achimha wrote:
three questions like “what is your favorite meal?” and “what is your favorite color?”
Hmm. Do these questions three also include your quest and the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
That poster is long gone. Loco should know however.
derek wrote:
Hmm. Do these questions three also include your quest and the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
I think Peter missed the joke!
(I usually fly to Israel about 1-2 times per year; haven’t done it 2023 due to combination of health/medical and then long annual reasons.)
In my understanding, these questions are basically identification questions, just like the “backup” questions one gets asked when one has forgotten one’s password in many systems. The procedure is the same whether IFR or VFR. One asks for permission weeks in advance, with a local sponsor that can vouch for the flight. One gets permission in writing, one chooses an over-the-radio identification code and one enters one’s answers to the pre-flight identification questions (favourite meal, colour, etc). On one’s last leg, when “doors closed and ready to start engine”, one calls them on the phone, one confirms that all the luggage was screened at the pre-approved airport, etc, they say OK to go. In flight, when approaching 180 nmi (IIRC; maybe it is 200 nmi) from Ben Gurion VOR/DME, one calls the specific frequency over VHF radio and one gives the code one has chosen and one gets permission to enter. In my experience, at FL240 with a "normal light GA 10 W radio reception is borderline, so in effect I usually try at the prescribed distance, they often fail to understand me, so I try again a few minutes later and then all is good. I assure you, they haven’t scrambled the fighter jets by then. I let you guess whether one also has an alternative code, equivalent to squawking 7500, that one can give to covertly signal something is amiss.
It is all in the AIP and/or AIC, really. Except the “alternative code”, that is if you think it exists.
@lionel I once met a pilot who had flown a delightful Jodel Paris-Nice to Israel. This is some years ago, but wonder how the low level cruising altitude crowd establish two-way VHF permission to enter the FIR?
You make a good point. Actually, I wonder how they talk to airspace controllers at all beyond about 100 to 120 nmi of the coast? According to the line of sight formula, they should be out of range?
With respect to Israel specifically, I know several people that did it in normally aspirated engines without onboard oxygen so clearly there is some way. I guess since the whole thing is prearranged and they are expected by the “airspace gatekeepers”, the army / air force just doesn’t sweat the small stuff on that. They expect you, there you are squawking your flight id, being at the right place at the right time, they know by experience at what distance they can be reached, so as long as it happens at about the right place for your flight profile, they have no reason worry about you. They just follow along on the radar.
Since low flying traffic is also usually slow flying traffic, even if you contact them at 100 nmi (what the distance formula gives) instead of 180 nmi, they do have the same (if not more…) time to react to your flight if they need to compared to big iron flying Mach 0.82 at FL330 calling them at 180 nmi…
