lieberma
10-24-2004, 02:34 AM
FOF passengers may wonder, why airplanes don't go bumping into each other when we don't see each other over great distances.
There are many different components that prevent a mid air collision. When everything works right, planes won't bump into each other.
There are two basic types of airports. Controlled and uncontrolled. The majority of your commercial flights will fly in and out of controlled airports. The word controlled means that Air Traffic Control (ATC) will guide you in and out of the airport.
The really big airports, like Chicago Ohare, Baltimore Washington International require that all airplanes get permission from ATC to enter the airspace that surrounds the airport. We cannot enter the airspace unless we hear the magic words "cleared to enter Bravo" when we fly under visual flight rules. If we fly under instrument flight rules, we are cleared to enter the large airport airspace when we file our flight plan and received our take off instructions before departing the departure airport.
The middle size and smaller commercial size airports, such as Jackson Mississippi or Owensboro Kentucky, requires that all pilots make contact with the air traffic controller. Once the pilot makes contact, he / she can enter the airspace that surrounds the airport. This airspace is called either Charlie airspace or Delta airspace.
ATC will guide us to the runway.
Please note, I have generalized ATC above. There are many different components of ATC such as approach control, tower, ground control and others that provide guidance during various phases of flight such as taxiing, taking off, enroute and landing. I lumped all of these components together in the above description for simplicity sake.
Most commercial airplanes have an instrument in the airplane that will also give the pilot a visual picture of what airplanes are around them as well. I have heard commercial pilots affectionately call that instrument a "fish finder" over the radio. This "fish finder" is a supplement so that the pilot can visually see what ATC sees.
The small airports are generally uncontrolled. Most of your general aviation planes frequent this type of airports.
At an uncontrolled airport, this means a pilot can take off and land without talking to ATC. Now, you may ask, how do we not bump into each other if we don't have ATC telling us where and when to go. We talk to each other over the radio on a frequency unique to the uncontrolled airport. No, we don't chat on the frequency like one would think, but we do report our position in relationship to the airport and then in relationship to the runway.
You can see the various positions such as downwind, base and final that we say in relationshiop to the runway below
http://www.tradeip.com/sites/tradeip/info/images/pattern.gif
The above is a typical "pattern" you may hear us GA pilots talk about.
So, if I say on the radio, that I am on base, this means, I am one turn away from my final approach to the runway.
Without going into the gory details of talking on the radio, if I was to make a call to line up with the runway 17 at Madison airport (my airport), I would say the following:
Madison, four three lima (pronounced leema), turning final, Madison. :airplane
All planes in the vicinity of the airport will know based on this radio call that I am about to line up with runway 17 at Madison airport. This is called final approach.
You may ask who has "right of way" at an uncontrolled airport. The person that is on final approach, has the right of way over all airplanes.
So, the next time you sit in seat 5A, you can take comfort, kick back your feet and realize that we really do talk to each other in the air, whether it be from airplane to ATC, ATC to airplane or airplane to airplane.
Also take comfort, for as many airplanes that are flying in and out of airports, you have more of a chance bumping into anothe car on your way to the airport, then bumping into another airplane at the airport. We have a traffic director in most cases :wired
Hope you find this informative.
Allen "Madison, four three lima cleared the active Madison" :tiphat
There are many different components that prevent a mid air collision. When everything works right, planes won't bump into each other.
There are two basic types of airports. Controlled and uncontrolled. The majority of your commercial flights will fly in and out of controlled airports. The word controlled means that Air Traffic Control (ATC) will guide you in and out of the airport.
The really big airports, like Chicago Ohare, Baltimore Washington International require that all airplanes get permission from ATC to enter the airspace that surrounds the airport. We cannot enter the airspace unless we hear the magic words "cleared to enter Bravo" when we fly under visual flight rules. If we fly under instrument flight rules, we are cleared to enter the large airport airspace when we file our flight plan and received our take off instructions before departing the departure airport.
The middle size and smaller commercial size airports, such as Jackson Mississippi or Owensboro Kentucky, requires that all pilots make contact with the air traffic controller. Once the pilot makes contact, he / she can enter the airspace that surrounds the airport. This airspace is called either Charlie airspace or Delta airspace.
ATC will guide us to the runway.
Please note, I have generalized ATC above. There are many different components of ATC such as approach control, tower, ground control and others that provide guidance during various phases of flight such as taxiing, taking off, enroute and landing. I lumped all of these components together in the above description for simplicity sake.
Most commercial airplanes have an instrument in the airplane that will also give the pilot a visual picture of what airplanes are around them as well. I have heard commercial pilots affectionately call that instrument a "fish finder" over the radio. This "fish finder" is a supplement so that the pilot can visually see what ATC sees.
The small airports are generally uncontrolled. Most of your general aviation planes frequent this type of airports.
At an uncontrolled airport, this means a pilot can take off and land without talking to ATC. Now, you may ask, how do we not bump into each other if we don't have ATC telling us where and when to go. We talk to each other over the radio on a frequency unique to the uncontrolled airport. No, we don't chat on the frequency like one would think, but we do report our position in relationship to the airport and then in relationship to the runway.
You can see the various positions such as downwind, base and final that we say in relationshiop to the runway below
http://www.tradeip.com/sites/tradeip/info/images/pattern.gif
The above is a typical "pattern" you may hear us GA pilots talk about.
So, if I say on the radio, that I am on base, this means, I am one turn away from my final approach to the runway.
Without going into the gory details of talking on the radio, if I was to make a call to line up with the runway 17 at Madison airport (my airport), I would say the following:
Madison, four three lima (pronounced leema), turning final, Madison. :airplane
All planes in the vicinity of the airport will know based on this radio call that I am about to line up with runway 17 at Madison airport. This is called final approach.
You may ask who has "right of way" at an uncontrolled airport. The person that is on final approach, has the right of way over all airplanes.
So, the next time you sit in seat 5A, you can take comfort, kick back your feet and realize that we really do talk to each other in the air, whether it be from airplane to ATC, ATC to airplane or airplane to airplane.
Also take comfort, for as many airplanes that are flying in and out of airports, you have more of a chance bumping into anothe car on your way to the airport, then bumping into another airplane at the airport. We have a traffic director in most cases :wired
Hope you find this informative.
Allen "Madison, four three lima cleared the active Madison" :tiphat