Life east of \”30 West\”

The next day started out with a mid-morning suprise. We were going to be delayed for eight hours because of a late inbound flight, so I was able to go into Wiesbaden during the day and explore the town.

Wiesbaden is an interesting town because a few parts of the city have natural springs set up where warm mineral water flows from fountains, it’s very interesting.

I was the ‘flying pilot’ on the trip back to New York this evening and I’m starting to get a very good handle on the international procedures. I thought I’d never understand the entire flow of the operation, but just as “Staplegun” promised, “…a few ocean crossings and you’ll get the gist of it” and fortunately, he was correct.

Since we were so late and most of the west bound aircraft had already departed, we were able to fly at our requested altitude and a much higher speed.

A little about how the track system works. Each day, the airlines and the various authorities get together and determine six or seven (I don’t know for sure) different “tracks” or paths across the Atlantic ocean. They’ll look at things like winds, weather turbulence, and good dose of “other” and figure out what the oceanic tracks will be.

Like today, we flew “Track D” which on an oceanic clearance looks like this:

OCEANIC CLEARANCE
1825 070612 EGGX
CLRNCE 453
DAL107 CLRD TO KJFK VIA MALOT
NAT D
MALOT 53N020W 52N030W 51N040W 50N50W KOBEV YQX
FM MALOT/1944 MNTN F360
M082
ATC/LEVEL CHANGE
END OF MESSAGE

We’ll generally get this over ACARS, which is like a “Blackberry” of sorts in the cockpit, or thru voice on VHF, HF or I presume SATCOM as well.

Basically the track says that after we’re out of the continental European control area, we’re cleared to JFK via the waypoint “MALOT, Track “D” which is 53N020W (latitude and longitude), etc, then we’ll exit the track system over KOBEV and coast-in over YQX (Gander). They’re expecting us over MALOT at 1944Z and we’ll climb to flight level 360 and maintain mach 0.82″

The important thing about the times that they expect you over the entry point, flight level and airspeed, is that on the North Atlantic Track system, there is no radar coverage and you’re in RVSM (reduced separation) airspace. Your only quasi-guarantee that you won’t run into anyone over the ocean is position reporting (electronic in FMC-equipped aircraft or voice on the HF radio in non-FMC’s) and making darn sure you’re crossing your waypoints at your expected times. Being more than 3 minutes late or early over your position requires a notification to oceanic radio.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS