OB434: No Beeps, No Sweeps, No Creeps

All right. Well, is it fair to say though that without ADSB that this would have been a nightmare scenario for the entire time? Absolutely. We would have shut down everything extra. No cracks approaches. No pattern work. Nothing. Right. Because we can't do our jobs the way we're normally used to doing our job. This becomes super awkward. No ADSB, no primary is non-radar below 6,000. 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 Monday, April 20th, 2026, episode 434 on today's show. We'll talk about a recent radar outage at Triad to decide for a tricky lost calm situation and answer more of your aviation questions. What's up, AJ? Hello, hello, everyone. Happy Monday. Monday. Monday. A strange day for recording. It's been a long time since we did a Monday. Yes. A change in your work schedule. So this is day one for you. I know over time this weekend you've been relaxed. Tell us about your weekend. Where did you go? What did you do? All the things. Yeah, it was a busy weekend. Hopefully I've recovered. So I had my two mids. Let's see. Friday, I got off the mid. I got home. I got off at 7. I got to bed maybe at 7.30 and I might have slept an hour and a best. Got up, got ready and left, met a friend. We drove together to Virginia up to Williamsburg and we got there at 3-ish, changed, went to the freight train farewell. In a suit, looking dapper. Yes, in a suit and a tie. There were people and we could have worn tuxedos and we would not have been out of place for sure. Okay. So my reserve unit that was there at Fort Eustis, the Chinook unit, is being shut down. They're closing it up and distributing those helicopters to the active duty and guard units. And so this was the farewell. This was the freight train farewell. There were guys from Vietnam there that were in the original freight train unit. So hold on. Let me get a point of information here. A freight train is reserved for that unit. That call sign will be gone? Yeah, it's gone. Wow. Okay. Unless it is resurrected like it was for us in 2003. So the original Vietnam unit had been closed down at some point. I don't know the dates in the history of that. But then when my unit was getting deployed to Iraq in 03, they resurrected the unit. All the Vietnam guys came, they did a pass down. Wow. There was the ceremony and they reinstated freight train. It existed that way since 2003 through all those deployments. And the Army for whatever reason has decided that they are closing up all reserve helicopter units, which is really ironic because forever the fixed wing units were the ones on the chopping block because the helicopter guys were the ones overseas doing all the work, like real world missions. And they're like, well, this fixed wing thing, it's not really, it doesn't do a whole lot. It doesn't have an overseas mission. It's on the chopping block. We're going to shut it down. So that was the threat every year for fixed wing. Well, then it ends up being the helicopters that they got rid of. But it was really good. Man, it was good to see people I hadn't seen in a long time. People I hadn't seen since before I left. I left in 2018 and I hadn't seen people, these people since before then. So it was great to see them. My throat is still recovering because they had an Army band there playing all night. It was very loud. It's just one of those events where you have to yell at everyone to have any conversation. So, and you're old now. You can't really hear anymore. Right. And I can't hear. And the pollen has finally got to me. All right. Just yesterday I was outside and the wind was blowing I could feel it just flying into my eyes and into my throat. It was brutal. Having that problem right now. Yeah. It was brutal. Well, cool. That's awesome. In a good way, in a bad way. Congratulations to the unit. I'm glad you got to meet some of your old friends and fellow pilots and farewell to the freight train unit. Yeah. Yeah. What about your trips? You did a couple, right? I did back to backs to Porto, which has replaced London as my favorite overnight. I love it there. It's amazing. I got to go back to the restaurant that I've been talking about. I finally went back. I had a great, great two trips. So, I mean, all I did was there and back twice in a row. I didn't come home. I went and saw a friend in North Jersey over the weekend. We had dinner. One of my college roommates, high school friends. So that was nice in between trips. And on the second, Porto, is when I went to that restaurant and had a great, just a great experience. And I was asking the same guy, one of the owners, family members, hey, I got to know how to make this because I might not be back for a while. I want to try to make this at home. He says, I want you to take one of the cookbooks. I'm like, what? Yeah, whoa. It came out since my last visit. Oh, okay. And it gives the story of... It wasn't there before. It gives all the stories of the owner and all the family involved and anyway, I brought that home with some other fun souvenirs from Porto for the family. And yeah, I'm home for another 12 hours and I leave for LA tomorrow. Wow. Not quite the same as going to Porto. Right. Just a quick two day trip. So... How did you find that restaurant? It's number one on Yelp. And I try to use Yelp when I'm in Europe. If some places don't, there's nobody on the map. It just says we're not in this area. Okay. Well, when I went in, several years ago, or a couple years ago, the first time, that was number one. And there's a reason it's number one. It's amazing. Tapa Bento. Everybody, if you're in Porto, make reservations way far in advance. Tapa Bento. It's in the train station. It's charming. It's amazing. It's awesome. Go. Cool. Yeah. Shall we begin? All right. All right. Since OB433, we have some new members on the Iceberg Echo Papa. Kilo Bravo. Juliette November. Sierra Sierra. Juliette Romeo. Sierra Golf. Juliet Whiskey. Juliette Mike. And Mike Mike. And a PayPal drop from Golf Mike. Welcome, everybody. 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 episode on time with no delays. Our 433 episode back catalog. Access to our live stream video recordings each week. Bonus audio on topics we don't normally dive into on the show. And a direct line to us through our supporter only email. You will keep the show ad free and community supported. You can learn more at opposingbases.supercast.com. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Review and announcements. Review and announcements. Would you like to review, sir? All right. Five stars titled Five Stars. Excellent. I am a somewhat new listener and have been listening nonstop since I found you guys. I've been working in aviation for five this year as an airline SOCCs. I used to know what that meant. I'm not going to pretend to remember that acronym right now. Something operations center maybe as a dispatcher. Command centers. Operations command center. Yeah. I should know this. Call the SOCC. Yeah. Right. Now I have started my next chapter in aviation at the FAA Academy for ATC. Awesome. Cool. Cheers. Yeah. I just wanted to say the information you put out into the world, not just other aviation professionals is outstanding. Thank you for all you do, Whiskey's here. Cool. Well, good luck at the Academy. Keep us posted. Yeah. I'm going to rant about that a little bit today. Oh, good. I do. I'm going to rant. I think we'll do it in the Charlie Alpha segment. How about that? Okay. All right. As I didn't put it in the notes. All right. We have some announcements. Number one, actually, we just, let me do it here. I have a picture. Can you get that picture on the screen? We've got a nice LB gear. It is instrument check ride high AG and RH. Excited to share that I passed my instrument check ride last week. Congrats. I'll keep my announcement shorter this time and just say once again, thank you for producing the show. It was invaluable to my education and growth as an instrument pilot on to commercial. Julie Charlie Supercaster, Penguin Explorer. Thanks for sending the picture with six Tango Golf and your nice OB shirt. Congrats. Cool. Congrats. Number two, I passed my FOI written test today with a score of 100%. Congrats. This was also the first test endorsement to be given out by a newly minted CFI and fellow co-host of the Flying Midwest podcast, Juliet Sierra, which means he currently has a success rate of 100% passing scores for those he has endorsed. If anybody's confused to take written, so you have to get an endorsement from an instructor, that's what he's talking about here. Someone has to say, go and take this test. We've verified that you're prepared. Now on to advanced ground instructor, instrument ground instructor, the FISDO approval for actually being a ground instructor, commercial from the right seat, and then CFI. Hopefully all by the end of the year, I'll go for double I right away, but I'm not sure how much value students would get flying. Oh, this is from the Badgerpot with slant alpha, slant amazingly slant useful plane for their instrument trading. Hey, like we said, we did defend that plane. It's perfect for instruction. You're going to be able to do all the things for approaches, old school, traditional, maybe not the R and N approaches, but VOR approaches, ILS approaches, and the like. So, right. Cool. Congrats. You're absorbing a lot of information. You want number three? I'm tired. Number three. Good afternoon, A.G. and R.H. commenting from under the Smurf Bravo with, excuse me, news of passing my CFTB like check ride. Congrats. This marks my fourth rating in the last 12 months. Wow. The famous saying that each rating in a certificate to learn, each rating in a certificate to learn will forever hold true. Thank you for filling my iceberg with all the penguins one would want. Thanks, Julia Delta. Cool. Congrats. Excellent. You want the last one? No, no, no. This is fine. Number four. A.G. and R.H. thought this would be an interesting thought experiment and maybe a fun thing to share on the show. While back in the three 80s or 90s, someone left feedback mentioning keeping track of time according to OB episodes, such as we do with BCE and AD, I am surprised that no one has chronicled their life yet. So here is my pilot career in terms of OB and BOB, which is before OB. All right. First flight school lesson was BOB 90. This is weeks. I did the math. He's correct. This is very close. 90 weeks. Yes, prior to our first episode. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Wow, 90 weeks. Okay. I had to wrap my head around what 90 weeks is. First solo, BOB 75, private pilot license, BOB 66, instrument rating, Bob 51. So now we're 51 weeks. So we're a year. Got an instrument rating a year before we started recording. All right. Then commercial license, OB 29. Now this lines up directly with the episode numbers. Okay. Okay. That's a lot of weeks between instrument rating and commercial. Okay. Over a year. Well, over a year. CFI was OB 38, multi add on OB 134, first part 135 airframe check ride, flying with Britain Norman Islanders into the back country of the potato state. Wow. Which is a very common milestone that people send us all the time. OB, OB 232. The second part 135 airframe check ride, flying caravans into the back country of the potato state was OB 279. The third part 135 airframe check ride dream job flying on fires as an air attack pilot in a Kodiak 100, OB 380. And the fourth part 135 airframe check ride same air attack job now in a PC 12, OB 431. Congrats. That was recent. That's cool. And that's it. My flying career according to OB. Supercaster Sierra Papa. And the PC 12, what? Just, it's all over the place. That's such a great airplane to work. It is. I feel like, okay. Yeah, I find myself all the time. We have one customer who comes in on the mid, it's late at night. They're carrying a lot of things, a lot of biologicals. Yeah, they're the only plane. We're usually on two threes, but they're set up straight in for fives. Boom. So I'm, you know, whatever you want fives, even if it's a little bit of a tailwind and do impossible descents, impossible. Yeah. I imagine the flight spoilers like just 90 degree pieces of sheet metal, like eight feet tall. It must be something. I mean, and you know, do 300 knots with the tailwind all the way, all the way down until the, right at the last minute, slow down and still make the intersection that goes straight into the FBO. There's just no other plane. There's no other plane. Fun tip for the controllers out there that have never worked a tie between a PC 12 and an Airbus 300. Let's call that tie. The Airbus is 10 to 15 miles behind them. Make the Pilatus number one. You're not going to be, you won't be put to shame. Don't do anything else. If they start as number one, keep them number one. I promise it'll work. Yeah. And just tell them if you need, just say go fast. Yep. They will go fast. It's just such an amazing plane. It really is. I'm always amazed. It's on my, if I hit the lottery list, I want that plane. Yeah. So, all right. Cool. Thanks, Sierra Papa. And move it on. Dive, Dave, be back. All right, you've got the bobs. I'll do number one from Supercaster, Sierra Whiskey. I wanted to share some support for AGN campaign to confirm that trackup is the correct way to orient your moving map. I checked, I said I would do this. I checked on the VFR overlay map on a, I don't know if I'm allowed to say the product or not, on the EFP that we use. I pulled up, you could put up a VFR map. When I do track up everything on the map, functions just like it would on the IFR, everything is readable. It's not upside down if you're heading south. Everything's, you can read it, lakes. On your product. Yes. Right. I have not tried that on the GA version because I don't have any data for that. I can't do that. I think some of the things that you need, no, I don't, it's been a while since I used it, but when you had the map was actually like a picture of the sectional. Yes. It didn't, it didn't orient correctly. The words on the overlay, not the overlay, but on the map itself were upside down, but then you had data overlays that you could select, which, what, what do you want to look at? Airports, you know, VORs, whatever, that would orient correctly. Okay. But the underlay, I guess, was upside down. Right. And that's not the case with REFPs. Just saying that. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm in the midst of my IFR training. I went up for a lesson with my instructor on one of the other partners in the plane had flown before me and set the map on navigator to north up. When my instructor saw this, he said the following, Sarah Whiskey, there are two types of pilots in the world, those who fly track up and psychopaths. Sarah Whiskey, are you a psychopath? I assure you that I am not a psychopath. However, I would assume most psychopaths would say that too. In any case, I was already on a significant helmet fire because my instructor had previously assigned the incredibly complex task of pulling up the approach plate. Right. So when he pointed out that my map was north up, I felt melted brain matter ooze out of my headset, ear cups. After what felt like 15 minutes, I was finally able to remember how to push the button on the top of the map in track up mode. I, of course, blew the approach I was working on as I had fixated on the map. My double eye seemed to really enjoy watching the meltdown. I've said this before, I don't think people really appreciate how stupid we get when we close the door and then how that compounds when you turn the engine on. Right. Simple tasks take up a ton of our brain RAM that we just don't have. It just takes so many iterations of doing it over and over and over before it becomes second nature. Now, I verify the navigator map setting on the ground and have lobby to Avidine for a firmware update to eliminate the north up option I will advise when they comply. So this would be a fixed device in the plane. If that was north up, it would be, it would be weird to be flying like that. The AFB discussions, what I've been kind of justifying north up in some bigger zoom out situations, but thanks for everything. Your show has really given me much more confidence in my IRFOR training. Sarah Whiskey, cool. Thanks for sharing that. I love that line. Tell your instructor he made me laugh. You want number two? Number two from a center controller with wonderful writing skills. There was a brief, there was a brief discussion in OB412 about Metroplex landing direction and how that is coordinated to try it. I'll briefly explain how we get notified in center land and what it means for us. Usually we have, or usually we find out via a phone call from the TMU, that's traffic management unit, to the area soup. Good job. You did it. Oh, thank you. We got an acronym to the area soup who will then announce hold Metroplex arrivals. They are going south. Occasionally they can manage a switch without holding, but that's pretty rare. We usually end up holding a few arrivals for five to 15. If they chose a good window on a bad weather day, where the direction shift was not planned, but has to happen in the middle of an arrival push, it can be a lot more work. Yeah. Yeah. That's a mess. The planes are coming, everybody. They're coming all day long in streams from five different corners or posts. Just imagine that. Now the arrival change is considerably, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. We also get a strip that prints out for Atlanta and Metroplex. This comes from our TMU and we have a display on every scope that shows landing direction, which turns yellow when either airport changes. Interesting. If that strip prints before we get notified, I usually call the arrival controller and verify landing direction. Sometimes the arrival controller will call directly on the shout line to say, we are north or south starting with a specific arrival. That I like. Yeah. That's nice. This is the only way to do it on the mid, right? Because you don't have all those other people. Yeah. It's just the controllers. We also are required to call capital center and notify them of the landing direction as they issued descend via on some arrivals. Okay. That happens from the capital center side of our northeastern side of the arrival going into the northeastern post, for sure. Okay. For us, the landing direction drastically changes the altitude windows on the descend via by as much as 7,000 feet in some cases. We need to know early enough to get to give the arrivals time to get down as well as allow the pilots to set up for the new landing direction. Vectors to give extra flying time for a descent are not uncommon. Then for the next 10 minutes or so, every aircraft getting a descend via will question the landing direction, right? I guess they got the ATIS too early. That's not uncommon. Especially with digital ATIS, aircraft are getting far away. They're getting it so early that by the time they get to us and check in and say we have ATIS, you know, whatever, it's been 20 minutes since the new one came out. Yeah. So you guys with digital ATIS use caution there. In a perfect world, the wind would only shift at the top of the hour. And on the ATIS, we would know about it at 54. And the control would push out in six minutes. We're going to go to this runway. And then there would be no confusion. Right. Because we're waiting for that. A lot of pilots are waiting. I know I am at least. I'm waiting for 54 or 55 before I go in there again. I don't want to waste my time getting an old ATIS that I know is going to be replaced. Yeah. And hey, give the guy on the middle break, okay, on pushing out a new ATIS. Because if I have planes, if I'm working planes and halfway busy, I'm not going over there to cut an ATIS. Don't care. Yeah. I'm working airplanes. Like I'm not going, you know, it's in, it's one in the morning. So I'm already, you know, mentally taxed, just working a small handful of airplanes. I'm not going to then add another thing that isn't critical to separation. So when you check in, oh, we, we got the stale ATIS. Oh, we got this old dusty ATIS. Like really? Okay. Well, guess what? I'll tell you what, I'll set you up and you can go hold until you get the new one. How about that? Okay. Okay, they continue. After that, it's business as usual for the next 45 minutes until Metroplex decides to switch again. I hope not. I kid, but some days they can't make up their mind. Unfortunately, a center controller trolley hotel. Okay, so this is the most self aware center controller we've ever heard from. They understand, they know. Thank you for being brave enough to send us a note. Yeah, so brave. All right, we get the same strips, that same strip prints out. It tells us what Atlanta is on and what Metroplex is on. Does controller with atrocious settings still say approved when they call from Metroplex? Yes, when Metroplex calls to say we're going north, he says approved. Which is fun. This fun. He calls them when we go north, right? Does he still do that? Okay. And they're like, we don't care. Yeah, okay. Okay, fancy jet music. Thank you, Charlie Hotel. All right, this week's show topic is radar outages and the amazing ADSB from Supercaster, Alpha Mike Bravo, Hello Gents, a certain mythical airport is currently dealing with radar outage. This was a few weeks ago and it got me wondering about how much of an effect that has on operations. Luckily, I know just the duo to burden with my pursuit of knowledge. Let's do these one by one. You're the in-house triad expert right now and you live this. I did. We're going to talk about this. Everybody thinks, no big deal, you have ADSB, want, want. What's the big deal? We're going to talk about that. One, are there remote radar systems like there are for radio receivers and transmitters or is the singular spinning dish at the airport the only one? Take it away, AG. Okay, so it's not the only radar feed, but it is the only short range radar feed. I don't want to say a bunch of stuff that I don't know exactly, but a short range radar is good for three mile separation out to 40 miles. That is correct. So, you know, like the Duke radar feed, tapping into that wouldn't, we're too far away. It would essentially be a long range. Right, it would turn it into a long range and it, they just aren't certified for being used that way. So it doesn't help us a ton unless we were working parts of Duke's airspace, which there isn't even a provision for that. So it's not necessary. We have two long range feeds from the center, from both centers, one from each, I believe. I never thought about that, but I think that's true. Yeah. That's from each one. Yeah. So those without the short range and without ADS-B, which we'll get into, make it very slow and clunky. It's really a pain. We frequently have no radar coverage below 6,000. In fact, that without ADS-B, that is the, how we work it. Non-radar below 6. Right. Which half the building's never done. Right. That's an old thing. Yeah. We used to do it all the time though. Yep. So there's a mode now in stars called fusion and it takes all of these feeds, the short range, ADS-B and the long ranges, and it puts them together into this amazing, it really is amazing. If you ever worked radar on the old arts with just the short range, getting seven second updates and a little blip going bloop, bloop, ever. Yeah, forever. This is near real time. It's like one second updates. Were you deployed when we switched to fusion? I can't remember. No, I was there. I was in the building when we made this. Do you remember how that felt? Yeah, it was just working. For all the kids in the room. If you're watching anything on that stream that's before high-def television, it's the box, you know, the square. What is that? What's that ratio called? Oh yeah. I don't know. It was 480. Yeah. Yeah. Old 480, non-high-def. It felt like going from that. To high-def. Now, imagine that old non-high-def was black and white. To color, high definition, big screen. Yeah. In one day, we just trans- it was amazing. It was. So I agree with you that summary of that. You became a changer. It was huge. And it made working different. Your timing was immediately had to change. You didn't have to count in your head. You didn't have to wait for the target to, because the target faded off. Unless you had the brightness turned up really bright, which some people did, and I thought those were trails. It was burning into the screen. Right. That's what it was doing. Yeah. You had to wait for the dot to come back. Yeah. Now it's just there all the time. Yes. If anybody wants to go live that, go back to a scope nobody uses in the room, and then just turn on, turn off ADSB and turn off. I don't know how to do that. I don't know what the things to say to do that anymore. I forget. But you can make it where it's just long range. Yeah. Or just your short range. Yeah. And you won't last a minute looking at that before you get uncomfortable. And that's how it was all the time. That's how A.G. and I learned radar. Yeah. Sorry. And that was before they added ADSB. So we were just the short range and two long ranges, which the long ranges did not help us below 6,000 really. All right. So your point is Fusion feeds all that together. It's one beautiful product and it's amazing. So number two, ADSB out equipped aircraft are currently the only customers permitted to do practice approaches or pattern work at this airport. I'm not sure why you guys limited on pattern work, but does that mean ADSB is a legal substitute for traditional radar for providing separation or is it just a situational awareness tool that reduces control workload enough to continue providing these services? Okay. So for pattern work, well, I think the idea behind that, and I wasn't like on the committee or anything, but my guess is would be to cover the military jets coming to do pattern work. So they needed that because we're frequently using radar separation with them in the pattern with other traffic. The other thing now, and this may not have applied then, but now it would, is this a helicopter thing where I can't use visual, I can't use non-radar basically. I need some kind of altitude and lateral radar separation that if you didn't have ADSB during this period, I cannot. It isn't going to work. Okay. Yeah. So we had a military aircraft in the pattern who had ADSB and it just wasn't turned on and they would skip, the target would skip and jump like a mile sometimes, which is not fun. Nope. Jumping targets are no fun. Yeah. So I think the reason I questioned it, and maybe I'm kind of falling into that trap now that I haven't been in the tower in several years. For those of you who think that the tower control working pattern traffic at an airport like Triad with parallel runways, IFR rivals and departures isn't using their scope, even though it's small, but it is zoomed in at that time. If you think they're not using their scope for pattern traffic for their own situation, situational awareness, you're really not understanding their job. They're not looking out the window the whole time at the pattern traffic. On paper, they probably are supposed to, but that's just not the way it works when you're scanning an airport environment. So that scope is important. Go ahead. Yeah, it's super important. It would be, if you're not including the scope in your scan, if you were just outside 100% of the time, you wouldn't be able to plan ahead for these arrivals coming in. You really need to integrate that as part of where you're looking. And there are times in the pattern where looking out and seeing the plane are more important than others. And those are the times you include going out and seeing where is the plane? Are they turning base? Because there is a slight lag. So if I can look out and see the wing dip and say, oh, yep, they're turning the base versus watching it on the scope, it's much more real time. So there are times where it is important, but yes, you're right. We are looking at the scope a fair amount, especially when there's arrivals and departures going on. All right, number three, how are IFR services provided to aircraft that are not ADS-B out equipped in the case of the surveillance radar being out of service? I think we might have answered that a little bit, but go ahead. So you have no primary, they have no ADS-B out so that you'd have to tag them up manually, right? No, no. How are IFR services provided that are not ADS-B out in cases of surveillance radar being out? No, so those long ranges are capable of getting their code and putting a tag on the scope. You don't have to. Oh, you're right. Okay. Yeah, they're still working that way. Okay. It just takes much longer. I'm trying to think if we had any of those, if we had any of those. Well, it wouldn't be one landing at Triad. It would be an overflight. And if you want better service IFR and they are out of service, they might ask you to climb. Above eight would be great. Eight or 10 would be perfect. At least the radar can see you from that far away. But you wouldn't have had any itinerant arrivals because they have to have ADS-B. Out to operate in Charlie. It's just like transponder requirement. Yeah. Yeah. But there are, there always are some that it's not functioning right now. Yeah, we have it, but we're not getting it to work or like this military jet. Oh, we forgot to turn it on or whatever. But I don't remember during this because the radar was out for five days, I think, which is super unusual. It's just like a once in a lifetime. That has never happened before. Even when they moved the radar from one place to another, it wasn't out that long. So I think you would not expecting it to happen if a jet came off and their ADS-B wasn't on and there, you're just not gonna, you're gonna get ISR, increase separation requirements on their data tag. You might not really get a good tag until they're up higher. Okay. Well, that's a question. I'll follow up to that. A departure. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. A departure comes off a triad. The correct answer for a trainee when you say, how did you identify this airplane as observing a primary target within a mile of the departure runway? How would you, how are you doing that with no primary? Yeah, if you're not getting a primary, you're getting an ADS-B though, and it's fused. It's showing you a target. That's good, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. Because in fusion, you're not, you're just seeing the dot. There isn't, it isn't displayed like it was before with the little rectangle, you know, square looking thing. So yeah, if you see a dot, you're considering that the primary. I'd love to see two QA, QC, radar aficionados argue that point in the room at the time. We know it's not primary. What are we doing here? Yeah, right. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. All right. Number four, can an airport with an out of service radar service or receive feeds from other nearby sectors? Like you mentioned before, like Duke, let's just say that that was a thing, but it's not. And you could somehow magically transport this fiber optically, these physical connections to these antennas, one at Metroplex, Vietnam and Duke, we could just get them all onto our screen. We really couldn't do anything with them, right? Yeah, so if you had airspace that was inside of their 40 mile ring, which we might get a tiny, tiny bit, just a little bit on the east side with Duke, maybe some with mountain to the north, we might have a tiny little chunk up there. It wouldn't be much. And then to give you an idea, when you have an aircraft that's inbound, let's say a jet from the west, and the center has them flashing in handoff status at you, you can see them way far away. If you scroll out, you can really see like, you might see them 100 miles away, but you can't even take the handoff until they're at 60. All right, it won't let you, right? It just won't let you. Mm-hmm. The system, I guess, has that limitation imposed because, no, you can't, that's way too far from your radar. Mm-hmm. So even at 60 miles from Duke, you're not, that's not even going to encompass the final at Triad. You're not even going to get the final. So it would kind of be like, well, what is the point? Mm-hmm. All right. And finally, as a CF double I, this might be a great opportunity for a stumper question to ask future students. Some approach plates have notes requiring specific equipment. For example, the ILS or localize the runway 8 at Charlie X Ryankee Airport requires radar to be able to shoot the approach. In a situation where the primary surveillance radar becomes out of service, does that approach now become NA, which doesn't mean what some people say it means. It means not authorized. Or does ATC being able to establish radar contact through other means serve as a valid substitute? I'll let you take a stab at this. Yeah, I think, so the point of these, right, so for where it says radar required on an approach plate is making up for some other part of an approach that it doesn't have a capability that it doesn't have to fix you laterally. Like maybe a DME off of VOR or a radio off of VOR to identify a final approach fix, for example, no outer marker. Right. Yeah, it doesn't have some other lateral form of distance determining a capability, right, on a critical part of the approach, like on the final or something. So the radar is there to, this is such a throwback though, because now everybody has pretty much a GPS. We used to have to ask controllers on those approaches when we were slant uniform to tell us when we were over a fix. Okay. And you tell us when we're over X, because we don't have it. All right. And there's no DME. So yeah, there was a time where this was more important. But now, if our radar was out, and you were doing an approach that said radar required, because of that, I need to know exactly where you are, you're being radar monitored on this approach, unless you don't have ADSB, I can see exactly where you are. And even without ADSB, there's a small chance I'll get a little bit of a hope of a target from the long range. But so I agree with you, it's still legal. It doesn't preclude that approach with primary out of service. If we had nothing and you were truly non-radar, and you got shipped from a center to a closed airport, or there's no towers closed, I mean, and they cleared for an approach, and it says radar required. No one's providing you with that service? No, you can't do that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Greg. Somebody's going to write us in and tell us why the, I know they are, I know they are. And do it, please do it. Tell us why the real reason, not my stupid answer. Tell us. It's stupid. The real reason why radar required is on an approach plate. But that was always the way I understood it. Thanks for everything you do for the, with the show. Penguinot, Alpha Mike Bravo. Thank you for your patience. I sat in there a little bit longer than I wanted it to, but I'm glad we got to it and spend some time on it. And now that the outage is over and AG's post primary radar out of service therapy is complete, I thought it was an appropriate time to discuss the topic. Yeah, we did have a lot of ISR increase separation, so it goes to five miles. There was a lot of, there were a lot of handoff issues because it just wasn't tracking those non-ADSB planes, over flights, or whoever they were, that were more than 40 miles away, and not getting picked up yet very well by long range. It just was, it was kind of a pain. All right. Well, is it fair to say though that without ADSB that this would have been a nightmare scenario for the entire time? Absolutely. We would have shut down everything extra. No practice approaches, no pattern work, nothing. Right, because we can't do our jobs the way we're normally used to doing our job. This becomes super awkward and no, we're not going out of our way to do this right now. No ADSB, no primary is non-radar below 6,000 in the airspace. Bad, bad, bad. Everything shuts down, you can't do anything. Yeah, it's really a pain. Talk about being, yeah. How long did it take? How many days were you out? Five days. How much sick time do I have? Yeah, right. I call up in the morning. Is the radar still out? Yeah, okay. I'll show me on sick. So we spend years talking about ADSB since the requirement came out after we started the show, and times like this really show that it's not a magic bullet, but it certainly makes life easier for really both parties. We're going to hear a little more feedback coming up about ADSB. Kind of backs that up a little bit more, but ADSB is the reason that AG probably doesn't need therapy right now with this outage. Yes. Yes, ADSB. Anything else on this one? I don't know. Feedback time. Feedback. I have to get number two because I have to do some explaining. So you have to get number one. All right. Number one from Supercaster Mike Delta High, RHNAG. Last night I completed my night's solo commercial requirements with a 2.7 hour round trip flight. Congrats. Nice. In the last 25 minutes of the flight, I was inbound to a popular fix, which is 17 miles east of my home airport, the Century Delta under the mile high Bravo. Okay. That's when I noticed traffic about five miles off my left wing on ADSB in a few hundred feet below me. Because of the angle and relative altitude, I could not make them out against the lights of the suburbs below. That statement cannot be, I wish controllers understood this. Amen. They don't understand this. I don't know if they think that that traffic is just highlighted against a black sky of nothing else, but that's not the case. All right. If they are above them, it's putting that plane below the horizon. And if you're in a populated area, forget it. You'll never see them. It's not happening. Five miles is way too far. Okay. You're never going to see them. Just forget it. You're wasting your time. Controllers. Okay. Just man, go out on a night flight sometime. Since I was on flight following, I decided to ask approach if they had the target on radar and whether they thought there was a conflict. I'm attaching the audio and screenshots of one, my first 35 second exchange with approach followed by two, about four minutes later, when approach recommended, I do a right 360 for spacing and three at the completion of the 360 when approach declared them no longer a factor. I think this highlights two things that you've talked about on the show in the past. ADS-BN and flight following are complementary, not substitutes. Love it. Using ADS-B alone, it's impossible to read the other pilot's mind and know where they're going. Approach and I both assume they were also inbound for the same destination as me, but it turned out they were going to another local airport, which had them crossing my path at a 90 degree angle rather than going in the same direction. Let's play the audio. Okay. I'm ready when you are. Which one is it? Oh, Mike Delta. Yeah, the number, it says a little bit different. It says something like 64C at the end. That's, I don't know, I see it. I have a name. All right. One, two, three. Approach to court, Charlie. My onboard ADS-B is picking up traffic at about my nine o'clock, 200 feet below me. That's the view of that traffic. November 1, 4, 6, 4, Charlie affirmative. I'm going nine o'clock and five miles. You are about 20 miles slower right now, but they're not a factor. Roger that. Thanks very much. Six 4 Charlie. Yeah, for sure. You know what? Six 4 Charlie, you have a lot of foresight. Actually, I just pulled it up and they are going to pass about a half mile behind you. So I guess they will become a factor and you are correct. They're about nine o'clock and five miles right now. What's that? Roger that. Let me know if you can see the six 4 Charlie. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you. November 1, 4, 6, 4, Charlie, if you want, you can just do a right three, six, yeah, just put you right behind that traffic and behind you that way you don't keep an eye on them. Perfect. I'll do that six 4 Charlie. There you go. All right, November 1, 4, 6, 4, Charlie, the traffic's no longer a factor. Roger that. Thank you, six 4 Charlie. I love this entire exchange. Yeah, yeah. So the initial call, the controller looks at it. He looks at the speed difference, where they are, kind of makes an assessment. Right now, it's probably not a factor. But it gets a thing in his head and he goes and he puts up the min function. That's what I wanted you to talk about. Thank you. Yes, he puts up the min function, which is the center controls to like, wait a second, this isn't automatic? Yeah, right. Yeah, no, you have to go in and do this manually. Your brain first has to recognize the conflict, not the computer's brain. Your brain has to do that and then say, hmm, how close are these planes going to be? And this function tells you that. It draws lines on their current track and it shows you how close, what is the closest they're going to be if they keep doing what they're doing right now? And he said, what did he say? Point. Half a mile behind you, right? It would be a factor. A half a mile. So technically, no, it's not going to be a factor. But controllers don't like half a mile, even with VFR aircraft. Even with no separation requirement, other than targets merging and traffic advisories. Yeah, that's no, I don't like it. Yeah. So, and this just highlights again, why this other aircraft, not talking to anybody, you know, gives controllers this sort of master sheafoo moment of kind of having the little eye twitch like, ugh, I just really want to know what you're doing. I really want to know where you're going, at least that. So then I can project out and I can tell this guy, are you a factor? And instead of having to do now a right 360, which is kind of a pain, we can just do, both of you could do 10 degrees. Or a great one altitude to maintain if you could talk to the other one. You just don't know what they're going to do. You just go down, you know, your 300 feet or 200 feet apart now, somebody just go 300 feet in one direction and now you're fine. Yeah. Yeah. I got lost. Where were we? The end when he says goodbye. Right. So, yeah, it's, it's, all of these points are exactly right. I got lost again on my, yeah, the, the, the ADSB being complimentary is a great informational tool, but exactly like you said here, it, it doesn't tell you what the other person is doing or going to do. And the men function doesn't tell you what they're going to do. All it tells you is what they're doing this second, the second that you put the men up. And here's evidence that controllers realize that they leave instead of just looking at it once and turning it off. If there's a conflict, a possible conflict, they leave it on. Right. That's a reminder. It's a reminder and it's, now it's showing me, okay, oh, did they change their mind? Oh, they turned at this fix, you know, now that it's changed the separation. But if I'm talking to both of those planes and I see, okay, they're going to be close, I just do something now to fix it and I turn the men function off. I no longer have to worry about this. The last, if you're really desperate and you're, you're watching a target that's been an annoyance to every one of your rivals, you can push the beaconsator button, we could see the call sign and call them out in the blind. On that frequency, maybe they're listening, hey, November one, two, three, by any chance. Have you heard me make like 17 traffic calls in the last hour? They were for you. Please pick up the phone. Right. Oh, what am I doing? What do you need me to do? Oh, you've been here the whole time. Yeah. Oh, man. If you're that pilot and you think, well, I don't want to bug them. You're bugging them. You're bugging them already. It's worse. What you're doing is worse. It would be better for you just to talk. Yes. And tell us what you're doing. Even if you're not, you know, they don't need to give you vectors. They don't need to hold you anywhere. They just need to know what you're doing. And if they do need you to do one of those things real quick or give you traffic, they can. That's all it is. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to finish up the, he wrote a little comment at the end, but that's at the very end. Thanks for the great show, Mike Delta under the mile, hi Bravo PS. It's okay to include the call sign in the audio clip. It's a rental. And congratulations for remembering your call sign on a rental. We heard recently about an airplane who forgot their call sign. It happens. All right. Number two from Supercaster Sierra, Charlie. All right. We went back and forth a few times to this story. It was very confusing. I'm going to try to set this up as quickly as possible. Sierra, Charlie was departing a non-towered airport, IFR in VMC and couldn't reach the approach control for his clearance. He was trying an approach frequency, but the EFB and the facilities directory, the chart supplement show clearance delivery as a phone number. So I'm not, I'm not really sure why this started as a call to a frequency, but it did. Okay. They had no luck. So they're on the ground. They're on the ground. Okay. Okay. This pilot decided they were going to call on the frequency that they're used to calling on. They said they've done this flight before. Okay. They couldn't get anybody on the phone or on the radio. So they used the phone. He called by phone and was told by the approach that the RCO was down. I don't know if there's any evidence that it has an RCO. There might be a remote transmitter nearby, but I see no evidence of an RCO at this field. So that's why I need to explain some of this. They received their clearance to contact them airborne on the same frequency that they thought was the RCO. Okay. And departed. So they called the phone number. They got a clearance. The frequency they were given was the one that he originally tried to call them on, on the ground that didn't work. Okay. Okay. Which happens to just be the advertised approach frequency. That's why it's a little bit confusing. Okay. All right. Once airborne, now he tries to call them in the air and say I'm off this airport. Couldn't reach the approach on the frequency they gave him and realized what he called. He was effectively Nordo. No radio. He eventually contacted another approach control on another frequency near an airport that he was flying over on this flight. All right. So before we get into some of the questions here, I want to pause and just throw these announcements out there. If you're leaving a non-towered airport, always check the chart supplement or the AFT section of the airport on your EFB. If it shows the clearance as a phone number, don't even bother with the radio. Just call the phone number. Okay. Number two. You were trying on a frequency. This is part of the story that I didn't read, that you had already heard another airplane having difficulty in the air getting in touch with that facility. So it was a clue that that frequency, something was wrong with it. Use that clue. Ask them when you called for your clients. Is there another frequency? I hear another airplane trying to get you. They're unable to. And maybe they have an alternate frequency. And number three, this is just a big generalization of this whole concept here. The weather was VMC. The first step in lost comms, if you believe your lost comms, and VMC is continuing VMC, quote, if the failure occurs in VFR conditions or if VFR conditions are encountered after the failure, each pilot shall continue the flight under VFR and land as soon as practicable. So in this case, you could have turned around and just got on the ground and called them. It was a VMC conditions. You could have landed back at that airport, called them and said, Hey, I tried to get you in the air and it didn't work. But I just wanted to throw those out there before we get into the questions. You good so far? Yeah. Okay. I think so. Yeah. His questions. Since it was VMC and clear to a million, I was comfortable taking off. But if it was I MC, what should I have done? Once in the air and got no answer from the approach, what should I have done? There was no previous frequency to call back to since I had just departed. All right. Air traffic controller AG, he just left. It's I MC now. Would you do anything different than he did? What he ended up doing was calling another approach facility further down on his flight. Not really sure I would have gotten that far, but what else could have you done? Okay. So while you were going through that, I just wanted to look this approach. I wanted to look up this airport because I was, let me ask a couple of questions. Okay. Normally, he's getting approach on the ground. Yes. On the approach frequency. Yes. And I cannot figure out why. Okay. So that is unusual. But the center has that at an airport west of us. Really? The airport that's at the 4077 interchange. Okay. Where I used to fly out of some. Okay. They have that. Okay. Their approach frequency. Warms on the ground. On the ground. Okay. Now, I don't know if it's listed that way. I don't think it is. I didn't have time to look at that. But here, it's definitely not listed that way. And in the remarks section of, it's not. Okay. All it says is approach and the frequency. So if they have a transmitter, a remote, on the ground, it doesn't mention that at all. I agree. Okay. I don't know if the answer really changes if you're VMC. You continued on your flight. If you didn't encounter VFR conditions or VMC conditions, you continued along your flight. You got another approach controller, which is using your resources and your FB. You looked at the approach facility over the airport that you flew over. I'd say good call on that. That's certainly a good technique. Don't just play like I'm not going to talk to anybody. Keep trying to find somebody. So in the traditional sense, you're not really no radio. The regs were written as if your radios are all not functioning properly. You're able to talk to people. You can also try Guard. And that approach facility that's nearby should hear you on Guard, especially if you're above a couple of thousand feet. Yeah. Okay. So this first question, if I was VMC, if it was IMC, so are we assuming... They got a release. They got an IFR release. They got a clearance and a release. It's IMC. They go, they punch into the clouds and now they're not getting anybody. Yes. Yeah. You just keep going on like... You're out. Yep. Yeah. Climb, get, stay on your route, but try to kind of contact somebody. Go ahead. That's the thing. Yeah. Continue to try to get in touch just like... Yeah. Just like you did. I won't talk about number two there. Should I put 7600 in the transponder as soon as I could not reach approach? If you were on an IFR release that had a window, absolutely yes. I think that would have been appropriate. I also think it would have been appropriate for you to turn around and go back to the airport you started at and the pattern. Squawk and 7600 just lets the approach controller who's waiting for you to come off that airport in that timeframe they gave you know that they can't reach you and they can kind of watch this unfold and hopefully get a phone call from you when you get on the ground. Yeah. Yeah. So you're right. RH is right. Not being able to reach approach does not mean you're nordo. We have places in the airspace. This happens all the time. Right. Off of Andy Griffith going northbound. If they're going northbound, slow climbing. Mm-hmm. It could be a while before we can get you. You're not nordo. Yeah. You're just in an area of bad comms. This is where relaying whether the aircraft can be super helpful. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm telling you, I use that probably once a week at least. So you want to talk to somebody who's far away and you use somebody that's in between you and them that may be higher. Hey, can you reach this plane? I can't. They can't hear me anymore. Yeah. Right. That's very effective. Yes, it is. As long as choose your relay plane wisely. Yeah. Yes. For your audience, the question would be how do controllers know when a frequency is out? So it sounds like the frequency became out of service and the radar facility didn't know that. They were not aware of this problem because they wouldn't have issued it as a frequency for you to call if they knew it was out. But it sounds like it was out. When that happens at triad, they usually come in and they, it's worked out. It's time to head to time. We're going to lose this frequency. We have an alternate frequency to use or one that's never used. Like what is east? We could use any, we could do, what is it, 20.9? Please say that's right. Yes. Yes. We have other transmitters in our building that are on different frequencies we can use. But if it's going out, the planes that are in the airspace would be the first clue that the controller had. I can't hear anybody. Right. Something's wrong with this. But in a maintenance environment, that's worked out ahead of time. Right. Yeah. What two controllers doing with airplanes in their sector who are listening on that frequency, like the plane in my feedback, when they realize the frequency is out, the first move I used to make was go to guard because- Everyone has that. Every controller. I don't know if it's in the book where you have to do this, but if you have a second radio that you could be listening to, I know it's annoying. There's Chewbacca sounds and cats and dogs and actually there's a lot of that in the news right now. If people talking, making noises on guard, they're never going to find those people, but whatever. Let them find, let them look. Yeah. Right. Keep trying. Yes, it's annoying, but at a minimum, at least realize that's probably where the controller's going to go when they can't get a hold of you. Yes. Because it's another transmitter that they are able to transmit on and should be within range of your receiver to hear them. That's an important geography lesson. Okay. Yeah, because most likely the transmitter receiver for guard is located in the same place as the one, as the normal frequency. Yes. Right. It should work. Yes. Lastly, I might have skipped some of that, but it's okay. This is just me being dumb. Does a frequency down have anything to do with transponder codes? I imagine not since I would think that this is right. Our thing has nothing to do with transponder codes. So I think we've gone back to it a couple of times. Don't be afraid to give up on the frequency. If you're nobody's hearing you, go to guard. Try that. That should be your number two move in my opinion. Go to guard. Final comment. I don't like being Nordo on an IFR flight plan. Even MVMC pilots are taught what to do when Nordo, when it's them causing like their comms are down, stuck mic, et cetera, but I wasn't sure what to do when ATC is down. Yeah, you got to improvise a little bit. And keep in mind too, you left a non-towered airport where you maybe heard other airplanes. So you knew your radios were working. You heard that other airplane trying to get and touch them. So your receiver's working like, Hey, what part of this puzzle doesn't make sense? My stuff works. It just worked. It didn't just break. It could have, but it's probably unlikely. So what do I do next? Try another frequency. Guard is the first stop I would make. Yes. I feel like in GA, guard is not as common of a response as a thought. It's not frequently part of the thought process. In the airline world, that's like the first place anybody is going for any kind of weird comms thing. So in the GA world, take that and learn from that. You need to utilize guard more in GA. Okay. Not to go on and make stupid comments and noises and stuff like that. But as a tool, it's possible allegedly, maybe, a pilot who was monitoring guard got told by a center to contact another center while they were using that guard frequency because the pilot forgot to switch over to the one they were assigned. Right. Right. It's possible. It happens. But if you have the volumes the same, you don't even realize it. So nothing happened. They sounded the exact same. Contact. Hey, are you there? Penguin, are you there? Yeah. Duh. What do you mean, am I there? Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, when the center controller says we're transmitting on guard, you realize somehow you messed up. Just saying. Oh, right. Anything else on that one? Hmm. No. Okay. Thank you, Sierra Charlie. Thanks for the back and forth. Help me shape the story a little bit. We do our best to respond to support or feedback and let you know when you'll be on an upcoming show. H80 thing before the quick chat. I do not. Closing out episode 434 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 FAA 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 opposingbases.supercast.com. Yeah. Drop.