metres further than him to get to the runway.

You can even thow in some S turns if you are catching the guy in front up.

Your contention that the guy in the slower aircraft can't close the gap doesn't hold water. All he does is fly a tighter circuit. Positioning 200 metres inside the guy in front similarly knocks 600 metres off the distance he has to travel to get to the runway. (He can of course shovel some more coal on as well)

What gets you at the threshold with the correct spacing is not the bit of paper, it's the skill and airmanship of those involved. Watching the radar at TC as the controllers pull aircraft off two stacks and merge them into a precisely spaced stream on to the landing runway at Heathrow shows just what can be achieved by timing, speed, and the positioning of turns.

The problem I usually run up against is not catching the guy in front up, it's others jumping in front of me. I followed another a/c on to downwind at Branscombe and by the time I got to final there were 5 between me and him, the last one having inserted himself at about 1 mile final and doing desperate S turns to try and slow down

JohnMead · Post by **JohnMead** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:47 pm

Mike,
the comparison with forming an IFR approach stream off stacks is not really valid as it is being done by one man with a PPI view of the situation and aeroplanes of uniform performance ( for the most part) .
When you compare the Pitsford and Malmesbury situations, there is another factor to consider. At both Kemble and Cranfield, a significant proportion of the slower traffic used the grass runway which was fed from its own discrete stack and was not traffic to the stream for the hard. At Sywell everyone will be leaving one stack for the same final track before splitting for their chosen runway.

Mike Cross · Post by **Mike Cross** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 9:49 am

Fair do's, but then I suspect there will be less arrivals at Sywell. Given the geography of Sywell the twin stacks solution cannot in any case be used.

Anyway as various people have made clear this is Sywell's event, not the LAA's so debating it on here will not make a blind bit of diffference. If you want to make representations the place to do it is to to the Sywell management.

Brian Hope · Post by **Brian Hope** » Sun Aug 16, 2009 10:37 pm

This from Andre Faehndrich of Milton Keynes Aviation Society.

"I can confirm that we have decided that we are going to be allowing airside
access to those requiring it on the 5th & 6th September and that we will be
handing out a "Safety First" leaflet to anyone going airside, similar to the
Devon Strut system, for a contribution to the WNAA (Warwickshire &
Northamptonshire Air Ambulance).
There will be a single point of access airside and we will be having
additional yellow vest "people marshals" airside, and this will ensure that
all those wanting access can enjoy the full ambience of the event, but in a
safe and responsible way."

Good news.