Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
By Peter Kelly
#1841179
Flying to the north of Oxford yesterday, we had reason to change our plan and fly south, crossing Brize zone.

I am not familiar with the area.

The miracle that is SkyDemon quickly displayed the frequencies for Brize - all nine of them (including Brize Radar 124.275 shown twice).

I called the first listed - Brize Approach 127.250 - but no reply.

Thinking it unlikely that Brize would be closed I climbed to 4000’ to pass over the class D.

Once clear above the airspace I worked my way through the other frequencies, making contact on Brize Zone 119.00

My question is, how can one quickly determine the correct frequency to call on without specific local knowledge? I guess the same question applies to any large airport with multiple frequencies.

As a supplementary question, why don’t Brize simply band-box their frequencies in such a way as you can call on any frequency?

Supplementary, supplementary question. Why are all the Brize frequencies still on 25KHz?
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By Flyingfemme
#1841181
Why is flying so convoluted in the UK? Presumably, because it can be.............In such situations I find London Info very helpful; they will preadvise other units of your presence and intentions, often organising a clearance and giving you a handover. Especially now,ehen the skies are so uncongested and nobody is very busy.
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By NDB_hold
#1841184
I’m not aware of any military frequencies that are on 8.33 and my guess is the RAF doesn’t want to spend the money replacing the ground equipment so still has 25kHz frequencies. I guess the aircraft must have 8.33.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841194
Brize radar offers LARS 124.275 but that tends not to be available weekends. Brize Zone is the place to go for crossing on 119.000 as you noted. Trouble is that Civilian and Military are not coherent as @Flyingfemme intimated. Generally if I was in doubt I'd try radar then zone for a military field and approach then tower for a civilian field.
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By RisePilot
#1841197
johnm wrote:I'd try radar then zone for a military field and approach then tower for a civilian field.


I do just that. If they want you to talk to the other frequency, they'll tell you (I assume that the differing frequency guys are sitting next to each other anyhow).

Regarding Skydemon showing nearby frequencies; all aviation NAV software/devices do this now.
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By dublinpilot
PFMS Team
#1841206
Well, the call sign would probably be the best way of deciding which one to call.

I'm not sure where you'd find those in SD, but assume someone else can point you in the right direction.

Here is how they are shown in EasyVFR4 which makes selection relatively easy.

Image
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By T67M
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841269
So I'm APProaching an airfield with RaDaR offering an H24 LARS service, and a ToWeR, but you're somehow supposed to guess that the MISC frequency is the right one to call.... Hmmmm.... It may say "Zone Transits" in the comments, but that's the seventh one on the list and as shown isn't even on the same line of the list as the frequency. Skydemon, sadly, is even worse, listing only the callsigns with no comments, and whilst "Brize Zone" is second on the list, "Zone" isn't something which jumps out at you as especially descriptive alongside Approach and Radar
By GAFlyer4Fun
#1841281
In the old days of paper charts it was really obvious which one to call . :wink:

With the apps there can be different ways to get the info.

SkyDemon (all chart styles) gives the airspace boundaries, classification and vertical limits but not the frequencies/channels.

With SkyDemon if I press the screen in the middle of Brize ATZ the "What's Here?" popup will give me 10 to choose from for Brize:
Approach 127.250, Zone 119.000, Tower 123.725, Radar (choice of two - 124.275 and 119.000 ), ATIS 126.500, plus Ops, Director, Talkdown, Ground.
Scrolling down further it indicates use Brize Radar 124.275 for the Oxford AIAA, use Brize Zone 119.000 for the Brize CTR, and use Brize Zone 119.000 for the ATZ.

However if I press the screen just inside the edge of their nearest boundary "What's Here?" gives a much smaller list:
Brize Radar 124.275 for the Oxford AIAA and Brize Zone 119.000 for the Brize CTR.


Alternatively, press the Radio tab and it will list "Frequencies Now" and "Frequencies Next" and include the long list.

Alternatively just fly at the CAS and when close enough SD will (dependent on user settings?) give a popup warning with distance to the CAS boundary with the callsign and channel/frequency to use.


I am a bit rusty due to lack of recent practice so will need to read the manual!
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By GrahamB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841290
If in SD you touch the relevant point on the chart to bring up the ‘What’s here’ pop-up, the controlling frequency for any airspace associated with that point will be given.

In this case by touching inside the CTR it clearly shows Brize Radar as the frequency for LARS within the Oxford AIAA, and Brize Zone as that for the CTR.
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By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1841309
If you want to contact someone to get clearance into a bit of controlled airspace just touch the airspace in SkyDemon and next to the airspace you’ll see the best frequency - only one - to use.

If you touch the airfield itself you’ll see all its frequencies which can be confusing.
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By Peter Kelly
#1841432
Tim

Thanks, very useful - but only half the story.

If I do as you suggest at the western end of Brize zone, the first frequency that comes up is for Brize Radar and the Oxford AIAA on 124.275. Brize Zone is listed below on 119.000

The AFE plate suggets that Brize radar offers a LARS service 09.00-17.00L Mon-Sun. In practice, they were not answering last Sunday. The Zone service is listed as H24 and did respond. Maybe the order should the frequencies are displayed in should be reversed?

P
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By Tim Dawson
SkyDemon developer
#1841436
Yes, if there are two bits of airspace under your finger (in this case, the Oxford AIAA and the Brize Norton CTR) you'll see entries for both.

Presumably you wanted to enter/cross the CTR, so hopefully it's obvious which entry is the one you want.
By TopCat
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841437
Peter Kelly wrote:The AFE plate suggets that Brize radar offers a LARS service 09.00-17.00L Mon-Sun. In practice, they were not answering last Sunday. The Zone service is listed as H24 and did respond. Maybe the order should the frequencies are displayed in should be reversed?

I don't think you can blame SD for this. It's just unfortunate that Radar didn't respond - it's very unusual IME to get no response, even at weekends, and they're generally very helpful and nowhere near as busy as Farnborough.

Brize is a bit of an oddity - the zone frequency is for zone transits, and they'll often tell you go change to Radar if you call them and don't want an actual transit. Unless they're not very busy and give you a LARS service OCAS after a transit, in which case they're in no hurry to get rid of you.

Unfortunately, there's no consistency. It's Farnborough Radar for LARS and transit (even though it was Zone briefly for transit after the CAS came in).

Planning is the key, that and to expect things to be inconsistent.
By Rjk983
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841759
T67M wrote:So I'm APProaching an airfield with RaDaR offering an H24 LARS service, and a ToWeR, but you're somehow supposed to guess that the MISC frequency is the right one to call.... Hmmmm.... It may say "Zone Transits" in the comments, but that's the seventh one on the list and as shown isn't even on the same line of the list as the frequency. Skydemon, sadly, is even worse, listing only the callsigns with no comments, and whilst "Brize Zone" is second on the list, "Zone" isn't something which jumps out at you as especially descriptive alongside Approach and Radar


It depends what you want to do after you get hold of someone.
If your intention is to make an APProach to land you would call the APProach frequency, who will pass you on to the ToWeR controller when you are closes enough to join the traffic pattern.

If your intention is to cross the military air traffic ZONE then you would call the Zone Controller.

You could maybe also have a read of the process described in the Skyway Code, page 63 of the March 2021 edition.

MATZ crossing exchange
The following gives an outline of a typical radio exchange for a MATZ penetration. For more details of radiotelephony (RT) procedures please see CAP 413 – http://www.caa.co.uk/cap413, which is the authoritative guide to RT procedures in the UK.


Explanation

Commencing the call with the request gives the controller the opportunity to consider whether they can immediately respond to it or whether to instruct the caller to “standby”.
It also allows them to consider what information will need to be passed back to the aircraft before having to process the entire message – for example most stations will have a particular series of squawk codes to be given out depending on what service is being provided to the aircraft.

Example

“Boscombe Zone, G-DOME, request MATZ penetration.”



You could also have a read of CAP413, section 2.19 details types of ground station. There is a handy table on page 42.

I hasten to add that I only knew all of this because I’ve been reading both docs today in preparation for my flight with an instructor on Thursday. I had a worrying number of “lightbulb” moments today, and I’m not convinced they were all memories sparking, some of them were scarily new information. I really must make more of an effort to refresh myself on these two docs more regularly.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1841760
Skydemon provides info quite effectively as does NRST on the GTN 650, but it’s the pilot who is expected to know how to use it.