[mlawton]

Boredom at home, lovely flying weather! FR 24 showing 5 ground support vehicles at Manchester Airport are they now transponder equipped?? Or ADSB out?

[Iceman]

ADSB-out. I saw the fire trucks there recently when an aircraft diverted there with a low fuel emergency after multiple missed London approaches in the recent high winds.

Iceman

[Colonel Panic]

This was Leader 5 at Gatwick last Monday

[Sir Morley Steven]

There were fighter jets in Sweden and the Netherlands yesterday and I have seen loads of high altitude balloons on there too.

[Talkdownman]

FR 24 showing 5 ground support vehicles

It's so that they are displayed on the surface movement radar, and certainly within the runway protected area. Heathrow had a thing called RIMCAS (Runway Incursion Monitoring and Collision Avoidance System) which would flag up such things. Dunno what they have now. Maybe A-SMGCS (Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control)...or maybe, even, FR24...

@Gonzo would know.

[GonzoEGLL]

We have RIMCAS, as you say, linked to the A-SMGCS, which is displayed alongside the ATM on the SDPS screen. The RIMCAS applies a dynamic RPA in CAT I Ops, and a dynamic eILS LSA in LVP, along with the dynamic LCA. The DFE takes in the ADS-B from the vehicles, and the Mode-S position (calculated by the 52 RUs in the MDS), as well as the CAT 62 NODE.

Easy.

[Talkdownman]

Of course. Thank you. How silly of me to forget...

[GrahamB]

We have RIMCAS, as you say, linked to the A-SMGCS, which is displayed alongside the ATM on the SDPS screen. The RIMCAS applies a dynamic RPA in CAT I Ops, and a dynamic eILS LSA in LVP, along with the dynamic LCA. The DFE takes in the ADS-B from the vehicles, and the Mode-S position (calculated by the 52 RUs in the MDS), as well as the CAT 62 NODE.

Go on, @RobL, tell us what it all means then.

[Josh]

We have RIMCAS, as you say, linked to the A-SMGCS, which is displayed alongside the ATM on the SDPS screen. The RIMCAS applies a dynamic RPA in CAT I Ops, and a dynamic eILS LSA in LVP, along with the dynamic LCA. The DFE takes in the ADS-B from the vehicles, and the Mode-S position (calculated by the 52 RUs in the MDS), as well as the CAT 62 NODE.

Easy.

But are you offering a left/right base join for a visual to a 4 mile final? That’s what we really want to know

[Marvin]

We have RIMCAS, as you say, linked to the A-SMGCS, which is displayed alongside the ATM on the SDPS screen. The RIMCAS applies a dynamic RPA in CAT I Ops, and a dynamic eILS LSA in LVP, along with the dynamic LCA. The DFE takes in the ADS-B from the vehicles, and the Mode-S position (calculated by the 52 RUs in the MDS), as well as the CAT 62 NODE.

Go on, @RobL, tell us what it all means then.

[Engineering Geek] Basically we know who you are, where you are and what you are doing. [/Engineers Geek]

[Colonel Panic]

But are you offering a left/right base join for a visual to a 4 mile final? That’s what we really want to know

I remember being in the jump seat of an (unknown type of) "airliner" flying in to Lanzarote in 1997, and "we" were given a visual downwind, right base and final approach to land. All very exciting to someone who was still struggling with getting a C152 in the right place in the Shoreham circuit ...

[Josh]

One of the consequences of the current unpleasantness means that there is almost no traffic in the London TMA. It’s led to the sort of approaches that intersecting routes normally preclude. I managed a left base join for a 5 mile final 08 at LGW pretty much straight past Heathrow on Monday.

Still fairly common in quieter parts of the world like the Greek islands where you can save a fair bit of time/fuel. It’s also very good fun!