OB420: Special Pilot Separation

Well, pretty soon the tower calls and says, hey, we're getting some special weather conditions here. What do you guys want to do? I just said, well, we're not done. I can see him. I can see now what this guy must have been doing in the tower. Face palming, right? And so then we do another lap and he's like, all right, the field is IFR. Ready. Welcome to opposing bases air traffic talk, an aviation podcast by two air traffic controllers and rated pilots who love to talk about flying, controlling and everything in between. The show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for your instructor, your supervisor, the FAA, the NTSB or your cat. The show will give you a better understanding of how things work in the national airspace system and maybe even make you laugh along the way. Please welcome retired Army pilot Alpha Golf and first officer at Penguin Airlines, Romeo Hotel. It's Wednesday, January 14th, 2026, episode 420. On today's show, we'll jump into the deep end on special VFR, make our plea for better equipment and air traffic control and answer more of your questions and feedback. What's up, Bajie? Hello, hello everyone. Happy Wednesday. Wednesday recording. That's been, I can't remember the last time we recorded on a day other than Monday or Tuesday. Yeah, this might be the new normal. How are you? I am well. Explain why we've arrived on a Wednesday in the middle of your work week. I have the day off, sort of. I like how they call it a day off, but then during that day you actually go to work. Yeah, it's tricky how that whole math thing works. The majority of your time is spent tomorrow at work. Right. Tell us what you're doing with shifts these days. Yeah, so this is the third day of my new schedule. Let's see, how did we start out? Noon. Noon to 10, that was my first shift. Followed by an eight to six. All right. Now, we used to think the 11 to seven was a day killer. Oh, they. You've never had a day slayed like you have until you've done an eight to six. Yeah, no time for your post shift. Yeah, it's just done. One must get up early and stay up late to accomplish things on. On that shift. Today I have off except I go in tonight at nine from nine to seven. Okay. And then I do that again the next night and then I'm done. And then you're off Friday morning all the way until Monday around noon. Yes. Okay. So you saw some people doing what you're doing tonight. You saw them on Monday when they came in for the mid. Yes. Did that go like you imagined? No. No. When they got there, I wanted to go home and that's not what happens. Because that's sort of that's pretty much what happens or what used to happen anyway. Right. There was a brief overlap, but when the mid people got there. That day was done. You're you're on your way home. That is no longer the case. But tonight you'll appreciate that when you get in there. I don't know that I will. Okay. Because I'm there no matter what. But getting there giving them a break and then them giving me a break. And then I come back and start. A normal mid. Right. Around 10, 15, 10, 30. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So the 11s are still in the building the three to 11s are still there late. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, we wish you the best. Thank you. We can't wait to hear how this. It really is fine. I the that first shift the the noon to 10. I thought was going to be terrible. But after you're kind of a couple hours into the day, it just feels like a normal shift and you actually leave early. Earlier than you normally would have on a three to 11. So I don't know. It's it'll be fine. I think I think it'll be okay. All right. Good. What about you? What has been happening with your schedule? I was on vacation. Super important days of the year. You know, right as your kids are getting done with break, you start your vacation because who doesn't want vacation in January? Yeah, we we fought over that at work. Yeah. Who got to take that? And so yeah, like they set aside special days, extra days. Right. So that's over. I went back and did a trip to London. I came back from that. I commuted you heard that drama this weekend. Right through Metroplex. It's just part it's just I have to accept it. I have to go through there sometimes. And then I came home and I made sure I did my bid for February. We bid every month for the next month. What are you laughing at? Your text to me about Metroplex. I wish I could find it. It said something like, man, they really have done a lot with this place. It's super convenient. There's room to walk. I actually like being here. Yeah, I wish I could find that. Oh man, because it was I instantly knew you were lying. I can't find it anyway. Anyway, I made it through there. I'm back by bidding for February is done. And in a couple of weeks, I go back for recurrent training. So I'm starting to study for that. That's happening. That's a two day event with a day of travel on the front end. And I get out early from the Sims on day, if you call it day three, the second day of Sims. I get out early enough to fly home. And that flight is definitely not there right now. I did look thinking I was going to find the direct. No, it's not there. It's over. No, no, no, no, no, don't do it. It's going to come back. The reason it's not there is because there's no snow out there right now. And they thought why have a flight if there's no snow because it's why people go there. Right. Is that what you're telling yourself? Okay. I really want that plate to come back. All right. Yeah. How shall we begin? I found it. You said, okay, you'll never believe that Metroplex has been transformed. It's a passengers dream. I said, no, I don't believe it. Yeah. Oh, I said some other things about the way I was being commuting home that day that you cannot read on a show because we can't say those words. Right. All right. Shall we begin? Okay. All right. Since OB419, we have some new members on the icebergs here. Charlie Tangle Papa, Gulf Mike, Mike Papa, Romeo Charlie, Papa Fox, Charlie Alpha, Julia Hotel, Mike Sierra, Echo November and Alpha Hotel. Welcome. You are new to Supercast and we got a new PayPaler, Sierra Mike. Thank you. If you've been enjoying the show, you can take it to the next level by joining our premium feed on Supercast. Supporters get every show on time with no delays. Our back catalog access to our live stream bonus audio and a direct line to us to our supporter only email. You will keep the show ad free and community supported. You can learn more at opposingbasis.supercast.com. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Review and announcements. Review and announcements. There's a new review and you get to read it. Yay. I'm doing it. Expanding. Expanding the review. Sorry, is titled Expanding Icebergs and Getting Penguins, Five Stars. Those are the only ones we're going to read on the show. If you want your review read on the show, it must be five stars and you must leave a review. Also, it can't be five stars and disparaging. I know it sounds like there are a lot of requirements, but it's really not as difficult as it seems. Sorry. I've listened to RHNAG for a few years now and I'm proud to say they've been with me through my entire aviation journey from earning my private to navigating the ATC hiring process all the way to becoming a trainee at National Center just north of the Mythical Triad. This show has been a great source of knowledge and motivation. They've helped me add countless penguins to my iceberg in both flying and controlling and giving me a unique perspective on everything in the NASA. I can't thank them enough for what this podcast has done for me and I hope it helps others the same way it's helped me. Lima Lima. Awesome. Great to hear. Thank you for taking the time to do that. Yes. I said announcements. We have no new announcements. It's wintertime. Flying slows down, which means we'll get a ton of announcements coming up soon because people forgot to send them. I do have one I forgot to say. We put out the remaining extras that we bought of the hoodie. Those sold out in like an hour the other night. So you missed it. They're gone. Excellent. All right. We're going to do Charlie Alpha moving on. All right. This week's sneaky snooper segment, the Charlie Alpha segment brought to us by Supercaster Papa Victor. Hi, Arge A. A. Arge and A. See, I can't even say that. Hi, Arge. I didn't know what to choose, whether to put AG first or RH first. So I'll just use the collective arg. It's been entirely too long since we've had a Charlie Alpha segment. Let's fix that. Charlie Alpha segment, for those of you who have not heard one, is us going down memory lane with something that we experienced in our earlier days that may be the new people in life may not experience. And sometimes we use the segment to just rant about something else. Today's going to be fun. Yeah, we do whatever we want during this segment. It's our show. We could do it. It's our show. Yep. The Charlie Alpha segment is about ways to protect your recordable media from being overwritten. Did you just complete that perfect summer of 83 mixtape? And want to make sure that cassette doesn't get accidentally erased? No problem. Physically break off a little piece of plastic tab on the cassette. Did you even know this existed? So I had some awareness of this lock. I didn't think it was something you broke off though. I thought it was just like a little thing you slid over. Okay. I don't know. All right. So before streaming and before compact discs, and maybe another medium in there, I'm forgetting, we had cassettes. They were little pieces of plastic with weird tape inside that recorded music and it held music. Put it in a tape player. Yeah. Imagine it being about the size of maybe four or five credit card stacked together, but a little tiny bit bigger than that. Yes, with two reels inside of it with tape going between the reels. Yes. It's now the summer of 84 and your musical tastes have changed. It's time to make a new mixtape, but you don't have any blank tapes. What do you do? Oh, that crappy mixtape from last year. It's full of old junk. Put a piece of tape where the plastic tab was and record away. So you can redo the whole plastic piece that protected it. Huh. Yeah. The same plastic tab existed on VHS tapes. That's a whole other explanation. It could also be defeated with a piece of tape. Want to program your VCR to record the next episode of Cheers, but there's no blank tapes around. Your parents are never going to watch that tape of your little brother's first steps. Tape over that Riper Technoch. Your parents' wedding gone. Cheers is more important. Let's sit down and watch our wedding. Oh, that sounds like a great idea. That sounds like a great idea. And here you go. Your ads for Orange Julius. All right. That same concept exists in computer media. The old five and a quarter floppy disk had a notch in them, but here the open notch meant you can write to the disk. Use a piece of tape to add right protection to that disk. All right. So it's the opposite. Discs are another thing that most kids won't see these days. I don't even know what they are. There's nowhere on a computer to put these disks anymore. They don't exist. Unless you're at the triad and you're trying to update a very important computer system, you could talk about that in a second. When you bought a box of disks, it would come with stickers so you could write a label for the disk and also smaller stickers to add right protection. The real old graybeards will remember that five and a quarter disks originally came out as single-sided and later on they came out with double-sided disks, which had a notch on the left and the right side. Clever and frugal. Computer users discovered they could cut a second notch on a single-sided disk and make it double-sided. You could even buy a specialized notch cutter like this one. Oh, my word. Things got a little fancier in the days of the three and a half inch disks. No more tape. These disks had a physical switch you could move to enable or disable right to the disk. Now, I remember that. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. A similar concept of a physical right protection switch exists in some memory cards like SD cards. Thanks for all you guys do for the aviation community and for helping us old folks share tales from the last century. Supercaster now, Papa Victor. Cool. That was fun. Are you still doing that update at work with the floppy disks? Nope. Someone else is doing it. Someone whose primary job is not separating airplanes is doing this job now. But it's going away. I am told by the end of this year we will be on the new IDS Enhanced. IDS-E. Really? Yes. Web-based, easily updateable? I think so. We are going to be one of the first facilities to get this system. Hmm. Yes. You've piqued my interest. Now, just from my experience in a level seven facility, there are so many facilities in the NAS. There's a list and order of who gets these fancy new tools. Typically, it doesn't roll down to the sevens until everybody in a bigger facility, i.e. more traffic. Yeah. And definitely more important people, of course, because they work more airplanes, they're more important. They get everything first. You're saying you're going to be the first? One of the first. Yeah. I don't know if we're the first, but we are definitely at the top of the list. And that is because we are one of the last to still have 1986 DOS program. I think what they've determined, could be wrong, but this is just sort of what I've heard, is that a lot of those bigger places already have a system that's way more functional and capable than what we have now. It's, theirs is sufficient. We need to catch you up to this century. Right. Where they're already way closer to that than we are. And during the last audit that we had, it was discovered that ours was intermittently non-functional in a way that it needed to be. In auto-populating weather sequence and different information that it occasionally was blank or just showed Xs. Yes. Remember that. And they said this has to, this can't be like this. Good. So, yes. Progress. Good luck with that. Yeah, right. Anything else about this one before we move on? Thank you. Thank you, Papa Victor. That was fun. Yes. Time to feedback. I'm exhausted. You have to do this one. Okay. Number one from Supercasters here. Bravo. Hello gentlemen here with some humble feedback on IFR filing and training from a mishmash of recent episodes in episode 411. You talked about filing flight plans for a round robin flight such as for IFR training with practice approaches. In the wonderful world of IKL flight plans as in Australia, there's, or it's almost the opposite. Instead of needing multiple flight plans for a flight to an aerodrome in a different sector, the destination field is designed for the first full stop landing even if that's back at the aerodrome of departure. The, no, hold on a minute. Instead of needing multiple flight plans for a flight to an aerodrome in a different sector, the destination field is designed for the first full stop landing. Okay. IFR training flights from controlled aerodrome will regularly receive a clearance that starts like Cessna ABC, Triad Delivery cleared to Triad via XYZ, provided that the route is listed correctly. This should automate to any other sectors without issue. The delay field is then used to indicate the time you'll spend at a fix or aerodrome doing practice approaches, touch and goes, etc. The plan also has a separate field for the PIC phone number, which ATC does have access to and will based on personal experience use it for loss comms, though I don't think all countries transmit a phone number as part of the flight plan message. No, they do not. And that is why we tell people to put it in the remarks. Right. Because Australia has a lot of uncontrolled aerodromes traditionally with out radar coverage to the ground and ops normal call is used during practice approaches at non-towered aerodromes to maintain your search and rescue watch while the aircraft is out of radar coverage. The pilot will nominate an area they're operating in with an altitude block and a time they'll call back by and ATC maintains the search and rescue watch as they would for a non-radar aircraft. Hmm. This is very similar. This practice that they're using to what we used for flight following in the military locally on base and just in training areas off base. Okay. Where we were not talking to ATC, we were talking to an internal army operations, but it was very similar to what is happening here. It does work pretty well actually. I think your suggestion in OB-415 to go up into actual IMC and do a real flight with a full stop landing operating as you would on a real IFR flight is a great one. Like in the U.S. students here tend to be largely just exposed to practice approaches to prepare them to pass a test and may never even had to plan a visual approach under an IFR flight plan. You mentioned going with a different instructor if your CF-00I is unable or unwilling to go into weather. I would add that depending on the legality and practicality where you are new CF-00I's or double eye candidates should themselves try to jump into the backseat on IFR training flights in actual IMC in order to better understand student errors and teaching techniques, especially with the disorientation of going in and out of clouds. All the best for the Christmas holidays and in 2026, cheers SuperGast, cheers Bravo. Cool, thank you. Happy belated holidays. So let me go back up to how they're filing these. I'm going to make a thought about that paragraph and maybe it'll inspire a thought on your side. Okay. If we had everybody file with the delay field that if it worked and you filed A to A with B, C, and D in between, in theory it would work. Yeah. But go ahead. For some reason it doesn't. Right. There's something that's happening. It's like the two systems aren't talking to each other because the system that you're looking at a screen and you're typing in flight plan information or amendments or whatever flight plan related data, it will retain the flight plan based on these delay times that are entered into there. But something is happening on the scope with the interface between these two where that doesn't carry over because as soon as your tag has spent enough time off of the scope and I can't quantify this in any sort of way. So you went to the second airport, it's outside the airspace. It's off your scope at triad. Go ahead. It automated fine. That first part, let's say they went from Duke's airspace to our airspace and they had a delay at triad of an hour and 30 minutes. It automates Duke hands it off, we take it, it works totally fine. But then at some point they've spent too much time, the tag is off the scope for too long at Duke or at doing approaches at triad. And when they're done an hour and a half later, the flight plan is still in the system. It's still there, but I cannot automate that tag back to Duke. It just doesn't work. And I don't know if that's something that's broken. I have a suspicion that something at the center, which is the host that bridges between us and Duke is broken. There is some problem there. But it happens to every sector, every other sector. And this happens with military frequently where they put a delay in. But when they're done and they take off and they're climbing, getting it to go back to the center. Impossible. It doesn't work. And there are no amount of amendments you can make. It's just not going to happen. We've talked about that before for the military ones that are coming to triad, just file different flight plans. One coming, one leaving. Yes. And go back, was it last week or two weeks ago, we went through this extensively about the nuances of this. But generally, it is better to file multiple flight plans if you're doing delays all over the place. And when I say that it doesn't work, I'm talking, you can delete the tag, delete the flight plan, remove everything from the system, and type a new flight plan in. And it still will not work. Really? Yes. There is something that's hanging on in there somewhere that we cannot understand. Somebody from another facility, the center doesn't have this problem because they can just think something into existence and it just works. They're working in the host computer. And they're not trying to trick any computer into believing this airplane still needs to be here. It just is. And that is exactly a great way to put it. We are tricking the system into automating this thing to the next sector. And it's on to our tricks. It knows our tricks. Someone needs to go over to Australia and find out what they're doing with their program because apparently it's working. Good. Right. It's not working here. It doesn't work. All right. Thank you, Sierra Bravo. I'm going to get number two. Okay. Echo Whiskey, a daring pilot that let me take the controls of a SR-22 one day many years ago. Hi, guys. Congrats on eight years since you mentioned Sierra's aircraft on the episode I thought I'd give you some background. We talked about that with reference to icing and flight in and on icing conditions briefly on a previous episode. Sierra started making an optional SR-22 only non-hazard only weeping wing in 2002. And that continued through 2008. So a non-hazard only weeping wing. In 2009, they certified the flight into known icing conditions system for the SR-22 line, at which time the quote non-hazard system was phased out. All right. So it was like a prequel to their current legally allowed to operate and escape from icing conditions. Before that, they had something that wasn't quite reached the level of certification yet. And they called it the non-hazard only weeping wing. Get you out of a jam, basically. True. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We're not going to put it in a document that it's certified to be here. Yeah. You're right. Like kind of like a get out of jail quickly card. Yeah. But I'm not living here in this place. Well, and the current Fiki system is not meant to be living there either. It's meant to be planned around. And if you encounter it to have an escape plan, it's it gives you more time, but it's still not meant to be hanging out forever. Okay. All SR-20s are clean wing aircraft from 2002 to 2008. Many tail numbers ended in Charlie Delta for Cirrus design, Sierra Romeo for single engine reciprocal, and Sierra Papa for Cirrus perspective. If a controller is talking to one of them, they are not flight into no-nicing equipment Fiki equipped. Okay. Thanks. Echo Delta, November 716, Brava Lima, not blue, not Brava Lima aviation. Are they still running through a triad from a kid? Occasionally, we get them. It's not as frequent. Okay. But yeah, we still do get them. Good to know if you see those call signs like that. So a big picture, I think there might be some controllers that think all Cirrus have Fiki. That's not true. And here's why. Yeah. So Charlie Delta, Sierra Romeo, Charlie Papa, call signs that end in those letters, I guess, are not Fiki equipped. Correct. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Echo whiskey. Echo whiskey. I said Echo Delta. Whoops. Whoops. You get number three. Number three from Supercaster Delta Zulu, show topic of winter flying on OB-14. I just re-listened to the show topic last night and in general you confirm my beliefs. I also realized afterwards that it's a lot like dodging pop-up thunderstorms in the summer, which feels less imposing on controllers because even the big guys have to do that. And the other big thing that stood out was AG pointing out again, the whole controller mindset of did this guy do any planning? But I loved his icing story and his whole sandwich digression. If you're out shooting practice approaches in the winter, what did I say? I don't remember. Oh, make a sandwich. Just take one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's right. Just take a sandwich. You don't have to stop. The uh-oh, better get under that layer before landing skill. Already was in my toolbox because that was a big VFR skill for me. I feared getting trapped on top for good reason. Yes, absolutely. That should be something that is being thought about on long, longer cross countries for VFR. Am I going to get trapped on top of this layer? But you're right that not all pilots seem to have it. A good VFR only friend of mine with hundreds, if not a few thousand hours still operates under the found a whole method of VFR over the top. No. No, no, no, no. Think of being stuck on top of an overcast layer like being over the water. Okay, you fly out too far and there isn't an island to land on. Mm-hmm. You can't turn around and make it back to shore. All right. Where was I? And finally I cut a little of the show topic live but couldn't stay since I was working. You know, we hear this excuse all the time. That's all it is. It's an excuse. It is. You got to pump up those numbers, all right? Just yep. You do better. Just do better. But I couldn't even, not even close to a straight face. But I'm watching the post show now and I had my own fast taxi experience at JFK last January. A story I still need to tell you guys in a feedback. Long story short, I picked up a friend there late one night in my 172 and while I'm taxing for departures somewhere around 12 to 14 knots, I'm noticing the big ADSB target behind me catching up. I don't remember what company they were but now I'm pushing my little skyhawk up to about 22 to 24 knot taxi just to stay ahead of him. The next fun transmission was November 1, 2, 3. Can you take 3-1 right at Echo? I replied, I could take any intersection at this airport. He got a kick out of that. I would have too and cleared me for takeoff. All right in the full story someday soon. Happy New Year guys. Thanks again Delta Zulu. Good feedback. Happy New Year. Mm-hmm. Uh yeah. I have seen especially Box Carrier, they always are in a hurry. Both of the companies, well we have three actually. They're always in a hurry and sometimes I feel like they would just... Just fly right over or drive right over. Just drive right over a Cherokee or somebody ahead of them. It just move on with life. That guy's going way too slow. Did you feel that? Yeah. Yeah but just be mindful of that when you're taxing fast and maybe it's windy. Catch a little gust and you're getting pretty light on the wheels. All right moving on. It's a jet music. All right this big show topic is brought to us by Supercaster Alpha Mike, R.H.N.A.G.I. Did you both? I bid you both a most happy start to 2026. I have quite a few questions for you regarding special VFR operations. Warning wall of text to ensue. It seems most airplane pilots are taught the basics of the concept in private training. Only to be told they should really never use it and it's quickly relecated to the archives of obscurity or similarly ejected from their iceberg shortly thereafter. However as I'm finding out in helicopter operations we're zipping along at 500 feet HL. It's just another day at the office. It seems requesting special VFR clearances is much more commonplace. So let me set the stage for my questions. Before we go special VFR it reduces the VFR cloud clearance requirements. Big picture one mile clear of clouds. A VFR pilot in the daytime. I know there's little nuances and little rabbit holes to go into but there are certain scenarios where going through airspace in or out of a surface area makes sense with close to minimums but not quite VFR. This is a for a fixed wing that's more common. For helicopters it's more common to do what we're going to talk about today. Is that a good old view of special VFR? It is and the helicopter requirement is even less. So VFR airplanes typically don't go near the clouds. Special VFR allows them to get a little bit closer but not go through them. As you know I train out of the Mars Cheese class. Mars Cheese Castle Delta whose approach control is provided by Beers City Traycon this past weekend. The weather was 900 foot ceilings with seven miles visibility. That precluded the planned lesson I had with my instructor but it was a great weather to pick up a local special VFR clearance to do solo pattern work. I didn't even know this existed until I read this. I have never seen it. I've never heard anybody doing it but that it is legal. You're gonna tell a story later. Okay after firing up the air shredder and getting into a comfortable hover on the ramp I asked Howard for exactly that. I was told to stand by while they wiped the drool and confusion off their face. Yeah I found the book went to the phraseology part. Turned to the oldest controller in the room and said can we do this? And they said I don't know look it up. Exactly. So 60 seconds later I was given the special clearance for special VFR within the Delta airspace. I was later informed by my instructor that the delay was them coordinating with the TREKCON for the clearance. I presume to ensure there were no IFR in balance. I think that is an incorrect assumption. It's possible but inside the confines of their airspace it's unlikely that they called the TREKCON because the TREKCON would probably say I don't care what you do. Yeah I pretty much agree with that. There would have to be coordination if there was an IFR. We're gonna get to that. That's the word of the feedback here. So off I went and started doing my laps around the airport. As I took off my third circuit I heard another helicopter call tower announcing they were inbound and requesting a special VFR clearance to land directly at the ramp. As I was coming down to the last 10 feet of my descent to the runway tower called me. Nice timing guys. I'm guessing that's a busy time for a helicopter pilot 10 feet off the ground. It's yeah I mean yeah. They said they needed me to make this one a full stop so they could get the other helicopter in special VFR. Confused I asked what they meant by full stop. Did he want me to stay on the runway? He quickly clarified that did I do that good? Yeah he quickly clarified that he needed me to return to the ramp which I did after I completed my landing. Once at the ramp I proceeded to do various hover work drills while waiting for the other helicopter to land. After he landed I asked for another special VFR to continue my pattern work. Was cleared as previous but after another two laps around the patch was informed I needed to return to the ramp again as he had another IFR ready to depart. I told him I would just call it at this point and I went back to the ramp and did more hover work drills and such. This leads to some of the questions I have. All right this was not the first time I'd done patterns under a special VFR in IFR conditions. Let's be clear here. These aren't terrible conditions. Yeah this isn't like I'm assuming it's not like 300 and a half or no it's 900 feet and seven miles but we're going to assume that oh right you can usually see in your underneath a pretty good solid layer not operating like in a foggy misty. That's how I'm picturing this okay. Yeah I think you're right. All right at one point during our lesson an IFR inbound was on final and we were asked to go to the parallel tax away and hold there until the aircraft landed. After that we were immediately allowed to return to the pattern. Maybe you're seeing where this is going. Back to this past weekend after I was done and shut down another pilot took the helicopter and went out to do some long line work near but inside the airport boundary. What does that mean? Like a sling load that's I think what defines a long line is maybe more than 100 or 100 feet or more. Okay all right but inside the airport boundary he returned 10 minutes later he told us that not only was he told they needed him to return to the ramp for an IFR inbound but then he needed to be skids on the ground. He had apparently asked to land at the edge of the airport where he was working or hover at the ramp and was told neither of those was acceptable. You're nodding your head we're gonna get to that so here are my questions. Okay one is there a regulation or some other governing text that limits an airport to only one special VFR aircraft at a time? The incoming helicopter was going straight to the ramp and would have been nowhere near where I was working but returning to the ramp actually put me in much closer proximity to him when he landed. All right let's stop right there and kind of break some of this out. Okay you're nodding your head I put up the separation I had to go review this. We typically don't get into the weeds like this with rolls? We don't because we don't at work. We never did like this was I'm not seeing we don't get into the weeds but this particular scenario is very very uncommon for us. Very unusual. Special VFR helicopters doing pattern work? Yeah I never saw it. Never ever once. Okay so let's just put that as an overlying possibility. Okay there's maybe one or two controllers at this facility that are comfortable doing this but the remainder don't know if it's legal and instead of looking it up they just don't do it. Right okay here is let me make sure I'm not getting ahead of myself here. That's okay if you do others. But this is the general thought process of controllers for special VFR one in one out end of story. Okay what does one in one out describe what does that mean? I can only have if it's a special VFR aircraft and an IFR aircraft I can only have one of those operating in the airspace at a time. I cannot have both but I don't think that's true with a helicopter. And that's why I throw those separation requirements up there. So for with a fixed wing which one of these may have been in your question. I know one of them was a special VFR helicopter but between special VFR fixed wing aircraft you can only use non radar which is one in one out. We talk about that just think of a non-towered airport. Yeah we could see your target but we're not talking to you we have no way of separating you or protecting the airspace. It's one operation at a time one in one out. Or you can use visual. If there's two special VFR helicopters you can add IFR radar separation which I really don't know how you would apply anyway because you would need a vertical or lateral separation which when you're doing a pattern close to any runway it's going to be very difficult for you to maintain any sort of mileage requirement. And another problem with this scenario is this tower may not have any radar screen and if they do it's not certified for any sort of type of radar separation so all they have is non radar or visual. So this would apply more to a tower like ours where we can use the scope for separation and it's not a pattern work issue. It's like a VFR or a special VFR helicopter transitioning through the north edge or something while there's an aircraft landing on five right IFR and that's what this is for not for pattern you know right it's not meant for pattern work but I can use three miles separation if I need it. Okay but you know an aircraft doing a pattern work is going to be very impossible impossible. No can't do it but the runways are a mile apart not three miles apart. Right all right so typical special VFR operation that I remember was a plane trying to get out of the airspace it was questionable it was like eight or nine hundred feet on one side of the airport they want to go south and say the weather's to the north. All right maintain special VFR at or below 2,500 feet which is the altitude we would have given them now I have no vertical control over them because they have to stay clear of the clouds right right we shoot them off we ship them off to radar they get identified and now the tower airspace is clean again and I can run another IFR operation but when that special VFR happened it was the only thing going on and we couldn't wait for them to get out of the airspace right and that mentality is carried with a lot of controllers so while you got away with it on your pattern and you had the controller in the building that knew what he was doing or saw you the whole time and was using visual which is legal and they didn't have enough workload to preclude them from maintaining visual with you and any other airplanes they made it work next controller not so much right tell your story you have a story about this before I get to their second question okay um we were doing pattern work in the helicopter at night at what type of airport a class delta okay tower is open okay okay it is a military field all right but still same rules basically the weather sucks but when we took off it was VFR so we go about doing our pattern work and I don't know if I was giving a check ride or a training flight or what we were doing but we had a lot to do we have made several laps at this point doing different maneuvers checking different boxes I think we even made comments that man the weather is really coming down you know I think I can't remember how high we would try to be on the downwind on a on a standard runway on the runway side pattern 500 maybe a thousand whatever one it was started to become a questionable definitely at a thousand a gl like no we're not getting that okay so it's pushing us down pushes down well pretty soon the tower calls and says hey okay we're getting some special weather conditions here you know what do you guys want to do and I'm not getting it right you're not understanding that's the clue asked for special v far no I just said well we're not done we're we're done we're done we're done we're done we're done we're done we're done we're done and I can see him I can see now what this guy must have been doing in the tower face palming right and so then we do another lap and he's like all right the field is IFR say intentions and and I'm like well my intentions are to continue doing pattern work it's been working you know I said I said not we got room in the downwind you know to to be under the clouds we're fine we're just going to keep he's like no no the the weather conditions are very special what do you what is your request and I'm like what is this guy talking about why is he speaking in code yeah this was another story where the flat engineer bailed us out okay because he the FE says hey it's IFR you can't be VFR in the pattern he's saying the word special over and over because you need to request special VFR I'm like oh I think it's so great that there's somebody listening in the back watching you two ding dongs figure this out yes and this guy happened to be have his private rating owned a mall I mean he knew he and he knew the whole time he let me go on for 10 minutes not knowing seen if I would figure it out but anyway so I I asked the tower special VFR he goes oh it just spits out the clearance and we continued on with life as normal but yeah I felt really dumb all right question two with either that incoming special VFR traffic or an incoming IFR what are the requirements for the local special VFR traffic the 7110 mentions the ability for the special VFR traffic to be recalled but only says when traffic or weather conditions require without defining what that means is that up to the controller's discretion is there maybe some alloy with the Treycon is there a reason other than controller preference I didn't ask you what time it was one day I was told to hold on a taxi while one other was sent back to the ramp all right so some other little nuggets from the special VFR section which most controllers are not reviewing on a daily basis special VFR flights may be approved only if the arriving and departing aircraft are not delayed authorized local special VFR operations for a specified period upon request if the aircraft can be recalled when traffic or weather conditions require so their solution and this is that sounds like what happened to the second helicopter user their solution was I'm going to treat this like non-radar one in one out put the airplane down no longer be airborne and I don't have to worry about what the rule says I'm going to let this IFR land and then and only then while I allow the special VFR which I'm really not sure what I'm allowed to do with you is allowed to be airborne again so that's why they said skids on the ground which is coming up at number three and finally what about this hovering at the ramp granted I didn't tell the tower I was going to do when I returned there so maybe I was in the wrong but got away with it question mark meanwhile because the other pilots specifically asked them to be skids on the ground it's a non-movement area where normally we can operate all we want without ever talking to ground or tower so requiring them to be on the ground seems strange to me I think that was their way and you correct me if you think I'm wrong here I think that was the way to completely remove them from the equation yeah in their mind in their mind yeah because a helicopter hovering stationary does not I I don't think counts as an aircraft operating I agree with you that would be like saying a skyhawk on the ramp can't be an idle part you know right right without a clearance right I see where you mean yeah give me a break I still am having a hard time in both these scenarios trying to figure out unless it's really busy or where you're doing this pattern work is is another side of the tower completely like it's causing them to turn around why they wouldn't use visuals 900 feet seal 900 foot ceilings and seven miles viz isn't wonderful but it's certainly enough to see your operating environment in the tower and and see a helicopter now we never used visual for special vfrs that left we pretty much the next IFR that left was was given afforded pretty much sterile airspace right we got we got rid of a departure a special vfr before we let an IFR work but I suppose if I needed to I could use visual what am I missing here why why are these controllers so up they're being obtuse about the visual part be sitting down and putting down the ramp it's like I could see you there I know you're not it I could see you yeah I'm going back to this rule uh the separation rule apply non radar visual or IFR separation so it's a grab bag of all of the separations between special vfr helicopters and IFR aircraft right period it doesn't say IFR helicopters it doesn't say IFR fixed wing it just says IFR aircraft mm-hmm yeah so you totally could do visual separation yeah in both in the other column too in in a you could do visual now okay mm here's the thing okay at 900 feet when is that IFR going to break out pretty close to the airport yeah and what form of separation was being used up to that point okay very good point okay so what I'm talking about here is an approved form of separation must be applied before and after the use of visual separation okay so this 900 foot aircraft breaks out you can see them but they're on a three mile final now or inside of three miles and you've already busted yes standard radar separation ah very good point this is what's happening mm-hmm so they say all right special vfr we need to remove you from the equation yes now what they could have done is once they okay you've landed the helicopter this plane breaks out I see the plane I see the helicopter mm-hmm you can resume operations you're smarter than me but what they're saving there is not a ton extra mm-hmm a couple miles of flying mm-hmm I yeah I didn't think about that that's the key right there and there could have been some interaction on the on the tracon side hey I'm gonna assume they have scope and they could see how close they are to the airport but I have an IFR inbound and at 900 feet you'll make a great point they are going to be not visible from the tower until they get well within my three mile bubble that I need to apply IFR radar separation and by the way I might not be legal to do that in this tower anyway so I'm gonna park this special vfr over here into my I don't have to worry about it bucket and wait till this IFR lands or departs in the other case yeah and that that may be the case even for this aircraft doing long line stuff way out on the edge of the airport mm-hmm if you were saying on the edge of the delta mm-hmm maybe we can't maybe this can work because now I do have three miles mm-hmm but if it's on the airport yeah nah it's probably not happening and if you were on the edge of the delta the likelihood of you talking to the tower then would be pretty low you'd be probably talking to radar anyway and they could do their own separation between the two um all right of course I would not want to throw anyone under the bus except for maybe me given how obscure a special vfr clearance this seemed to be I'm not shocked by the inconsistencies but looking to understand what's required versus what's more variable thanks as always for your amazing service you provide and the perspectives you continue to share alpha mic I think I hit on all the things I wanted to hit on it's it's not used a lot it does cause some confusion AG brings up a very good mathematical problem with the three miles inside of three if it was you know a thousand foot ceilings we wouldn't have in this conversation because it's technically vfr but that 900 feet does make a difference you you alluded to this in this first paragraph of commentary and we skipped it okay go for it yeah you said it um without visual separation tower applied or pilot to pilot a special vfr helicopter needs some approved method of radar separation or non radar uh oh think one in one out so right so yeah that that's the hang up that's the hang up here and as far as skids on the ground I think that's uh you know that's going to come down to the individual controller do they really care if you're at a hover or not like it's like okay well hey if you're hovering that means you could just bolt off in any direction at any time well guess what guy it's a helicopter and they could do that from the ground you know they don't have to be hovering the time requirement from being on the ground to a hover is nothing so I think that is a that's nitpicky and I don't think it's necessary but to each their own um yeah either way I think in this scenario it does make sense that they're going to make you stop and not be someone I have to separate from yeah I didn't mean to end a sentence in from but that's how it went down so I used to get things for that all the time so what alpha mic thank you next week we'll hear about your progress you sent us in some updates on your helicopter rating progress it sounds like you're having fun doing all the fun things and just so you know when you go back to flying an airplane with wings it's going to be super boring compared to what you're doing now yes and you're this running around in questionable weather which I will tell you in a helicopter seems totally not scary all right I have because you're you could just get so slow and low and slow and low and you feel like you could just go land in any field you know if it really became that bad but I have scud run in 300 foot ceilings and less than a mile viz and not been super concerned about it we did flights overseas where it was like 500 overcast but all you were doing is cruising through the open desert and there's nothing out there so it feels way better in a helicopter than it does in an airplane that's fair so you're there's going to be a when you go back to airplanes you have to put that helicopter mentality away it's like cheating cool one last thing I wanted to say it might be worth a phone call to the tower you're not committing a crime by doing what you did it's the hover thing I think it depends on you know just the the comfort level of the controller working the special vfr but don't be afraid to call them and say hey here's what we're trying to do and we want to be good users of the NAS special vfr really helps us do the pattern work can you give me a general picture of where the facility stands with doing this operation because we're getting inconsistencies which is fine you know it's all about the tone and the way you ask that question um ask for someone who has a little more comfort with special vfr and get there put on or take on it that's might be worth making the call yep all right anything else nope I love that though this is a great discussion and I'm going to we're gonna have this discussion at work okay next time I'm there on a day shift good yep I like it all right moving on feedback I'm feedback I finished the topic so long as you read it well I have one feedback today okay don't you roll your eyes at me oh it's fine I'll do it number one do you remember that commercial the oldest trick in the book I don't remember what it was a commercial for but the guy says that's the oldest trick in the book and then they do a flashback you know to this like Socrates guy right and he's looking at this book and he says trick number one looketh over there and his assistant looks over there he goes made us thou look so in this the trick anyway this that's how my brain works everybody got to see it from supercaster songwriter Romeo Kilo uh reference the 12 days of obi christmas yes thank you for that greetings r h and a g this past year there was a lot of news and talk about atc controller shortages I was wondering uh that besides the shortages what technology would you like to see installed into the system to help you do your job better or easier or maybe more efficiently this could be technology that already exists or something that might need to be invented oh boy uh as a pilot a few things I would like to see are digital aid is at all airports every airport have digital clearances or cpdlc where feasible and have the proposed runway to expect for takeoff included in the clearance uh of course my perspective is from the 121 world but it would be interesting to hear from your listeners not in the 121 world what they would like to see also a ham maybe a center controller's perspective also tracome controllers rock okay let me let me uh address this one thing the proposed runway to expect for takeoff we can include now in our pdcs and we don't so that we can change today yes that can happen right now um it's just something they're not doing I'm gonna give you the pilot perspective on that okay when when we push back and it's time to go we've already done all the paperwork we've gotten data for the runway that we expect and in a lot of airports it's advertised this is the runway we're departing think parallel operations that are pervasive in the nasa especially at bravos where I'm operating domestically it's pretty much known where you're going to get a change when you push back because you got a new ground controller or something happened on the other runway that they could have forecast earlier when you got your clearance it's frustrating because we've got to go do that work again and it's not a really good time to do it we've briefed that we've already looked at the obstacles for that runway we've we've done a lot of work to make that be the case and if it's it's a guess and then it changes it's frustrating that's it that's all I wanted to say on that part okay it would be awesome if they all included it this is the runway you're going to be using for takeoff it makes our lives a lot easier yeah yeah um okay what what changes or technology would like to see installed well one we're supposedly already getting is a better information display and in contained therein is approach plates uh weather notums aircraft types uh identifiers location identifiers what I would like to see that be as a as a product for us is much more user friendly much more customizable locally much more up to date not a thing that we have to go and update but you know the fAA maintains databases of let's say aircraft identifiers and things that go away or things that are or new especially the new ones I just want it to be in there and I want a picture that isn't from 1952 that someone sketched on the back of a napkin because that's what half of our ones look like so uh that's just an example um the approach plates it just cannot be that difficult in today's world where every 56 days we get new plates that when I go and click on an approach it is the plate that's now no one had to do anything it just is how the system works it goes and takes it from the repository or wherever it has to come from to be current this is what it is pilots have that instantly in an iPad an off-the-shelf thing and an app that was installed on that a fantastic app the fAA could look at that and say how could we adapt this for controllers total game changer that would be a game changer give me information real time that I can access quickly and easily you need connectivity yes in some sort of modern format a trackball a trackball that people haven't seen since 1992 give me a touchscreen have it mounted next to my workstation you want these you want these kids that you're trying to attract to come and do this job to be attracted to it make it not from 1987 okay make it modern make things quicker so that's just the ids information display system I would love to have more digital adis capability more automated clearance capability that saves us so much time and and takes away any guessing or confusion about what did you say was the read back correct it's just printed out it's right there it's in black and white super easy you know there's been all this talk about radar the radar you know not being adequate or fast enough to update or I it could be a little bit faster but it's pretty good the radar really is pretty good you got to think about just physically on a scope you can only make the dot that represents the plane so small before I can't see it anymore there has to be a symbol on that dot that tells me who owns this tag what sector owns this tag so there's symbology that has to take place if you make it so small no one can read it right so I'm talking about like the fidelity of when you zoom in how much space physically on the earth does this blue dot that represents this plane take up well it's like significant three quarters of a mile yeah a half a mile a couple city blocks you can't make it smaller though because then I can't see it anymore so you know I have people ask questions about okay we changed the refresh rate this thing is updated sub one second which we're already basically at a second now so it's updating faster and it's more resolution I'm like okay well so what now what we can our separation goes down to two miles like is that what we want to do no nobody wants that anyway so really the radar to me is not as big of a deal as they as everyone made it out to be post dca crash that was all the talk right they've got this radar from 19 whatever but to me the radar is not now there are some things about it and we get these false targets and everything there's some of that stuff that could be cleaned up and changed maybe but as far as the presentation and how fast and accurate it is man it's pretty good and now with pretty good and now with adsb yeah game changer huge so yeah there are small improvements for the radar but mostly I don't as other than that the software for the radar could be changed I would love to be able to hand an aircraft off to whoever I want to hand it off to magic buttons yeah I don't want to have to trick the system mm-hmm that's the first one in my list of things that I my small christmas list okay seamless automation yes I want seamless automation and atc what that means is there are no more trickeries happening there's no more typing a book to figure out how to make this airplane flash all the systems talk to each other e-ram and all the fancy acronyms they're all housed in one big cohesive fun place in data world that gets along and everybody's treated the same and you can flash to anybody right this second I want to go to a facility that starts with the letter f f slew flash it starts blinking on their scope that's what I want right that's what that would be my first and biggest request I could not stand automation issues that would be a game changer that really would so that and that sort of is a radar function so I guess in that aspect but that's more of a software change anyway please continue true two-way cpdlc we could ask for stuff right now we could ask for altitude changes we could ask for we could type in free text centers can see that but we still have to check in with you I wish we could do that through cpdlc because they send us a message that says contact this facility on this frequency we hit a button it says we got your message except and the center controller sees that we've us we've already established two-way communication I did that six hours ago my radios work I don't want to do this radio check every time I check in in fact I would love it if I never had to talk to a center controller again I don't have to they can give us all the things yeah so when I check in I want to be able to do that automated yesterday an aircraft came through vfr flight following overflight and at some point in getting to the first sector the radio stopped working they could hear us but could not transmit we determined that okay and mr grumpy pants controller in first sector said we're going to terminate you at the boundary acknowledge with an ident the guy I dense okay gets handed off to me he he was told when you switch frequencies and get on that frequency I dent so the next controller can see that you're there he I dense I said I see your I dent welcome I am not terminating you at the boundary I will be handing you off to the next sector yeah he I dented okay got it so what I'm saying is and that's super root crudiment you know crude right rudimentary sort of communication that can see that even can happen yeah without voice so we have this great technology of being able to respond and acknowledge and send detailed complex messages to it yes my last one on my list this is a big one okay a full rewrite from from page one all the way to the last page of the 7110 yes yes bring the 7110 out of 1960 and stop adapting rules from 1960 adapting them to 2025 26 stop doing that rewrite it rewrite it you've handcuffed these controllers with archaic rules with a foundation of non radar where airplanes used to fly in the last century halfway through the last century non radar was pervasive we are beyond that we have adsb catch up airplanes have it modern avionics are a totally different ballgame now I get we're working with airplanes that are antiques I get that but even those that those work better than they do the new ones so the rules could be rewritten to really maximize on that efficiency adsb is a game changer and we need to catch up all the roles start at page one and not just people that are working on one side of the fence here we need pilots involved let's go through line by line does this make sense today no it actually makes no sense right let's fix it let's do it the whole thing letters of agreement also yes yes you're that's absolutely right uh and see I won't go on us I won't go on a rant about that that's my small list just a couple of things uh yeah the other thing I thought oh good yeah there's a lot of stuff that could be updated based on how things have changed rapidly I mean think about for the the period of time that we operated pre gps was basically unchanged for a long time and then gps adsb all of these technologies efbs yeah 15 years band that really became pervasive yeah internet connectivity on board aircraft all of this changed very rapidly and and the system aviation as we've talked about before is very slow anyway it is so far behind it's so far behind it has to be caught up and for those of you're thinking hey we want more airplanes in the sky and we want you know freeways of these airplanes we want to get them closer together that may happen one day separation could be reduced with the technologies that we have but until you build more runways there's nowhere for them to go exactly so it doesn't really matter right it doesn't matter because at some point they all go to the same place right yeah the the sky is big and lots of planes will fit there but they won't fit on the runway mm-hmm cool great question romeo kilo thanks for getting us on a fun wish list we could go on and on about all of that stuff all right uh we do our best to respond to support a feedback and let you know when you will be on an upcoming show hey did you anything to add before the chat I do not closing out episode 420 of opposing bases air traffic talk romeo hotel and alpha golf goodbye everyone drop opposing bases is a listener supported ad-free weekly podcast the views expressed on the show do not reflect the opinions or official positions of the f a or penguin airlines episodes are for entertainment purposes only and are not intended to replace flight instruction to get on time access bonus content and full archive access join the crew at opposing bases dot supercast dot com哎哎