Classic British Flight Sim

Hi folks,

Another unusual visitor at Manchester this week.

A brand spanking new CL415 stopped for a few days en route to its new owners in Morocco.

It ended up staying for longer than planned due to an issue with paperwork and permits.

Watched it depart and seemed to use very little runway. Next planned refuel stop was Malaga.

Does anyone know the route these things take coming across the water from Canada? Be interested to know.

Nice one Eddie

Not every day you see one of those...in fact I've never seen one in my life

VEGAS wrote:
Does anyone know the route these things take coming across the water from Canada? Be interested to know.

On one of the Ice Pilot episodes, two water bombers were sold to Turkey and they flew the "Northern Route" to Europe via Greenland and Iceland landing at Prestwick before heading down to France and along the northern Mediterranean.

They can vary a lot

Sometimes, smaller aircraft route South then across from the Caribbean, depending on the weather and destination.

Even larger aircraft...A.320 for example being delivered to South America usually go from Germany, down over Spain and across the South Atlantic from Africa via the Azores

Recently, some went up over Scotland and over Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland.

So unless something has a particular reason to stop at a particular place, like maintenance or paperwork, there is no certainly that they will go where the others went.

Quite a few of these Canadairs have gone transatlantic to Europe, but how many have called in at Manchester?...Shannon or Prestwick would seem more obvious if on that sort of route if Northern, but I'd not have been surprised if it had gone via the Azores, so there might have been a special reason in this case .

Even the scheduled Transatlantic airlines vary routes from day to day and what goes out over Dinard and Ushant today, might be up over York and Northern Ireland tomorrow.

***EDIT**

Reason

Manchester has a Bombardier Service facility

Routing given too.

http://en.lemag.ma/Morocco-s-third-CL-4 ... a3422.html

Even the scheduled Transatlantic airlines vary routes from day to day and what goes out over Dinard and Ushant today, might be up over York and Northern Ireland tomorrow.


North Atlantic Tracks.......the short( ) version

Not so important now as they used to be with the improvement in navigation systems. If we go back to when I was an Air Traffic Control Assistant at Scottish and Oceanic ATCC (1979-1982, long time ago, but the principals remain the same), it all started with a blank 250mb (approx FL350) wind chart for the North Atlantic. Calculated and drawn on to this, was the minimum time track from London to New York, this would vary from day to day dependent on the upper winds. Once this was set, the major operators (BA, LH, AF, PA, TW etc) would be overlayed and the whole thing would the be "straightened out" to cross each 10' of longitude at nearest 1' of latitude giving for example, 55N010W 56N020W 57N030W 55N040W 54N050W. This would become the middle track, say Track C, and 2 tracks at 1' of latitude seperation (60nm) to the north and 2 to the south.

In the example above, the entry point for Track C is at 55N010W so it would be...


Entry Points
Track A,,,,,57N010W etc
Track B.....56N010W etc
Track C.....55N010W etc
Track D.....54N015W etc Shanwick FIR began at 015W to the west of Ireland as opposed to 010W to the west of Scotland.
Track E.....53N015W etc

At this time, the primary navigation system for these routes was INS. The average crossing error was 3nm. I did once see a SAS 747 exit the Atlantic 30nm off track, supposed to be at 58N010W and was at 5830N010W. These days, there is a lot more random tracking because of the increased accuracy of navigation systems which allow routes more to the operators requirements

Tracks were drawn up twice a day, from a UK point of view, the day tracks which was a westbound flow and the night tracks which was predominately eastbound.

N

NigelC wrote: If we go back to when I was an Air Traffic Control Assistant at Scottish and Oceanic ATCC

Ah, ScOATCC - that takes me back, Nigel. I was there in December 1970 and January 1971 for my ATCA Familiarisation at the beginning of my Cadetship which was squeezed in between the flying training at White Waltham and the Aerodrome Control course at Hurn. I'd spent the previous two years as an assistant at Heathrow so I had to go to a Centre and I got Scottish which, in those days, was at Redbrae House on the airport.

I spent most of my time in Airways but I did spend time at Gailes Radar (World War 2 vintage radar with blips wider than the airway at Dean Cross iirc) and a week in "The Ocean". My abiding memories of Oceanic were that it was in a sort of conservatory extension to the main house where the roof leaked when it rained and we had to put buckets out (very appropriate for Oceanic Control), the huge length of the flight progress strips (to take all the waypoints) and the CDOs (professional radio operators) who read the clearances to the aircraft on VHF before they went to HF (I'd never com across controllers who never spoke to the aircraft they were controlling before).

Unlike today when new recruits specialise straight away, we had no idea what we'd be doing or where we'd be going until we completed the 3 year training course but I often offered up a silent prayer that it wouldn't be Oceanic. Not that I didn't like the place or the people but, in the week I spent there, I don't think I understood a single thing that was going on! Give me a tower window to look out of or a radar screen to look at and I was fine but the thought of working procedurally with those vast time and distance separations was mind boggling.

Pete

Garry Russell wrote:
Reason

Manchester has a Bombardier Service facility

Indeed, my ex-employer

ttfn

Pete

Garry Russell wrote:
Manchester has a Bombardier Service facility

Routing given too.

http://en.lemag.ma/Morocco-s-third-CL-4 ... a3422.html

Theres been a few stop over at Manchester over over the years.

First one I've personally seen though.

Cheers for the info Garry.

I guess the service centre has always been the reason

PeteP wrote:.... I got Scottish which, in those days, was at Redbrae House on the airport.



Pete....

It had moved to Atlantic House when I was there, just off airport. I was in Domestic, we always thought of the guys in the Ocean as a bit of a funny lot. They had this rudimentary computer system called Apollo, which when it used to go down would cause much sucking on pipes and frantic calls to Tels and to us in Domestic to start holding stuff up. I was on B Watch, and then E Watch.

At the time BA had a VC-10 service to New York out of Prestwick. Oceanic traffic out ogf Prestwick, being relatively close th 10W had to call for Oceanic clearance on the ground, and they would invariably request FL350, and invariably they then wouldn't make 350 by the boundary necessitating an orbit at 9W to make their cleared entry level of 350. Happy days