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By Anon
Anonymous poster
#1321622
Seeing the thread about Runway Direction reminded me about something I meant to post.

One fine Saturday more than 10 years ago, I headed the flying group Pup over Thruxton towards Old Sarum. I'd never been there before and we (the group) all liked to visit new airfields, so I was used to doing this. After saying goodbye to Thruxton, I asked my passenger in the RHS to dial in the frequency for Old Sarum, then called "Old Sarum, Golf Alpha ...." The reply was almost what I expected, although it seemed that the runway direction was 10 degrees different but I guessed that was just me writing down the wrong number. I repeated it back, but when I made all the subsequent calls I wondered why the reply from the A/G was fainter. I then got the definite feeling that things weren't quite right as I couldn't see the other traffic where I expected, and now I couldn't hear A/G at all. This had happened to me before elsewhere when the A/G operator had not realized that I was a visitor and thought I would cope without him, so I wasn't too worried. Still not sure what was wrong, I proceeded round the circuit and landed. By the time I had shut down and got out, there was a chap who told me that I had flown the wrong circuit direction, why was I non-radio and would I please visit Control?

Yes, I had been calling the wrong airfield. It turned out that the frequencies for Old Sarum and Blackbushe were almost the same (as are the runway directions but not the circuit direction), and Blackbushe was probably wondering where I was! It would be easy to blame everyone else, but I know I should have been more careful. Even me prefixing my call with the airfield name had not been picked up, and everything thereafter was me trying to make sense of an uncomfortable feeling!

And both airfields still are (respectively) 123.2 and 122.3, so the mistake could still be made.
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By Rob P
#1330846
I took off from Old Buck a few years back on the morning of their airshow for a quick visit to a fly-in at Rougham. (In the Shiny Colt that's only a couple of hour's flight)

Changed to the Rougham frequency and called up "Rougham Radio, G-ARNE inbound, airfield details please"

I was expecting to hear "09" as it is easty-westy there but what came back was "07". "Ah" I thought, "must be that short cross-runway. Something to do with the fly-in crowds or summat."

Revised my approach, made the appropriate circuit calls, not prefixed with "Rougham", and landed to a forest of arm waving and irate looking chappies in yellow jackets.

Why?

I hadn't flopped the radio and had been on Old Buck frequency all the time.

:oops:

Rob P
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By Rob P
#1331406
Good though it is SkyDemon doesn't currently remind you to actually press the change button after setting the next frequency. But I guess Tim will be working on it soon.

Consequences? No.

Rougham was only A/G. If I had chosen to land on that strip as a piloting decision it's none of their concern. The fact that I just bogged-up makes no difference.

Piss-poor airmanship though. Equally not clever of Old Buck not to pick up on the initial 'Rougham' on my call.

But no puppies died as a consequence, just another incident and a small lesson to remember.

But then there's not many of us who haven't broadcast a message on totally the wrong frequency at some point.

Rob P
By greggj
#1331474
Thanks for response Rob. I've yet to make that mistake, if ever.
It would be nice if radio was somehow connected via BT to the skydemon, or radio itself displayed frequency and field name. I'm sure someone had that idea already ;-)
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By Gertie
#1331478
greggj wrote:radio itself displayed frequency and field name. I'm sure someone had that idea already ;-)

Glass cockpit aircraft can in theory do that sort of thing, if you can be bothered to learn your way around the user interface.

I haven't yet seen one flash messages at you saying "hey, did you know box 2 was still tuned to xxx, did you really mean that?".
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By Keef
#1331512
I've made the occasional call to the next frequency without pressing the flipflop button. The usual response is something like "still with Manston". I think ATC units are more likely to pick that up.
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By Rob P
#1331591
greggj wrote: or radio itself displayed frequency and field name.


It already displays the frequency of course. The field name is less simple as some fields share a common frequency.

Rob P
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1331822
On the Funkwerk ATR833, which is pretty common now as a stand alone radio, you can install a list of frequencies and airport names. However it is more faff and button pressing than its worth.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1331834
Does it have a PC interface and software where you can programme it all up and send it across?
By greggj
#1332039
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
Why, if ever?

I rather hope I never will, dear chap.
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By Rob P
#1332066
You will.

There are two groups in flying, those who have already heard "Golf Charlie Alpha, you are still with Anytown" and those who are going to.

Rob P :)
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By Rob P
#1332598
If you read the posts, both of we miscreants landed at the intended field. We were just erroneously talking to a different one at the time.

Rob P