Radio Work

[FelixTheGreat]

I was flying into Pueblo the other day in an Arrow and tower told me my gear wasn't down when I was a couple miles out on final.

Be careful about getting the gear down before the tower has to call and remind you. One of my friends and fellow CFI was waiting to see how long his student would continue an appoach with the gear up. The tower called a go-around and then they tried to violate him for "reckless flight" or something to that effect.

 

[whitesoxnation]

Just hope that controller in Costa Rica is really good and doesn't lead you into trouble.

Or Brazil...............................

 

[Tom]

Be careful about getting the gear down before the tower has to call and remind you. One of my friends and fellow CFI was waiting to see how long his student would continue an appoach with the gear up. The tower called a go-around and then they tried to violate him for "reckless flight" or something to that effect.

If what you say is accurate I seriously doubt FAA being able to stick careless and reckless. There maybe more to story that would change the view though. Leaving the gear up into ground effect could make the violation more realistic. Leaving the gear up at a couple hundred feet AGL would be pure garbage.

 

[usmarinemike]

This could spark quite the interesting discussion... First, I've almost never tried to talk to a ground unit via Havequick I/II. Single channel secure or SINGARS is the only thing I've ever used. I have used Havequick to talk interflight, and in our aircraft it's the opposite. Havequick is way easier than SINGARS. Unless there were good SOPs in place, talking SINGARS was painful at best (because our time is constantly downloaded from the GPS), because if the ground unit doesn't use a PLGR enough, we can't talk. As I'm sure you well know, the PRC-119 is notorious for losing time.

Of course, talking to a helo on UHF has its limitations, but it's all a factor of the radio/power. I'm assuming your reference to screwed is using a manpack radio. The PRC-148 is pathetic, not enough power without the amp. The PRC-113 is better (more power), and the PRC-117 is best for a manpack. Still have that pesky line-of-sight issue. Using the MRC-148 is a whole different ball game, I had no issues - could never see the aircraft, and could talk to them sometimes close to 15 miles away. Throw in the fact that I didn't have to walk anywhere, had UHF/VHF/HQ/SINGARS/SATCOM/HF, and an ass ton of power, and I was a happy man...

Weird. In my experience the SINCGARS lost time way less than any of the UHF R/Ts. I think it's just a few instances that color my perception. Like in the middle of an exercise and you have to ask some jets enroute to a target 12 times to send you the time. That doesn't go too well at the WTI debrief.And most of my experience is with vehicle radio systems so power was almost never an issue. I could only dream of having used a MRC 148. Only 138s and 145s when I was in the fleet.

 

[whitesoxnation]

Oh yeah.. almost forgot....

After I watched the night carrier landings w/ audio that bigiron posted, I thought that I'd start talking like that in my 172, LOL. (I already sound smooth on the comms, IMO)

I got bitched out by a tower controller for probably a solid minute... LOL

Maybe if I was a Learjet or a G-V it would have been cool

 

[FelixTheGreat]

If it comes to the point where a control tower has to tell you to go around because the gear isn't down or they figure the situation is unsafe because the pilot's brain is "up and locked" they are within their rights to try to suspend your certificate.

 

[phrogpilot73]

In my experience the SINCGARS lost time way less than any of the UHF R/Ts. I could only dream of having used a MRC 148. Only 138s and 145s when I was in the fleet.

Good point about the UHF R/T's losing time. The PRC-113's and 119's both lose time pretty bad (admitedly, the 113 is worse at time than the 119). My experience was that the ground units generally didn't notice unless one thing happened: They were only talking to ground units, and then tried to talk to an aircraft using the same net, without having used the PLGR in 2+ days. Never was able to talk to the aircraft that way.

Feel your pain with the WTI debrief, and it goes both ways. I was convinced that we could get SINGARS to work during one WTI flight, and went so far as to try and ERF our fills to the ground R/T. Then went about as smoothly as you can expect. Single channel secure after that.

As for the MRC-148, it's about the same as a MRC-138 (power and capabilities), just swaps out the old radios for new. Now it's got a PRC-150 for HF, and a PRC-117 for UHF/VHF/Satcom. Throw in an EPLRS radio and an MDACT, and my SA was always huge! To be honest though, the PRC-150 only came in handy during long convoys, listening to AFN or BBC on HF was great...

 

[usmarinemike]

Then went about as smoothly as you can expect. Single channel secure after that.

Praise God for single channel covered. If we relied on freq hop only for security we'd be hosed.

As for the MRC-148, it's about the same as a MRC-138 (power and capabilities), just swaps out the old radios for new. Now it's got a PRC-150 for HF, and a PRC-117 for UHF/VHF/Satcom. Throw in an EPLRS radio and an MDACT, and my SA was always huge! To be honest though, the PRC-150 only came in handy during long convoys, listening to AFN or BBC on HF was great...

HF was always the TAR/HR...bread and butter of the DASC/GCE connection. I have pretty ugly hearing loss from listening to that crap for over a thousand hours. Thankfully it's not disqualifying. We usually had a PRC-104 with a speaker set up with the BBC when I was over there.

Quite an amazing threadjack if I do say so myself.

 

[MasterBates]

Dumb question:

Why do the radios need the time? Don't you just roll codes at 0000Z?

 

[usmarinemike]

Dumb question:

Why do the radios need the time? Don't you just roll codes at 0000Z?

If you want to frequency hop, every radio needs to have the same exact time so all of the radios are on the same freq at the same time. Rolling fills at midnight is the encryption. Single channel encryption is usually much more reliable, but radios drop those fills all the time, too.

 

[Goober]

Dumb question:

Why do the radios need the time? Don't you just roll codes at 0000Z?

Think of it this way - they don't necessarily need the "time" as in "exactly what clock time is it right now" so much as a common reference time. It's more of a "we're all gonna cut the wire on 'three'." In this case it just turns out that the common time source used to put everyone on the same spot happens to be GPS, but nothing would preclude say, an E-2, w/ older radios from generating a manual TOD (time of day) signal for everyone to synch up on that wasn't GPS-aided. Make sense?

 

[MasterBates]

I guess it makes sense... I never dealt with/had frequency hopping radios.. Just sometimes a freq would change at XXXX and it would be noted on the card.

 

[Flying Low]

I tell my students (HT RI's) to be short and concise with their calls. I hate hearing "With you" on the radio. I'm more of a "Call sign, Level 4 thousand". But if the student answers the call and gets the information conveyed both ways then I'm cool with it. I'm a big fan of Wilco and checking in with the PAR guys with landing checks complete. If I do then they usually don't ask later on to perform landing checks. When I was up in Norfolk we had to report the gear at the 180 as directed by tower. But we had retractable landing gear so it didn't bother me.

 

[TheBubba]

I've had instructors go both ways on the "with you" and such... some say cut it out, some say the politeness is cool. But all are for comm brevity... I've been yelled at for saying "call sign, level 4 thousand"... i'll say something more like "c/s, with you 4 thousand"... I figure they'll know I'm level... if I'm not, "c/s, passing 5 for 17 thousand".

For the original poster, I'll echo what everyone else said... stick with the FTI, FWOP and squadron/wing stan. Let that be your guide. When you get through the pipeline a bit more, most instructors will ease up on "sticking to procedures" with the comms... so long as you don't get comm-diarrhea.

Keep in mind this is an SNFO's perspective, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[KBayDog]

Keep in mind this is an SNFO's perspective, so take it with a grain of salt.

Duh.