Author Topic: LiveATC shout out  (Read 13475 times)

Offline rsacchet

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LiveATC shout out
« on: November 22, 2005, 12:30:38 PM »
Interesting article from a Boston Globe reporter about listening to ATC when flying United.  He mentions LiveATC.net at the end...

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/11/22/in_flight_entertainment_for_nerds/

In-flight entertainment for nerds
By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist  |  November 22, 2005

You hear that tiresome cliche at the end of every airplane flight. The plane rolls up to the terminal and a pilot or flight attendant says, ''We know you have choice of carriers when you fly, so thank you for choosing _____."

Often one does have a choice of carriers, and when I fly, I always choose United. Why? No, not because of their silly ads; they just interrupt football games. But because on its in-flight entertainment system, United lets passengers listen in to the air traffic control (ATC) chatter from takeoff to landing.

For pilots, it's pretty dull stuff, and they would prefer to keep it that way. But I've listened in during three cross-country flights, and I find the palaver fascinating. I would be the first to admit that it's an acquired, maybe a contrapuntal, taste. I am, after all, the guy who finds Leonard Cohen's songs to be cheerful and upbeat.

My love affair with United's Channel 9 began in August 2004, as our jet banked northeasterly out of San Francisco airport heading back to Boston. It was a gorgeous day, and as we wheeled over the East Bay, I heard the SFO controllers handing us over to Oakland Center, which was already about 8,000 or 9,000 feet below us. I wasn't taking notes at the time, but SFO's final transmission was something like, ''United 178, contact Oakland Center on [frequency] 125.2, good day!" My, they are so polite! was my first thought, and my second thought was: Well, that's nice. Someone is waiting to escort us all the way back to Boston.

I made a quick round trip to San Francisco about 10 days ago, and this time I did take notes. I especially love the westbound Boston departure -- any Boston departure, actually -- because it lands us in the hands of Boston Center, which is located in Nashua, N.H., just off Route 3. My family would pay millions if I could once drive past that low-slung, gray building bristling with microwave antennae and not say: ''There's Boston Center! Isn't that incredible! They control the airspace from Campobello Island all the way to New York!"

When you're flying westward, Boston Center generally hands you over to Cleveland, although I've heard some transmissions involving Montreal and Toronto. The vast tracts of airspace are divvied up like our gerrymandered western suburbs; you'll see a sign saying you've left South Natick, and then there's another sign indicating you've somehow returned to South Natick. By the time we leave Boston Center, however, I am listening for only one thing: reports of turbulence over the Great Lakes. It's always bumpy there. Maybe if I had ever taken a science course in high school I would understand why.

If you've ever listened in to air traffic talk, you have heard pilots discussing ''light chop": ''a little light chop at 32," meaning at 32,000 feet; ''occasional light chop next 50 miles or so." It never feels light to me, but frankly they couldn't care less. Pilots will ask the ground controllers about ''smoother" air at different altitudes, but they almost always make these changes for the comfort of the passengers, not because they are worried about the safety of the aircraft.

Arriving in San Francisco was beautiful. Oakland handed us over to Bay Approach, which routed us over Modesto, the gateway to Yosemite National Park. Turning northward and descending, we flew over San Jose and up the length of San Francisco Bay. By this time, the pilot was talking to the San Francisco tower and was flying to the airport by sight, not on instruments. ''I see the bridge [the Bay Bridge] and the airport ahead," he said, and was cleared to land.

The tower politely inquired if he saw a small Embraer Brasilia plane ahead of us at 2 o'clock, and eventually he did. We see this kind of parallel landing directly over our heads on Morrissey Boulevard, on what I call the ''Globe approach" to Logan. Although the planes seem to be flying very close together, they are landing on different runways, 04 Left and 04 Right.

Since returning from the West Coast, I've learned about the website liveatc.net, which lets you to listen to live ATC transmissions from almost anywhere in the world. I spent a portion of Monday listening to Dublin, Geneva, Amsterdam, and, of course, more Boston chatter. There was ''moderate chop" over Logan on Monday morning; yikes!

Now I have the best of both worlds: I can listen to ATC and I don't have to fly. The friendly skies are right here on the computer in front of me.



Offline Scrapper

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« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2005, 12:43:21 PM »
Aaahhh United's Channel 9... I too have chosen to fly United over some other american company for this reason alone on more than one occasion... have to admit that it is sometimes a nice diversion from the lame movie... hehe... not only for regular everyday flyers, but as an air controller, I like to listen in to fulfill my sense of knowing exactly what is going on around me when I'm flying... hehe... On more than one occasion I've thought of writing Air Canada's customer service and asking them to seriously consider this possibility on their flights... hehe...

Offline Tomato

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« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2005, 01:44:14 PM »
Indeed, it is nice to see a site like LiveATC be able to host the wide variety of ATC feeds.  I remember many years ago, when feeds were online and available directly from the feeders only, which were sometimes very hard to located... there are still some independent feeds out there but it's nice to be able to drop by here to a "community".  :)

Offline PHL Approach

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« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2005, 01:34:09 AM »
It's great to see a nicely written peice of work showing what we all enjoy so much to the public.

Offline dave

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« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2005, 03:36:12 AM »
Thanks for posting this!  It was a very well written article.

Dave

Offline ozziecat35

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LiveATC shout out
« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2005, 09:18:08 AM »
It's because of sites like this, and flying / controlling online with MSFS, that all I do is get a little smirk when my flight instructor is floored and commends me for my radio skills...because according to him, a 10 hour pilot "just isn't comfortable on the radio."  HAW!  Keep 'em coming, BTW, anyone out there able to pick up KGRR (Grand Rapids, Mich) ?

Offline Jonathan_tcu

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« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2005, 02:11:15 PM »
When I listen to other airports via this website, my father always asks what I am listening to.  Especially when we listen to Toronto, to see what's going on in Toronto and traffic going in and out of Peterborouh on 134.25.  He sounds like he dislikes the 'air to air to ground' chit chat, but enjoys listening to it.  :wink:

Offline Scrapper

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« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2005, 04:22:24 PM »
I too have floored a few people when I first started controlling by how easily I spoke on the radio... I have to admit though that since then I've picked up a couple of bad habits along the way... it's funny how the longer you speak on the radio, the more you move to what's practical (which is unfortunately not always the right way of doing it...)

Offline siouxnami

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« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2005, 10:30:32 PM »
How do you think I found this site?  Great article! Even better site!

Offline SkyViking

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« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2005, 11:36:51 PM »
Great posts!  Is UA's channel 9 available on all aircraft that carry IFE systems?  I chose to fly AA for the very same reason during the late 70s and early 80s when they had channel 10 (I think) on their DC10s dedicated to ATC.  They also showed the takeoff and landing "live" on the old front screens from a camera placed in the DC10's cockpit.

Offline Scrapper

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« Reply #10 on: November 25, 2005, 02:56:40 PM »
Now there's another GREAT idea... Most United flights I've been on (and that's by no means many...) have this... I think the only time I found it didn't was on the regional smaller stuff...

Offline drl5555

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« Reply #11 on: November 25, 2005, 08:29:57 PM »
All mainline UA flights have Ch. 9...

Offline Hammie

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« Reply #12 on: November 26, 2005, 05:57:56 AM »
Every All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight I've been on so far has also had forward- and downward-looking cameras for taxi, takeoff, climb, approach, and landing.  As a private-rated pilot, I love watching the screens, although it makes my wife motion-sick.  I wish all US carriers had these cameras installed.

Of course, as a general rule, every flight I've taken with a Japanese carrier has been more comfortable, and with better service, than a flight with a US carrier.  This mostly reflects on the service from the flight attendants, though, and has no bearing on the skill of the flight crew.

Offline Scrapper

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« Reply #13 on: November 26, 2005, 09:43:45 AM »
Hammie, the same can be said for European carriers... although generally, the pilots are all top notch, European Carriers tend to have much better passenger services than Canadian or U.S.  It is the standard that they are used to, I guess... For example, I flew Lufthansa this summer and the friendliness adn service from the staff was much higher than what we are used to in North America.

Offline Swiss_flight

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« Reply #14 on: November 26, 2005, 01:45:51 PM »
However, it should be mentioned that the availability of channel 9 is up to the captain's discretion. Most captains have on, some don't. If it isn't on, asking a F/A to go and ask the Captain to turn it on generally works nicely.

Secondly, it isn't connected to the HF radios, so over the Atlantic/Pacific it doesn't work.

I've been trying to convince the management at Delta to institute it for years, to no avail. :x

Isaac