YSSY Atis
 

Current Sydney ATIS:
Aww cool!! :eek:

That IS cool! Seen a few during my time at the airport, mostly to the south near Kurnell.:cool:

Did you say "far-Kurnell" when you saw them?





Oh come on, you were all thinking it too!

I'll show you a water spout......

Better find the tweesers first.

More pics

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/glance/10...show-off-bondi

For clearance contact delivery on 133.8
 

Can't say I've noticed "DELIVERY" giving out clearances before - who is doing that?

Used to be called "Clearance Delivery". Now just shortened to "delivery" to fall in with ICAO procedures.

Still done from the tower on 133.8. This phrase is put on the ATIS at the moment due to an error in the latest ERSA and various charts that shows 126.5 as the delivery frequency. 126.5 is the Ground West frequency. Notams have been issued and will be corrected in the next issue of ERSA and charts.

Regards.

So you're hoping the pilots actually read the Notams correctly for the next 3 months?;)


Now before any of you pilots get all defensive about the above tongue in cheek statement, we've had numerous occasions where the pilots ask if the full length of 16R is avbl with reference to Notams that start at 2300 at night...it seems they can't be bothered working out when the Notam is actually valid and instead assume (incorrectly) that it's started in the middle of the day

Yeah, good luck with that Nigel.....

Which is why it will probably appear on the ATIS for the next while.:)

Regards.

For the full 3 months perhaps?;)

Unfortunately I think there is a bit of "notam fatigue" coming into play. There are so many notams for Sydney it takes an eternity to go through them, and most of them do not affect you. It is no surprise really when the odd error is made. If its critical, it should be on the ATIS anyway.

The number if times I've seen a notam declaring 25/07 closed and the ILS off the air only to find out it is in use during the works was silly.

Boy who cried wolf syndrome coming in I think!

Maybe if you safety officers didn't put "local" times on the NOTAM's, then you wouldn't have that problem Nigel, ;).

Mick

I agree there is a glut of Notams (25 at the moment), although the numbers these days are a lot less than when the A380 upgrade works were in full swing!;)

The problem lies in that there is a responsibility to notify the industry of changes that may or will affect 'normal' operations, but the day an 'important' bit of info is left out and it's found to directly affect the safe operation of an aircraft, then we'll end up in court having to explain why it was omitted.

Looking at the current breakdown of the Notams published, a good number of the Notams are for night curfew works only (8 of the 25), so they don't affect RPT. Another 8 Notams have been raised by Airservices Australia. That leaves 9 that concern obstacles (and Sydney is very close to the city compared to most ports, so cranes will feature here more than most or all of the other cities), spotlights, bats, and lighting issues.

We don't. All Notam times are in UTC.:p

Lady pilots?
 

Do they get NOTAWs? :D

This country is a democratic society. There are more male than female pilots, so the majority rules.:p

Gentle reminder now - it's in your NOTAM stupid!
 

ATIS now reads:

:)

I noticed this morning that the ATIS said "wind 240/12 knots......wind at 500ft, 230/18 knots".

Why is it required to put this in when the wind is only changing 5 or so knots?

Only speculating, but perhaps if winds higher up were much stronger or from a different direction, then aircraft on approach would want to know that from 500' down the winds didn't vary much as that's when they'd most likely want the aircraft to be at its most stable in the approach?

Perhaps the forecast said something different?

Happy to be corrected by those in the know.

Higher XW component
 

Assuming a runway 25 landing, 230/18 has a higher cross wind component than 240/12 and the difference is probably material, but I'll defer to the drivers to tell us if there's more to it than that.

I flew in this morning and they were using the 16's.

It also was stronger than that previously, at about 20kts, so there may have been earlier reports and they were continuing the trend.

Perhaps more importantly, the change involves tailwind components. It is quite a surprise to be making an approach and discover a tailwind at 500ft if you're not expecting it, particularly if reasonably strong. If they were using runway 25 the information would likely not have been present.

It was for runway 16R/L ops.
It still seems as though that wind is normal though, I mean, wind increases in strength with altitude anyway, is that wind on the ATIS really THAT different from the norm that it required a mention?

What did the ATIS before that say?

When I was there from memory it was in the vicinity of 22kts.

It is quite possible it was there for trend, allowing pilots in the vicinity to know what the wind was doing at the time.

Being told the 500ft wind is a great idea if there is tailwind around. With the winds I heard, the 500ft tailwind was calculated to be about 7kts, which is not inconsiderable. If on approach there was a 7kt tail at 500ft most crew would report it to ATC... and hence it appears on the ATIS. Although at most airports that would have been enough for the duty runway to be changed... but alas not Sydney.

I think this is a great demonstration of operationally relevant information being provided, particularly at an aerodrome that doesn't conform to the regular standards for runway selection.

Not sure what the ATIS was before that, but thanks for the clarification

Ah yes, but it does conform "to the regular standards for noise sharing"...:rolleyes:

Well, to Sydney's definition of them anyway ;).

Nowhere else accepts the downwinds and crosswinds that Sydney does for noise as they're outside the ICAO limits ;).

Web-based ATIS at YSSY down?
 

http://www.airservices.gov.au/brief/...avreq?met=YSSY is generating this error at present:

Anyone know why?

yeah NAIPS is down at the moment too.....I need it too! :mad:

NAIPS and the Online Briefing service were down from about 1320 until 1830, reason unknown. The poor guys at the Brisbane Briefing office would have earnt their wage and then some this afternoon.

How much cross wind is tolerable
 

Surprised to see 34 still in use with Xwinds gusting to 26 knots (and I'd estimate higher than that myself) - what's the usual limit?

The X wind limits vary from aircraft to aircraft and also depends on other factors as runway surface conditions . I read that the 787 will have a typical X wind limit of around 25Kts , a little on the low side I would have thought .

Dave C

Philip, with the wind at a steady 300 degrees the crosswind on the 34 runways is still less than runway 25, so if a type of aircraft is not able to land in that crosswind, due to exceeding limits, would need to go around and try again, or as a last resort divert. Will make for some great photos though today with all the fathers trying out their new cameras and/or lenses.

They usually start looking at the option of 25/07 only with a crosswind between 20-25 knots. Of course it depends on the time of day and the traffic loads though.

34R GP and DME problems
 

ATIS right now has this:

The unavailability of GP and DME for 34R has been notified for weeks, but this is the first time I've seen the "DO NOT USE" advisory with the "FALSE INDICATIONS" warning. What exactly is the problem with 34R GP and DME and why is it taking so long to fix??

Hi Phillip,

AsA are currently replacing the whole ILS system for 16L/34R and 34R has been chosen to be the one which is replaced first. Here is the AIP AIC of the replacement: http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/...up/a10-h19.pdf. It says the new ILS should be commisioned around the 17DEC10. You may of also heard ADA01('Auscar 1') flying around Sydney, and this is the navaid testing aircraft, and also helps with the alignment of the System. The 16L ILS system will be next, and therefore you will see that in the ATIS when the 16's are active. Also the use of LOC Y is due to the approach using DME referencing to the SY DME and not the LOC DME. Hope this answers your questions :)

Philip,

The difference yesterday morning is that the ILS was actually turned on to allow Auscal to do the commissioning flights. Once the ILS was on, but NAVBL to be used, the "do not use, false indications possible" phrase needs to be added to the CATIS.

James, the callsign is "Auscal 1", not "Auscar 1".

Cheers

Mick