OB374: Frogger Finals and Opposing Bases

You didn't increase the amount of planes, but you increased the amount of workload, which is counterintuitive, I think, for a lot of people to think, well, it's just the same four planes. Right, but for you to make it efficient... It's a lot of talking that consumes up time and it has to be done in a certain order or you're going to screw it up. Ready.

This is Opposing Bases Air Traffic Talk. Your hosts, Alpha Golf and Romeo Hotel, have a half century of aviation experience in combat helicopters, airliners, and air traffic control. They answer your questions about flying, aviation, and ATC. This weekly podcast is for entertainment and education and does not serve as a replacement for a qualified flight instructor, an examiner,

The FARs, the 7110, your best friend, your next pilot, or your cat. November 628, Charlie Delta, the Squawk 1200, frequency change approved. The audio will be available on live ATC. Good day. November 628. 3047 Charlie, try a departure November 747 Sierra Lima. Reduce speed to 180. You're overtaking traffic ahead on final.

Skyhawk 7-7 Tango, IFR can't place and receive. Squawk VFR, frequency change approved. Sierra 720 Fox, Tron Alpha, flatting 190 vectors for the visual approach. Skyhawk 9, Sierra Papa, cleared to enter Triad Class Charlie surface area from the east. Maintain special VFR conditions. Please welcome retired Army pilot, Alpha Golf, and the rookie first officer at Penguin Airlines, Romeo Hotel.

It's Tuesday of 2025, episode 374. On today's show, we'll discuss a tricky parallel runway situation, secret tracrons, and more of your awesome feedback. What's up, Bay-G? Hello. Hello, everyone. Secret Treycons. I said secret Treycons like Treyons. Treyons. Which tastes great. How are you? Fine. Happy Tuesday. Tuesday, yes. I just realized that the show topic is in a different font.

There's something in a different font. I just, I can't. We got to start over. We already did once. I'm not doing it again. If we do it again, you got to do it. I'm not doing it. There's no way. How was work after we recorded last week up until the Obies? Man, we had some pretty busy days. Weather's improving? Weather, the military. I think as I was driving in one of the days, I don't remember which one, there were two.

P8s. And a presidential 7-3 in the pattern. All right. That is enough right there. Yes, it is. That's enough. Because you add that complexity in with all the other just normal traffic, and it's a bear. But it seems like if the military is there training, That everyone is out training. I don't know why it happens that way, but it just gets busy. Were they staying with Tower or going back to radar? Both.

Mm-hmm. Where are you guys in reference to runways being open that haven't been open in a while? I feel like they're all open again. We were all open, but now they've closed 1432 again. Make it a parking lot. Delta. Gosh, this is the most annoying one. Taxiway Delta, not the airline. Right. Taxiway Delta between Delta 2, which is now the only entrance to the MRO.

All right. Delta one has been erased. Gone. That's part of the new rules. You can't have a ramp that empties into a runway. Straight to a runway. The pilots would have to turn. Or pay attention. Where they are. Anyway, it is a huge pain. It's a huge pain. The configuration that we're in now. Because that's blocked there on Delta? Yeah. Oh, so you can only go one way. Oh, I have to go two ways on Echo. Yeah, to get over there. And the same with going in and out of the MRO.

Yeah, it's a huge pain. I don't remember what I did last week. I think I did a trip. I came home from a three-day trip. I started late one night, did one leg. A short leg. My shortest leg in this fleet. Oh, let me get... No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay. Well, I know that you went... You were in the Mile High. You were at the Mile High Airport. Yes. Not on the first day, though. But is that part of this route? Yes. It's got to be a windy city, too.

Nope. Close. Well, not really that close. It was the first leg. It was the only leg the first day to Washington, D.C. Airtime was like... 41 minutes, 42 minutes. Wait, what? Yeah. Base to DC. Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, less than an hour. Yeah, it must have felt like a... a round robin training flight it did you have to get everything done so captain like most captains offer hey what do you want to do first i said i'll take non-flying leg first i always pick that

Unless I'm in a currency jam and I feel like we're not going to do another leg, I want to get the first one. Yeah, right. I felt confident I was going to get the flying I needed. I got two landings this week. But anyway, non-flying pilot is a little bit busy on that. Short leg. But that's what a lot of pilots do every day. I'm not complaining about it. It's just different. You have to get a lot of things done very quickly. You can't lollygag. There's no meal. There's no break. Whoops.

It's just flying. That's it. It was fun, though. Got a couple landings in, one back at base, one in Denver on day two. Okay.

visuals. It's so interesting to me, and I think I've said this before, but it's happening to me on every flight domestically. It is amazing the difference in the way different TRACONs handle very similar situations, parallel runways, multiple choices on where you're going to go. They reached out to us coming through like, I don't know, 15,000. Hey, what runway do you want? And we had already briefed one. So that was the answer. This is the one we want. Yeah.

I like it. Give me a choice. Now, you can't do that everywhere. But I like that they gave us the choice. Most of the time, they're just telling you based on what post you're coming in on. They're just going to tell you this is where you're going. Right. For whatever reason, maybe it was dead. I don't know. They just said, what do you want to do? And we already briefed it. It was the quickest way to the ramp. It worked. I think I do. I mean, obviously, most of the time it's not.

Super busy. For the onesie twosies that come in, I'll tell them two, three left or right. Whichever you like. Yeah. I don't care. Oh, we're set up for two, three left. Now, I have said to pilots, two, three left. And they're like, hey, we set up for two, three right. Is there any chance we could just get that? Fine. Two, three right. I don't care. You want to taxi two miles back to the...

It doesn't matter to me. Totally fine. It's up to you. Yeah. If you had a stream of arrivals over block and tracks, like a sim, just constant, would you make that offer? No. Correct. No.

Well, no, not on visuals. Sorry. Right, because it's going to be harder. Now, in fairness, I think I was picking essentially between two sets of parallels. There were... one of them was only one departure runway so it's maybe three runways we were picking from so that the center one makes a difference because either side could go to that we don't have a center at triad so yeah anyway

I am back from that. I'm supposed to go somewhere tomorrow I messed up my bid and I don't have a trip yet. I will work on that and i might have to do that while we're while you're reading something i may have to be this is this is like crunch time right now crisis mode yes shall we begin let us begin all right

Since OB 373, we have another group of patrons in the Patreon group in the show. Listeners here, Julia Delta, Hotel Romeo Delta, and Julia Bravo. In the show supporter tier, Charlie Hotel, Charlie Romeo, and Charlie Charlie. If your name starts with Charlie.

You're in the show supporter tier this week. Showmaker tier, a new one, Sierra Echo, up from the show supporter tier, and two PayPal drops from Golf Mike Squared, and another one from Juliet Bravo, if you'd like to learn more about supporting the show and seeing our amazingly...

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Review and announcements. Review and announcements. Oh, this is a good one. I'm going to look at my bed and you're going to read the review. The review cleared for laugh off departure. Listening to opposing bases is like being on the perfect flight. Smooth cruising and just enough turbulence, a.k.a. hilarious banter to keep things interesting. AG and RH are the flight deck dream team, delivering aviation wisdom and comedy gold.

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Kiloju at Alpha 62. Thank you. That was very nice. I would like to nominate that for an OB award. That was a great segue for an announcement. We did the OB awards for 2024. We just did them this week. We are going to accept nominations throughout the entire year. If something comes up that you think is worthy of a consideration for an OB. please send it to us with that in the subject line to feedback at opposingbasis.com and we'll put it into a folder because it is very difficult to go back.

For anybody, including the host of the show with all of the data, they actually remember what we talked about more than five minutes ago. So. Right. There's just a lot. Right. And. And lacking the time, the hosts lack the time to comb through set data at the end of the year. Right. Which means this year, I'm sure we skipped over some stuff that was worthy of being in there. It just.

It has to. So we have to start doing it now. I agree. 2025 awards. We need not start sending the nominations. Something. They're already in there. We got one today. We did. Perfect. Something in a show.

It's like, hey, that was good. I really liked that. Send it in. And then we'll go through them at the end of the year. All right. Announcements. Patron Julia Bravo passed their instrument ride after three and a half months. Congrats. and 11 reschedules and left an altimeter or paypal drop thank you look i've said this and i apologize for keep saying this if you find yourself in that boat you have

Be creative in the way you interact with these DPs and their schedules and your instructor kind of forecasting out Some of them won't let you schedule until you've been recommended. I get that But you gotta figure out a way around some of these scheduling issues be creative yeah uh number two patron papa lima sent a note dear rh and ag i passed my cfi today and commercial single

A bit over a month ago. Congrats. Nice. With my penguins being so scattered over this last month, I have neglected to send in timely announcement. Funny story from my commercial ride that made me know the OB gods were on my side.

I was holding short of the departure at the Jersey Tony Soprano Delta under the Big Apple Bravo when I heard the Tower call previous landing traffic. November 123, Big Apple Approach has a message for you. Uh-oh. They answered, Roger, go ahead. And Tower comes back on to tell them that Big Apple said they were...

The area they picked to do maneuvers was the worst possible spot. I just wanted to share in case we're looking for more evidence to prove that airplanes don't magically teleport from en route to the terminal environment. Thanks for all you're doing. I'll definitely be referencing old episodes as I begin my double I patron popling. But congratulations. Thank you for sharing that. Find a non-towered airport. Get the number to call approach to get a clearance on the ground as a phone number.

Call them. You're likely talking to the Tracon. Hey, I need to talk to somebody that has a minute to go over something. They get them on the phone. It's probably a soup because all they're doing is holding that chair down. Ask them, hey, I want to go do air work. Where can I do that? And stay out of everybody's way. Right. It's that simple. This technique you're talking about, I just did that yesterday about a feedback in this show. So I will explain that.

My notes have three and four are blank. Did you mean to do that? Intentionally left blank. I forgot to put that in there. But yes. So there's not an announcement for those. No, there's not. Okay. I even highlighted it to see if it showed up in white font. Secret. Secret announcement. The Russian spies. Invisible ink. Black light ink or something to that effect. Yeah. All right. Moving on. We're not going to make it through this. Yes, we are.

timely feedback all right you get number one number one from patreon julie share ag and rh i love the segment you did on the archie league awards very informative and gives a ga pilot new insights on how they can handle emergencies and what the great people inside the 80s uh

inside ATC are capable of doing. A suggestion, dedicate a show each year highlighting several of these award recipients and their event. This is the first I had ever heard of these awards and the aviation community should hear more about them. Thanks for all that you do, Julie's here. I agree. We should. We should do that. We should highlight those more often. Maybe just sprinkle them in, you know, to shows here and there or have it be a show topic. I like that idea.

A lot of the times we look at these as controllers as how, what can we do as controllers? You know, how could we do this same level of service? But you can look at it as a pilot too. what did the pilots do to help, to help themselves? So good point. Thank you. Or what they did not do. Or what they did not do. Yes. How did we get into this situation? Yes.

Number two from patron Bravo Kilo. After hearing my twin brother call me out for being an AG fanboy a few episodes back, I had to replay and set the record straight that I have just as much adoration for our age. Shh, don't tell AG. I recently passed my private. it congrats this after lots of examiner and weather woes i owe a part of this accomplishment to you guys thank you guys for all you do this podcast has been motivational and kept my head in the game through these trials

Your contribution to the aviation community is immeasurable. Altimeter drop, check. On to Instruments Bravo Kilo. Thank you. Congrats. Very good. Reminded me of something in there. The trials with DPs are not unlike trials with AMEs right now. They're very difficult to schedule and find. From day one, start trying to find those two people. They're very important in your life. Right. Right. Yes. You may have to drive or fly far to get to one of them. Yes. It was the same in the Army.

A flight surgeon. Even after I moved, I still went up. I still drove up to Virginia five hours to go to my flight dock up there. Can I do this as a call to action then? If you're wondering and you're a physician, how can I contribute to aviation? Find out what hoops you have to jump through to become an AME. And please do it. Yeah. Controller with atrocious settings, Metapilot, who's an AME now, trying to get to where they can do our medicals at Triad for controllers, right? It's happening.

Oh, very good. I did not. Spoke to him on the radio yesterday. That's happening. Yes. Fantastic. He says hi every time he's in the plane. Okay. The difference between what he appears to be much younger than the average AME. Which is good. Yes, we have him for a long time. The ones that we used to have to use have retired. Yes. They're too old to do this anymore. Right.

They want to spend their last few days on Earth not being an AME. They usually do it pretty long. So anyway, you get number three. Number three from ESCAC patrons here. Echo, hello there. In response to the question about edicts. which I think was last week. I wanted to mention a remarkably useful resource maintained in real time by the FAA. There is a NAS. Let's just dwell on that sentence for a second.

a remarkably useful resource maintained in real time by the FAA. This is not a sentence you will frequently hear. There is a NAS status website located. I just want the record to reflect that you said that. I did. Status website located at this URL. The link is in the show notes. It is NAS. nasstatus.faa.gov. This is a great resource. We use it at work occasionally.

Really? Yes. Okay. This website provides all sorts of information that is updated as you watch. This includes details about any airport that is encountering delays and the reason behind those delays. That is primarily what we're using it for. Are there edicts? Are there not? Because sometimes the message gets mixed up in the way that it's sent to us. Or someone threw away a strip that they didn't mean to.

imagine that but then flight plans are printing out with edicts and it's like hey i didn't know we were all right when are we going to flow right so uh active or proposed reroutes anywhere in the nas You can look up your tail number to see if an edict has been issued for you before you get your clearance. You can look at the current and upcoming arrival volumes for any airport as a function of filed flight plans and aircraft in the air.

you can see how this volume of incoming traffic compares with maximum arrival rates as the max arrival rates vary. with runway configurations and weather. You can see the real-time RVR values for any runway in the NAS that has this technology. And you can read the regularly updated operations plan for the NAS to get the big picture for the day, including

Rocket launches and VIP movements. Listen, basically, if you go to this website, you are like the TMU. You're basically the command center all by yourself. You could run the NAS from this website. And if you, he continues, and if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, you can see the specific details of every standard reroute and severe weather plan that is deployed by the National Command Center. Be careful. Once you enter this rabbit hole, you may never emerge.

Regards, Sierra Echo. Yes. So it's a great website. Go check that out. Thank you for. Yeah. I can't believe we didn't mention that as part of our edict. Link in the show notes. Yes. Very good. I'm just going to verify that. Yes, it is. And just a reminder that feedback was from a former most of your time spent in a prop where you didn't have edicts. Now you're in the jet world and you got chastised by center.

For not checking this on the ground and becoming airborne looking for IFR. How dare you? How dare you? You don't know about your edict. This would be a great place to go and be aware of.

uh number four from patron alpha mike thanks for using my suggestion for the show topic for 373 turns out timing could not have been better i'm forwarding this month's ASRS callback, which is on controller assist. We got this from a couple of people. Thank you. And a quote. This is a magazine. Wait, who publishes this? Is this FA produced? NASA. Okay.

All right. Here's a quote, right, from this? You pulled this from? Yeah, from this episode. Or from this. Not episode, but. Yeah, number. Whatever. Volume. Publication number. Yeah. This month, Callback shares incidents that reveal the professionalism, competence, ability to read, creativity, vision for improvement, and the dedication to safety that controls XTOL.

Controllers. Oh, that controller. You actually sounded like a teacher showing me how to read. I appreciate that. I don't take any insult. I'm okay with the way you did that. I'm sorry May I continue? I just didn't want to skip over that It's the point of this whole paragraph. I don't even know what I said that was a mistake. What was the word that I used? You said...

To safety, that control extols. Oh, okay. Yeah. Look, my lights are super bright. I understand. And my screen is turned up super bright. I'm having problems. Enjoy the stories. Contemplate the lessons. And if you're a pilot, think of a time when you were acquired or received the expert assistance that controllers routinely provide. Uh, great. Uh, article slash.

volume of this callback magazine yeah it's a publication yeah it's a it's an online publication but it's available to download in pdf and you can pay srs callback look it up yes there's a link in the show notes and i believe you could set this up to come to your inbox You can subscribe to it. The newsletter, yes. Very good. Thank you, Alpha Mike. And you get number five. Number five from ESCAC patron. Bravo, Judith's here. Greetings, gods of the great vector from the sky.

Toward the end of 371, another patient shared a story of declaring an emergency due to a rough running engine. He expressed some reluctance to share the story, and you rightly pointed out how expertly he handled the situation. I would like to add that... I understand how he feels. For me there is always that twinge of self-doubt. Could I have done anything differently? Did I do everything I could have done? That self-assessment is the mark of a true professional.

but I would be lying if I said it wasn't accompanied with a bruised ego and some diminished self-confidence. The most important part of our fellow aviator story... was where he got back in the saddle. He continued flying wiser, more seasoned, and with one more great flying story to tell. When the industry experiences an awful tragedy as we have recently

we will all be experiencing healthy amounts of self-reflection with a side of doubt and even a loss of confidence. This is normal and healthy. I think it's important to remember to get back in the saddle wiser and better and keep flying. Thanks for all you guys do. ESCAC Patron Brothers. Juliet Sierra, from ye olde tri-motor factory south of the Windy City Bravo. Excellent. Excellent feedback. Thank you. You're right. You're right on all accounts. Agreed.

I could not have said it better. Yep. Moving on. Moving on. Fancy jet music.

All right, this week's show topic is brought to us by SGAC patron Alpha Mike. Since you're going to be doing a ton of presenting on this with these amazing visuals, do you want me to read it? That would be great. All right, the opposing base final cross maneuver. This is not an opposing bases maneuver. This is... Right. The final cross. Not the trademark opposing bases. No.

Which I charge people at work $5 every time they say that. Reminder, if you're new to the show and don't know anything about air traffic and we haven't referenced it in several years, we have parallel runways at Triad when there are base.

legs to the respective runways left and right they're aimed at each other or towards the same area of airspace those are opposing bases hence the name of the show right um to different runways now you can have opposing bases to the same runway but that's not what the root of our show is about no and that is not ideal that's not ideal which is what is happening in this particular scenario

All right. Hello, guardians of the NAS and protectors of the friendly skies. Recently, I was at an EAA chapter meeting where they presented a VMC club scenario to us. If you don't know, the EAA and the FAA safety teams have two programs, the VMC club and the IMC club, where a scenario is presented to the group with a CFI president for the group to discuss, quote, what would you do in this situation?

The scenario presented was an interesting one, but as a tangent to it, I'm hoping to get your thoughts from the controller perspective. Perfect. Great idea for a show topic. That's what we're going to do. And here is the... One outlined. Graphic. We're looking at a picture of parallel runways and traffic and awesome graphics. Just cutting edge. Cutting edge. State of the art. Graphics. Snails are.

Chef's kiss. And lightning bolts. The scenario was, I'll simplify it from the original for brevity. You're approaching to a class Delta airport from the south with intentions to land after having done some air work. the airport has parallel runways nine right and nine left with nine left being a shorter one usually used for ga traffic and a nine right a longer one typically used for jets and scheduled airline traffic

You reach the VFR reporting point and the tower frequency is packed and the controller is even working both tower and ground. That's not uncommon, but in a busy parallel environment, probably not the best idea. That is less than ideal. After struggling to find a break to check in, you ultimately get instructed to report a two-mile right base for nine left, which, if you haven't drawn this picture in your head, is after crossing over the final for the nine right runway.

What follows is a scenario where the controller is wrapped up talking to another pilot, and as you're approaching on your base, you see you're on an opposing base to other traffic for the same runway. Now, I'm not looking for your takes on the scenario, but one of the first things I brought up was that I probably would have early on queried whether the controller meant to put us on the left side. It seemed odd to me that a controller would put you on a direct base path at two miles.

that crosses another final the cfi leading the discussion looked at me like i had penguins guts oozing from my nose and said This is common at this airport. They always put GA traffic on the other runway. I debated whether to press the issue, but I let it go so as not to derail the discussion. It's very mature of you. I wouldn't have done that. So after all that, my question is, am I off base here? Pun intended. Assuming both runways are in use. It wasn't. I highlighted that.

I know you did. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry. It wasn't lost in either one of us. I'm not good at this. Yeah. Assuming both runways are in use, would you as controllers... get that stomach clenching feeling if you were hurt another controller setting up the scenario i if i'm not crazy and this is not a normal thing

What would you guys do instead if you wanted my little whirly bird bug killer to still land on nine left, but to avoid me crossing another final like that? Thanks as always for the additional enlightened penguins. Enlightened? Enlightened, yeah, I guess. Alpha Mike, cool. Great question. It's going to lead into some awesome explaining by Mr. Alpha Golf on what we're looking at on the screen.

And your turn. All right. So, yeah, for those of you that can't see the screen, that aren't in the chat room, again, evaluate your life decisions. We'll press on. without you, because it does make it a ton easier to explain this visually. So you have the two dashed lines that are the finals coming out from these runways.

The fast plane's going to the bigger runway and the slow plane's going to the smaller one. You have aircraft A that's on a right base that has to cross through the final for the fast runway. Pointed at Aircraft B, who is on a left base for the slow runway, but on the correct side of the airport, on the north side of the final. So the problem is... Not only are two planes going to the same place on an opposing base to the same runway, you have A crossing through the final.

And I don't know the total traffic situation here because this is totally situational dependent on what traffic is going to the fast runway. But there are a couple options that we can use for this. And one of them, let me see if I can get this other. While you're looking for that other page here, this is an advanced situational awareness.

On the pilot side. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is going to go just like the CFI in the room, the one who's supposed to be leading this discussion. Their focus in looking at you funny was, what are you talking about? This is just the way it's done. Never analyzing the scenario they potentially set up as a head on with the other aircraft going to the same runway from the other side of the airport. Right. Exactly. Right. Your situational awareness in this is.

i'm comfortable saying advanced yes so yes what are we looking at well picture two here okay so this is this is option a or i'm option one okay you

You vector the plane from the south that's on the right base to go behind any traffic that's on the final for the fast runway. All right. So in our scenario here, A is going behind. C, um, to follow B. Okay. So thanks there. Right. It does two things. You widened out, you're passing behind conflicting traffic and. You're following the plane that you were on an opposing base with. It solves all those problems. The issue with it on the controller side is, does this work with...

you know, potential traffic. Let's see if I think I have that graphic as well. Hold on. I'm going to pause right there, though, before you go to the next traffic. Go back to the last one. Okay. This is a Delta controller that may not have the legal ability to victor. But instead of having you join a two-mile right base, which would put you in conflict with these jets you've drawn on these visuals.

have you join a three or four mile base, which would you be widening yourself out without a vector? Does that make sense? They can accomplish the same thing. Yes. I'm trying to remember if we were talking to Approach here or not. I think it's we're one of the tower control the whole time. Okay, tower frequency. Yeah, the tower frequency. Okay. Yeah, that does make it a little bit more interesting. You're right. So in this case...

This scenario, if you as the approach controller handed this to the tower in our facility. You can't do this. You cannot do that. What? What? You know. You're required to settle some of these conflicts before you just dump it on the tower. Oh, yeah, here's this total poo sandwich. Have fun. I might even add some salt for you. Here you go. And like we said, you know, the tower has to eat everything that radar feeds it. There's zero chance I'm eating this in the tower.

Fair. Fair point. Yeah. If the tower cannot use vectors, yeah, it is a little bit. This is getting super tricky, which is why the tower is not supposed to be doing this kind of thing. Right. This scenario. It was obviously for discussion. And maybe it's common that this unfolds like this, but to unload this type of conflict onto a tower controller...

is kind of weird. I mean, the VFR airplane may have never even called approach. They could have just called the tower straight to them. So good on them if they actually have to solve this day-to-day. Altitude restriction is another idea I would have. Put the... Plane A, which I think you're about to talk about. Is that true? You're about to talk about that? Yes. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. So, yes, you can do that. You can do an altitude restriction, but that all depends.

as well because on a two mile final you don't want to have my pie you can't have them high there's not a ton of you know wiggle room here to lose that altitude and presumably the jets going to the fast are in a At two miles, they're on the glide path. You can't. There's nothing you can do with them, really. Right. You're not supposed to be slowing them down, speeding them up or anything like that at this point or assigning an altitude.

So that's the traffic you have to avoid. You certainly can use an altitude, but... You've got this issue with Aircraft B on the left base that you still, the altitude doesn't solve that problem.

You still have to go in front of or behind that aircraft. The other problem here with our first scenario of widening out is are there other planes now on final that you're trying to avoid? And again, Yeah, okay, I could assign an altitude to aircraft A to go underneath, you know, this descending airplane, aircraft D in this. Case. But is that going to work? I don't know how far apart these parallels are. If they're close and I'm signing altitude to go above the glide path.

You're setting that plane up for a steep approach, or maybe it doesn't even work. And now you've got yourself in an even worse place because you've got to give them a 360 or some sort of... thing to get down and now they're really in the way, um, which leads us to my favorite solution. And this is what I do frequently. Um, when we had some taxiway closures that made it really problematic to take planes to the wrong side of the airport, we were frequently having to cross over.

the final for 2-3 left to take planes to 2-3 right. A lot of people would... get them low and tunnel them under arrivals way out, like on six, seven, eight mile funnel. But the problem is then they're out eight miles from the airport going 100 knots, 90 knots. It's going to take them forever to get back. I prefer to keep them close, take them high, like we're looking at here. Aircraft A climbs up, goes over both finals, and does like a left 270.

To follow B, yes. Which you could have that path of A, B, closer to the airport in certain cases. Hey, that Delta controller may say, overfly the airport at... 3,000, maybe it's AGL. We'll just assume a sea level airport here. Overfly the airport at 3,000. That is probably in every situation in the NAS. It doesn't seem obvious, but it's one of the safer places to be because...

there's nobody at 3,000 feet over the threshold. Right. And if they go around, they can control that. So overflying the airport are very close to final with an aircraft on the parallel runway that's already below their path.

and putting them on like you said the 270 to get back around i think that's a great idea and we did even without weird taxiway closures we found ourselves a lot of the time having to put just because of the sequence of jets coming in at the time we weren't gonna have a south arrival ga going between a bunch of jets if we didn't have to we would always try to get them over there to the other runway yeah crossing them like you're saying crossing them closer to the runways closer to the threshold

There's a huge advantage in that. Basically, cross over the approach end and enter a downwind to follow traffic on a two-mile base. That is my preferred thing. What's happened though is for us, we have given that airspace to the tower. The tower now owns 2,500 all the way out to. Both sides, like a big circle. Yeah, the backside, the half circle of the surface area to 2,500. So you've got to have them higher, 3,000.

If they're number one, three is pretty high. It's too high. But if they're following traffic, it can be useful to do that. This scenario, like I tell my radar trainees, is there's no way that I can say this is the rule. This is what you do. Because every single time it's different.

It's different every time. And that's what being a good controller is all about, is being able to say, well, I can't use this technique this time because of this. I need to modify it somewhat. I need to do something different. And that's really what being evaluated in training is all about. Can you adapt to this something new? Anybody can memorize an entire list of...

rules and say, yep, here I do rule A, now I do rule B. But it's being able to adapt. And this scenario is just a perfect example of how nuanced.

this how nuanced air traffic can be really um and as a pilot if you're checking in you're hearing this great on you again for for realizing this was putting you in a hey i have to cross this final you can take it upon yourself to fly at an altitude that's higher than the funnel approach fixed intercept altitude for those guys that are coming into the right runway. Take that knowledge and look at the plates for the other runway.

all right at triad if i'm at 3 500 feet i should be above all these guys now again we're talking to approach in the triad example not necessarily with a radar controller in a delta tower but enough experience where they know, look, this is going to work out. I'm not going to, I'm not going to have you cross a final that I'm hopefully not setting you up with conflict for more traffic left to right.

And if I am, I should be putting you at an altitude that's safe. That is a great point about the final approach fix altitude. And if you're based at an airport that's like this. Or this is something that's happening. It would be great to go and look at those and know what those are. That's next level stuff. If you're not an IFR, if you're not an instrument rated person, you might not even know.

What in the world we're talking about? Go ask a CFI. Let me ask you this. You're in a VFR-only world. You've never looked at instruments. And I'm just going to throw, Hey, I have an idea. Why don't I go lower than that altitude and go inside a final? Tell me why that's bad, bad, bad. Why they're descending and you don't really know where they're going to be. Yeah. Inside the final approach fix, you cannot go underneath. Period. Final. Bad. Very bad. Yes. No, I would not recommend that.

One thing I don't think we addressed here is Alpha Mike asked, should I have clarified, where was that? I was thinking about it too. With the tower. Hey, did you mean to say nine right? You know, are we, are you sure you don't mean nine right? Yes. Ask that question. Totally fine.

They might say, no, I can't do nine right. There's a jet, whatever. Here's the thing. This is why I can't do nine right. I need you to go to nine left. But it would be a good opportunity for the control to say, okay, this has presented a question for this pilot.

Perhaps they're aware that they're crossing a highway. Hey, if you stay at 3,500, I'm just throwing an example. That's going to keep you above the traffic I have coming into that runway. If you can do that and you need to go out wider, let me know. Because I've had you join a two-mile final, and again, sea level example, 3,500 feet off the ground, and a two-mile final is not ideal for anybody.

So, hey, I need you at that altitude across this final. If you need more room, I can have you enter the down one from the other side behind B, like you drew out, or you could just widen it out further. And that's the last conflict you're going to have, which begs the question. Then why don't I just go to the right side and follow this big jet? That's the last conflict. But that's like what you're telling your trainees. It's different every time. I had this scenario almost exactly last night.

All right. As I was getting a controller out on break, it was set up to cross over 2-3 left. There was a plane on the downwind for 2-3 right that was going to work the pattern. And there was a jet on final for 2-3 left. After sitting there for a minute or two and realizing that I was going to have to do something weird with my 2-3 right plane.

to make this work i said you know what you guy on the left base you're gonna i'm gonna put you on two three left you're gonna follow that jet that's 12 o'clock now and three miles oh okay no problem yeah we'll follow the jet okay follow them Costuming servants, blah, blah, blah. Contact tower. And that is good. It's done. That's out of the, I'm done with that plane now. They're out of the scenario. And now I can do whatever I want with the plane to the north.

Another thing that I want to make sure we mention here is when a controller finds themselves in this, there's a lot of airplanes for... They're tied for the same area of airspace to parallel runways. It creates a lot of additional work with traffic calls. And depending on what type of airspace that is, for Delta, it's different than Bravo and Charlie on the required separation. They could be...

really task saturated and getting proper readbacks from pilots, issuing the traffic, letting the jet know, hey, this GA pilot's going to be crossing overhead. Don't let your TCAS alarm you. I'm doing this on purpose. It seems simple, like, duh, just have them go behind it. Yeah, it's great. It's not that hard to draw a picture of it, but to execute it and actually get all the words out that you need to to make it legal is challenging. Yeah, to do this.

This scenario is what you're right. Yep. Or the other one with the crossing at the higher altitude. That could even be more problematic. Yes. There's things you have to say to C, to A, then telling B. About traffic. You got all these traffic calls. Right. So that everybody knows this isn't an accident. I did this on purpose. I'm not crazy. But you still have to say some things. So that increases workload. What else? That's a great point. I love that. You didn't increase the amount of planes.

But you increase the amount of workload, which is counterintuitive, I think, for a lot of people to think, well, it's just the same four planes, you know. Right. But for you to make it efficient. It's a lot of talking. Yes. That consumes up time. And it has to be done in a certain order or you're going to screw it up. By the way, this controller is working ground at the same time. Ground as well.

And clearance? Yeah, no, boy, no. No, boy, no. Oh, my gosh. No. This would be complicated for a Charlie or Bravo to do, let alone a Delta with no radar screen or no usable one, if you will. Yeah. At least clearance doesn't require you to be heads down looking at flight plans and stuff, you know, in the tower when you need to be looking outside for local and ground. I hope something that came out of this conversation was, you know, the...

how the situation unfolds on a screen and what, you know, it's dynamic, it's moving. What, what about now when you're this close, what are the threats instead of, you know, the, Hey, how do I interrupt and talk to this controller? That's one little detail of it. It's thinking about how the scenario is supposed to unfold, I think, is the bigger takeaway. Mm-hmm. Yep. Excellent. Very nice. Thank you, Alpha Mike. Thank you for the awesome graphics. Thank you.

Anything to add? No. I think that's it. All right. Moving on. Why cannot I find a button?

Feedback time. Feedback. I hit the wrong sound button for the bingo boards, if that's on there. What did you hit? Well, actually, I didn't hit the wrong one. I just stared at my soundboard and didn't know which one to push. Oh, okay. Well, same, same. Look, even a slight change in this layout, because I moved everything upstairs, then back down. I'm all out of sorts here. Yeah, I understand. It's like a new cockpit. Right, like every time I fly. Huh.

I never saw that button before. I have no memory of this place. Speaking of new buttons, this airplane that I flew this week, we have some, I'm trying to say this nicely without it sounding like a complaint. Okay. We have airplanes from different companies that are all part of one company now. So they weren't all equipped with the same bells and whistles. Some of them have lots of bells and no whistles.

And to get the whistles, they put these switches in the different places. Oh. So somebody, this is the first time I've flown in this specific plane, somebody put toggle switches that are from a whole different model of Boeing. The 737 has little toggles everywhere. We have buttons. Pushy, pushy, pushy, pushy. There's these two knobs that were. And I looked at them and I looked over. I said, what are these? I don't even know what they do.

He says, oh, it's the flux capacitor. You just push it on. Turn it on. I said, why doesn't it just stay on? Whatever he said after that, it went over my head. New stuff. Those were questions I always asked. What is this button? What does this switch do? Oh, it's the backup power switch. You just leave it on. I said, in what scenario do I turn this off? Deep into it. You don't. Okay. So why is there a switch? Because you have to turn it on for the run-up. What if it was already on?

What if we hotwired this switch? What? Who gets number one? Number one from patron Charlie Mike RH. I wondered if you might be interested in being a volunteer air traffic controller at Oshkosh. or sun had fun to keep your toe in the water of actually controlling planes. I know you have discussed in the past, but I assume you would be able to volunteer even though you are not an active controller. Uh, I don't think.

It's not a thing. I wrote back. I'll let you finish this. Okay, also keep in mind, if you want to have an Alaskan aviation adventure, I can hook you up with a float bush or ski flying. adventure depending on the season a super cub is at your disposal as a thank you from the aviation community for your great information i'm on my way hey i'm out see you i'm going why don't we leave it i'm on i'm on my way to alaska

Oh, awesome. We may take you up on that. Yes. Alaska is still on my list of states. Your bucket list. Well, I only have two left. And North Dakota. So those two states I have. Wow. I don't think we've ever talked about that accomplishment. That's pretty cool. Nevada is suspect. Why? Because we went on that big road trip and records were lost on the route we took from the Grand Canyon to back to Washington. And I...

felt like we had gone through Nevada because we hadn't been there and we needed to check it off. But there's a possibility that we, from Salt Lake, we just went north to Idaho instead of cutting over west. And I don't remember which way we went. So I would like to secure for sure Nevada as well. But anyway, that's right. To answer the first part of your question, the Sun and Fun and Air Venture are run by controllers that have active current CTOs and supervisors.

I would say 99% of them are still working FAA traffic. The ones that work those events. So I am not eligible for that for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is I'm no longer employed by the FAA. So my currency is gone. But that's a great segue to an announcement I forgot to send you an email on. This weekend, and this is how I figured out I'm going to make this okay to say on the show. Okay. I'm not going to say when, but this weekend, Pilot Edge is doing a Sim and Fun.

version of sun and fun on the pilot edge network. And I will be working to one hour sessions this weekend. Hmm. Yes. Cool. I was trained last weekend on how to work the computer system and do all the things. Really? Yes. So if you are interested in attending Sim and Fun by Pilot Edge. on what are the dates this weekend? The 8th and the 9th? I don't know. Yes. Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th. One of those two days, you may hear the dulcet.

Tones of RH. Is that a word? Did I just make a word? Yeah, no, that's totally, it's lovely. It really is. I like it. So, check it out. Pilot Edge. Cool. Charlie, Mike, thank you for this fantastic offer. Do I get number two? Yes.

From Patreon Mike Echo. Hey, R-H-N-A-G. Greetings from the Garden State. I'm a private pilot who flies out of an uncontrolled airport between the Big Apple and Cheese Steak. Bravo's. Also cheesecakes. That's where I got my private. in that area i would like to hear your thoughts on an unlisted or hidden tracons in class delta facilities which are active but not depicted and listed on sectional charts and more importantly their relationship with the underlying tower facilities

I cannot wait to hear what you learned yesterday on the phone. I enjoy doing cross-country flights to Amish land, a class delta located between Cheesecake City. And the state capital. As usual, I always get flight following from my cross-country flights. Congrats. So I reached out to the cheesecake approach when I am near the blue-white frequency box. Cheese steak. Cheese steak. What did I say? Cake. I just got a kick on my mind. This is the more southern of those approaches. Mm-hmm. Right.

I reached out on the blue-white frequency box on the TAC. Usually 30 miles later, I'm handed off to Taylor Swift's hometown approach, which is that hidden TRACON at the Class Delta Airport. There is no mention of this TRACON and its frequency on any TAC or sectional charts, not even on the approach control frequency lists on the charts. The only way to know about this is by looking at the chart supplement for this airport or just local knowledge. Also,

I am always asked for my destination and aircraft type when I'm handed off both ways, even on my return leg. That's an automation issue, I think, but... Am I asked for these so the controller can confirm the information handed off to them? Or is my squat code the only thing that they see about me? Do we want to pause there? Yeah, sure. We can answer that. And that, I asked that question. So I went to the chart supplement. I have found a satellite airport near here.

I found out the approach frequency. I called them. I said, I know this is the recorded line. Would you rather have me call back on some other line? He said, no, I don't care. I said, okay, I'm a controller. I just have a couple questions about the airspace. And he was kind of like, okay. You know, like, what the heck? I just said, hey, I have a...

I have a buddy that flies up there. He had a couple of questions. These are the questions. All right. So the automation part, he said, it's typical, especially for cheesesteak. approach to just do a local code and then not do a NAS code that hands off. So there's no information coming over. They're too busy. They just basically say. Code 0123 is at 3,000. Okay. They say radar contact, and they don't know anything else, so they have to ask you all the questions.

And going the other way, it may be a function of that facility's ability to automate out of their system. Because, well, we can get into that. Okay. About what exactly happened here in this. Do you want me to keep reading? Yeah, sure.

My other important question is the TRACON's relationship with the tower. On my last flight, I flew into this Delta. I landed in taxi back to the runway. When I was cleared for takeoff on runway 31, my instructions were to make a left downwind departure. I'll call your on course.

but after rotating i was told to turn right now so i did shortly after tower handed me off to departure after my initial contact the departure control told me turn right hitting 180 vectors for the traffic seven miles east inbound to the airport and a few minutes later he told me to proceed on course and i safely continued my flight this was also the first time i was vectored in a controlled airspace nice learning experience

My question is, don't TRACONs inform towers about the inbound traffic? According to Flightradar, that inbound traffic was approaching from the northeast, the right side of runway 31. Is it possible that the tower controller actually tried to help me? since a right turn to a 90 is easier than a left turn after departing runway 31, but I didn't know about that inbound traffic. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on these. Sincerely, patron Mike Ecko from the Garden State.

This whole feedback has me confused. It is. Enlighten me. Okay. We're talking to a Delta Tower. We didn't get into this. I didn't get into this specific, you know, 3-1. turning this way, turning that way. Um, my guess is the tower doesn't, you know, they, they have an allowance for where they can put planes. They don't worry about the trade cons traffic.

That's the TRACON's problem. If a departure becomes a problem, maybe you shouldn't put a plane there or whatever. I don't understand the relationship here. But... The tower, yeah, tried to do you a favor without knowing. Maybe they didn't have a scope that looked out far enough to see this plane. Um, and then approach was forced to, you know, maneuver you down and out of the way, like basically get you out of the flight path of this jet that's inbound.

before they can put you on course because the jet's descending. They may have already been cleared for a visual. I don't know. What's happening, though, with Secret Approach is that they got swallowed up by... the capital approach. And I think what's happening is that some of these little weird things are leftovers from that old facility. being incorporated into an existing Tracon. And I don't know if the automation is part of that puzzle.

My guess is that when it was a Class D approach, it was similar to the one that we had in the south of our airspace that didn't have automation. Every handoff was a manual handoff. And I don't know if that's a carryover into this. I would guess that it's not. That Capital Approach is capable of... you know, automating planes, but it could just be local practice that you do a local code and maybe cheese steak.

approach is going to take a handoff. Maybe they're not. I don't know. Maybe, you know, there's just like, no, we're too busy. We're not taking it. So you don't even bother putting a NAS code in. You know, I don't, I'm not really sure on that, but. The issue with it being hidden or secret is that it's gone. It doesn't exist anymore. It is part of it as of January. So very recently. So if you hadn't flown out there in a while.

This is a very recent development. That approach facility at Taylor Swift's hometown approach, it doesn't exist. It does not exist. But the people are in another building? Yes. And that building will eventually be charted? That building is already an approach control. Right, but it's pretty far away, right? It's not too far away. Okay. No, it's... They would have adjoined, I mean... So if I pulled out a sectional now, a paper version... Yeah, first you smelled it.

Awesome smell of a sectional. Go on. If I kept my eyes moving past this airport, I would eventually see capital approach frequencies on the chart.

Yes. Yes. Okay. They've been there forever. Okay. Yeah. They're not new. Let me see. All right. So. maybe that's the takeaway i would have from the pilot side if you find yourself in this hey there sounds like this sounds a lot like radar what frequency are they using keep moving on the chart until you find the frequency that they're probably talking to so the furthest

Not the Bravo, typically. You said goodbye to them. Keep moving your eyes and get to the Capitol and try that frequency. It sounds like they took ownership of that airspace and maybe some personnel in the process. That we have not talked about on the show, but that has happened in the past where smaller facilities have been, as AG put it, swallowed by bigger facilities. I don't know.

They're 38 miles apart. Okay, that's not that far. No. No. That may be like a Montgomery County arrival for Triad, you know. You still have radio. Radio might be a challenge low, but radar certainly.

doable down there for sure yeah good question though yes i would be willing to bet that over time if the more pilots that say something about this and local knowledge at the control facilities somebody's going to have to update these charts to include and make it more obvious that you should be talking to capital at this point Is that fair? Yeah. So I don't know why the handoff from cheesesteak. I think some stuff crossed in the mail here. You know, yeah, the check's in the mail.

while the bill was being sent you know what i mean like because i cheesesteak unless it just was a mistake to say contact uh Her name Taylor Swift Taylor Swift's hometown approach was just an error because they're used to saying it. But if this flight was since January. That was a mistake. This facility does not exist. Right. But what still may exist, you would hope this got worked out when they consolidated these facilities and moved them together.

stake may not have been able to automate to Taylor Swift's in the past. And now that what's the name of this Amish land airport doesn't exist anymore. The trick on there, that's who they can automate to. So that's why you get the local code and goodbye. Maybe a manual handoff, but somebody hasn't worked out the automation side of that. There could still be this gap in airspace where Cheesesteak cannot hand you off.

There's no way to do that. Right. We can't hand you off from triad to a controller working Lynchburg airspace. That's not a thing. Right. Yeah. You can't skip over sectors. Exactly. Did we get that one? I guess, kind of. I don't know. I think it's still kind of a mystery. Just know that there's not a secret Treycon anymore. It's gone. It's gone.

It's just a further away, not secret trade gun. Right. With the craziest class Charlie I've ever seen. Interstage, right? Duke's new Charlie. Go for it. You get number three. Number three.

Mike Hilo. Hey, guys. Speaking of where the traffic really is, you probably know that there are a number of Class Cs which have or are planning to change their boundaries to reflect traffic flow. Breaking news distributed to pilots via FAA safety today, Duke. Real question is, will they learn how to do practice approaches? Doing the taco truck RNAV21 cuts right through and will require two-way communication. Question mark. Yeah, I'm sure that was part of the consideration of this.

Right. Expansion of the Charlie. I mean. You want to get that on the screen? Oh, yeah, sure. I thought I had, hold on, a sarcastic response to this question. I thought I had a picture to upload, but I don't here. I'll just have to share my... All right. This is a big picture while you're doing that. If this is the wave of the future, I'm all about it. This is exactly how Charlie should look.

In my opinion, for parallel runways. Yeah. It takes them out further because that's where controllers want to be talking to everybody. In the new proposed boundaries of Duke, it takes the floor out. to of 1700 all the way out to probably 15 miles 15 to 17 miles yeah yeah something like that um which

by the way, is where the final traffic is for the parallel runways, in this case 2-3, and the same for the other side of the airport. They have expanded it to the northwest and to the southeast for the little tiny runway. There are... GA runway that does actually get used. I don't think they've ever landed the other way, going across both runways, but northwestbound for sure. Is it 32 there also? Yes.

This is if controllers designed airspace, this is what it looks like. Yeah, because this from here, the existing Charlie out to here is where people go and just. They're playing around out here and the final easily gets stretched out beyond 10 miles. It's so ridiculous. I don't know. I never really understood like the 10 mile class Charlie thing.

Everything's a give and take. Can I give the PC answer? We are prone in this country to make it as easy as possible to fly. Wherever you want. Wherever you want. Hey, this isn't... We need some protections here, said the controllers. Okay, fine. We'll give you five miles. No, we need 20. Five? Like, what? We're going to settle on 10. We're going to settle on 10.

We'll give you 10 miles. The runway is two miles of that. You're right, though. Who came up with the circular design in an environment like this? now when that charlotte was designed the parallel runway wasn't there it was just it was one runway true true and maybe there was equal use with the crosser and a little runway uh so this is a sign this is a good sign

Somebody is willing to take the time to do these proposals and take input and watch traffic because they probably watched some playbacks. Here, give me a week of traffic in a normal week. We want to see what it looks like.

What do your controllers do with these planes? Oh, they take them down to 2,000. Where? All the way out here. Cool. That's what we'll give you. Right. And we'll give you 300 feet below that where traffic will be an issue sometimes, but... we're not willing to go down to 1500 feet there and maybe that is maybe it's 1500 feet agl yeah probably give or take yeah plus or minus but we've given the controllers room to work and feel protected

from ga traffic that has chosen not to participate now this comes in my mind this is when i'm going to get on my high horse if this gets redesigned and this makes it through and the controllers The awesome Duke controllers decide they don't want to talk to GA planes that aren't participating in Duke traffic. That's a mistake. They have to talk to them.

And like in your example, TTA is right there. They're going to have to go through there. They can't do that approach without talking. It goes right through here. It goes right through there. They have to. If they're not willing to participate, which in my experience over there, that's not true. We make fun of them, but they will talk to a TTA arrival.

I've talked to them every time I go in there on an approach. Yeah, I know. We do. We give them a bit. But they can't play, I don't hear you. No, no, no, no, no, no. Stay outside of the Charlie. No. We have satellite airports on the triad side of that fence. and we have to talk to all of them and so should you. Yeah. We have way more, by the way. Right. There's controllers at Duke that have never done a practice approach. They simply don't know how to do it.

I'm kidding. There's probably only one. Yeah, two or three. Love you, Duke. Hey, we have some former Triad over there. They should tell them, hey. They're busy over there. When they don't take that, it's because they actually have work they're doing. They're very busy. Very busy. Anything to add to this? I'm jealous. That's really what this comes down to. I want this airspace. Eventually, we may get it. We don't have the airline traffic at Triad.

probably get the attention that they got. They do a lot of airline. Yeah. That's all they do. Yeah. Compared to us. Yeah. Right. All right. Well, last one. Did I interrupt you in having a snarky remark that you wanted to say? I don't know. It doesn't matter. I don't care. I'm just so mad right now. Do I get number four? I don't know. Sure. From patron Juliet, Lima Alpha.

From under the palm tree class Charlie airspace with some feedback on your recent discussions about flight following and flight following light on your recent shows. You have mentioned LAX special flight rules. flight rules corridor as a possible model and i just want to clarify how it works i think i was the one who said that and i was unknowingly making a mistake we're going to clear that up today okay

I have been flying in the area for over 30 years and fly the corridor frequently. The LAX Special Flight Rules Corridor is designed for VFR traffic to go essentially over LAX in safe defined altitudes. on a monitor frequency between pilots and other pilots we have talked about in the past on this show in the northwest flight following light being executed in some way, shape, or form where a pilot is monitoring a frequency that ATC knows they're on it because they're squawking a special code.

And ATC may reach out with traffic. We even had feedback where someone actually had that happen to them. Approach called them and said, hey, traffic, even though they weren't. participating in formal vfr flight following right that that is different from the lax special flight rules corridor which to me is more like the new york city hudson corridor where you're talking to other pilots

You're in a place in space that's authorized and legal and safe for you to be. You're just monitoring other airplanes. Yep. All right, now continue. It's purpose in this LAX flight rules corridor. As for VFR aircraft to fly through LAX Class Bravos airspace without communicating or obtaining approval from ATC, the route is right over the top of the airport.

With aircraft navigating using a radio off of Santa Monica northbound traffic flies at 45 southbound flies at 35 Per the LAX class Bravo chart instructions aircraft are required to squawk 1201 versus 1200 and it is recommended but not required that aircraft

Monitor the ATC frequency 2855 for pilot to pilot communications. What's important here is that it's only a recommendation, not a requirement. And it's my understanding that ATC does not monitor the frequency or advise pilots over the frequency.

This is the distinction. Not to be confused with Flight Following Light in the Northwest, where they are doing that. It's probably ATC's normal frequency, and they see you out there participating on this passive code. And, oh, look, I want to give them traffic for an airplane that I am talking to.

Here you go. They're on the frequency. They continue. What's important here is that it's only a recommendation, not a requirement. It's my understanding that ATC does not monitor the frequency or advise. I think I read that. In fact, over the hundreds of times I've flown the corridor.

I have never once heard ATC give any advisories or instructions to aircraft navigating through the corridor on 128.55. What do you want to talk about on that chart? Well, that's, I mean, that's, yeah, that's by design. Perfect. They're not supposed to be. You're right. I think we misspoke about that. And I believed the same thing, that this. I don't know where I read or heard some blurb somewhere that this was happening here, but it is not in the way that we thought it was.

From my perspective, the LAX special flight rules corridor works very well, even on a busy weekend day when there are five or six aircraft flying through it at the same time. So that's five or six airplanes that ATC doesn't have to stuff under the Bravo or vector through with a separation requirement. So we're assuming that these corridors allow a safe margin from... participating IFR, VFR aircraft in the Bravo. So pilots do a good job communicating back and forth and it reminds...

me of flying into a busy non-towered airport. However, it doesn't provide the level of safety one feels when using flight following. or I think we would achieve with your idea of flight following light, since ATC is not monitoring the frequency or giving the advice to pilots regarding traffic conflicts. Very good point. Thank you for bringing that up. I think both of us at some point were...

We didn't just make it up. Somebody made us think that or something we read made us feel like it was the same as what we've been talking about with Fight Following Light. Look, if anything, this goes to show you that this is complicated and for change to occur, just like at Duke, for that airspace to change, there's a million things that have to happen and a lot of people have to sign off on it. Flight Following Light is fantasy land.

it may happen one day but it's going to take a big shift in the logic of treating it via fireplanes in this in our country versus how they do it in europe so

Thank you, Juliet Lima Alpha. That's it. We made it. We made it. And I just took my last sip of coffee, so... Perfect. It's perfect. We have feedback up until the end-ish of November of 24, right on the show, or we'll respond to via email. If we missed yours, be patient. We respond via email when you're going to be on a show or some sort of response to everybody.

Be patient. That's right. Hey, AJ, anything to add before the chat? I do not. Closing out episode 374 of Opposing Bases Air Traffic Talk. Romeo Hotel. And Alpha Golf. Goodbye, everyone. Visit opposingbases.com where you can send a written or audio question to be included on a show. Find AG and RH on Instagram at opposingbases. Send your questions to feedback at opposingbases.com.

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