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South Atlantic tracks?


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Oddly, Googling has not provided me with an answer (though I am probably the world's worst 'Googler' - I never seem to enter the right keywords!).

 

I am reasonably familiar with North Atlantic tracks, NAT A to NAT F, and when I fly from, say, London to Boston, via Gander or whatever, my ATC programme (OnCourse PF3) sets up Atlantic crossing and SELCAL automatically (pretty neat in practice!). But I have never been sure how things work if I am flying (as I intend to tomorrow) from (in this example) Lisbon to Recife. What real-world tracks (if any) and oceanic procedures are used when crossing the Atlantic, Europe to South America? (Is SELCAL applicable to such routes?).

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

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Hi Martin,

 

Can't answer your main Q but WRT SELCAL......

 

Selective Calling (SELCAL) is actually not required for a flight. In fact the main reason of SELCAL is to allow ATC and/or other organisations to inform an aircraft crew that they need to contact a ground station. Who or what ground station and the frequency used by the aircraft to call back on will depend on the aircrafts' current location and/or company policy.

 

In fact, by the nature of how the actual codes are configured, there is actually only about 10,000 or so combinations and thus there are often duplicates assignments made. The actual assignments are made by the controlling authority to an aircraft owner (i.e. the airline) and not permanently/directly to an individual aircraft. The only time it is assigned directly to an individual aircraft is if the owning company has a small fleet and decides to do so. They are also usually only assigned to Passenger/Cargo aircraft.

 

I learnt that little nugget during my time in the RAF as a Communications Specialist. My first posting out of training in Aug 79 was to 81 Signals Unit RAF Bampton Castle which was a military Flight Watch centre. We sometimes SELCALLED RAF transports and got responses from civil flights that happen to be on the same HF frequency........

Regards

 

Brian

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Thanks for the reply Brian.

 

I had thought that SELCAL was needed as aircraft crossing the Atlantic, and so out of radar range, needed to 'check in' at intervals.. and I think that that still happens, depending on the aircraft. But looking a bit further into this today, I see that this is not a requirement if the a/c has an ADS system (automatic dependent surveillance), which sends automatic reports to the Oceanic Control Centre.

 

As for 'South Atlantic Oceanic Control procedures', further info would be very welcome :-)

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Hi Martin,

 

During my time in the RAF, I worked at several locations (both fixed and 'tactical') that had an 'flight watch' function using HF, VHF and UHF frequencies. Not all aircraft that we 'talked' to had SELCAL, fast jets for example, and they had a strict calling policy in place. Aircraft were required to make an 'ops normal' call every 20 mins or so. It was the responsibility of the radio operator to keep track of such calls and, if no call had been received by 10 mins after the 20 min period to initial a call to the aircraft. If no response was received after 5 mins of calling the aircraft we had to initiate a specific procedure that would start a process to locate/contact the aircraft by other means whilst we continued attempts to contact it. In many cases, it was down to the crew being in contact with a ATC controller, range controller or that the crew had 'muted' a freq whilst talking on another freq and forgetting to unmute.

 

WRT 'South Atlantic Oceanic Control procedures' - wish I could help more but it is not something I know about. However, a quick google search threw up this document - it may be of use - https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2016/Lisbon-2016/Sat-21/SAT21%20WP%2010%20APP-A%20ATM%20Contingency%20Plan.pdf

Regards

 

Brian

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  • 6 months later...

Up to the time I retired, at least, the NAT tracks were unique in that they did not occupy the same airspace every day - they shifted location daily as the wind patterns changed. As far as I know they still do.

 

All of the other oceanic routes in the world are either random routes (you file whatever route you want) or airways that remain fixed in space and do not shift literally with the winds!

 

So if you are going to Recife, look for an airway on the applicable Atlantic charts, or file the coordinates of whatever route you want. Other than the routes, procedures are pretty much the same both for communications (mostly HF or satellite) and Selcal if you are using HF. There are Oceanic control areas in the South Atlantic as there are in the NAT areas.

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  • 1 month later...

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