Just saying.
Couple of points on the TW runway lights incident which ATSB could/should have considered before parlaying this into the Canadian ‘exemplar’ points scoring. First off, and its purely personal – I hate those apron lights; water/ condensation on the windscreen, dark night landing; or, early AM start up the shadows created in the cockpit require full internal lighting and the bight areas, particularly in rain or fog are like having the opposite direction cars using high beam – makes it really hard to see clearly – and anyway they completely bugger up your night vision. Late night/early AM turnarounds, these lights are a particular problem, fatigue is creeping in and having spent some hours in a dark environment the ramp lights are an assault on the senses. Quick turn round and off into the darkness again; night vision severely reduced. As said – a personal gripe; nothing to be done about it – just saying. I should also mention that PAL does not reset during its active period; one must wait until the end of the period to gain additional lights on time; bright ramp lights, fast turn around, short taxi, high workload, NV shot, fatigued, bright taxi and landing lights, centre line nailed down – hell, could have happened to anybody. But no matter, the company have ‘corrected’ the oversight, but it has me puzzled – must the crew now wait for the light array to flash before keying them back on, to ensure another 30 minutes? Problem solved – I wonder.
Cairns is a whole different ball of wax. ATC need a thank you for spotting the error, a big one. Intersection departures need written ‘approval’ and dedicated RTOW data. There’s lots of vertical dirt, rocks and trees and stuff at Cairns, even with all the donkeys working hard, with the wrong data, all the OCH clearances are compromised , going OEI off compromised take off data is potentially lethal and there is not too much margin for error when high ambient temperatures are associated with 'heavy' aircraft. It is possible to lob onto the wrong intersection; rare, but doable. Interesting to see what ATSB will come up with as ‘causal’, whatever it is someone was very lucky ATC spotted it before the aircraft rolled, very lucky indeed (legally and operationally). Bravo ATCO.
Couple of points on the TW runway lights incident which ATSB could/should have considered before parlaying this into the Canadian ‘exemplar’ points scoring. First off, and its purely personal – I hate those apron lights; water/ condensation on the windscreen, dark night landing; or, early AM start up the shadows created in the cockpit require full internal lighting and the bight areas, particularly in rain or fog are like having the opposite direction cars using high beam – makes it really hard to see clearly – and anyway they completely bugger up your night vision. Late night/early AM turnarounds, these lights are a particular problem, fatigue is creeping in and having spent some hours in a dark environment the ramp lights are an assault on the senses. Quick turn round and off into the darkness again; night vision severely reduced. As said – a personal gripe; nothing to be done about it – just saying. I should also mention that PAL does not reset during its active period; one must wait until the end of the period to gain additional lights on time; bright ramp lights, fast turn around, short taxi, high workload, NV shot, fatigued, bright taxi and landing lights, centre line nailed down – hell, could have happened to anybody. But no matter, the company have ‘corrected’ the oversight, but it has me puzzled – must the crew now wait for the light array to flash before keying them back on, to ensure another 30 minutes? Problem solved – I wonder.
Cairns is a whole different ball of wax. ATC need a thank you for spotting the error, a big one. Intersection departures need written ‘approval’ and dedicated RTOW data. There’s lots of vertical dirt, rocks and trees and stuff at Cairns, even with all the donkeys working hard, with the wrong data, all the OCH clearances are compromised , going OEI off compromised take off data is potentially lethal and there is not too much margin for error when high ambient temperatures are associated with 'heavy' aircraft. It is possible to lob onto the wrong intersection; rare, but doable. Interesting to see what ATSB will come up with as ‘causal’, whatever it is someone was very lucky ATC spotted it before the aircraft rolled, very lucky indeed (legally and operationally). Bravo ATCO.