Are any of you familiar with VFR arrival procedures at Augsburg EDMA? Are any of you familiar with whether the tower has radar or the ability to see aircrafts position by having a computer program that gives aircraft position?
The arrival chart has suggested routes depending on runway. Usually you will be directed to final once entered, rather than tracking the charted routes yourself.
W / L / O are only departure routes, e.g. L follows river Lech to the North.
Never thought much about it, yes, they may have some form of primary or secondary radar (or great binoculars ;-) ) but i am not sure. Does it matter ?
They usually are pretty friendly, but since they have and get a lot of flight school traffic, they can be a tad sensitive to casual radio use and demand correct phraseology and complete read backs.
Thanks for your response. I was just wondering why they had me fly through the final approach course to 25 to enter via the Sierra One when I reported over MIQ which is North of the ILS for 25. He refused my request for a straight to 25 due to heavy ILS traffic which is fair enough. But why would he have me fly through the IFR corridor for RWY 25? I tried to not get in the way of the arriving IFR traffic by flying way out of the way of the IFR arrival corridor as I headed South to Sierra1.
The reason for my questioning the tower having radar is because he would have to know my position relative to the “heavy” inbound ILS traffic. In order for me to get to Sierra 1 I would need to bust through that corridor. I would hope he has the ability see all the traffic in the vicinity of the airport in order not to cause conflict outside his Class D while operating incoming IFR (mostly practice) approaches.
Regarding his radio skills, I was not impressed. After I reported over Sierra 2 he said to join “the” downwind. Now I know they have a glider field on the south side of 07-25 so just to be clear I requested clarification that it was indeed “left” Downwind. Not being familiar with the area using an extra syllable would have saved further radio communication to clarify his statements.
However it could just be all my misunderstanding since I was trained in the US and things are done differently in Germany. I dont want to step on toes or traditions but would like to blend into the system they use here.
So thanks again.
Some tower radar feeds in Germany do not show mode S information, only mode C. The controller only sees 7000 for VFR and an altitude. That may have contributed to the confusion, especially if there was a lot of traffic.
But that does not answer the fact that I told them I was over MIQ, a reporting point north of the IFR corridor. It would have been less dangerous for him to have given me entry point NOV 1 which is on the North side of the airport and relative to my position, north of the airport.
Not sure why he directed you to S1.
No idea where MIQ is and heard you were easterly of CTR maybe ?
There is no “left”…, only downwind or right downwind ;-) even if you are right about the effectiveness of the extra word.
Sounds like a not so experienced controller…
ch.ess wrote:
No idea where MIQ isMIQ (Mike) is an NDB 28 NM ENE of EDMA.
C210_Flyer wrote:
But that does not answer the fact that I told them I was over MIQ, a reporting point north of the IFR corridor. It would have been less dangerous for him to have given me entry point NOV 1 which is on the North side of the airport and relative to my position, north of the airport.MIQ is on the final approach track for EDMA rwy 25 — not north of it. (It is also an IAF for the ILS to EDMA rwy 25).
So when you reported over MIQ you were already right in the middle of the “IFR corridor” and from a safety point of view, it wouldn’t have mattered if you went to S1 or N1. From MIQ the route to EDMA via S1 is 4 NM shorter than the route via N1 — that might well be the reason you were sent to S1.
Airborne_Again wrote:
So when you reported over MIQ you were already right in the middle of the “IFR corridor” and from a safety point of view, it wouldn’t have mattered if you went to S1 or N1. From MIQ the route to EDMA via S1 is 4 NM shorter than the route via N1 — that might well be the reason you were sent to S1.
Well that makes sense. But it did look like MIQ was north of the ILS 25 centerline. Checking the charts you are indeed correct. US controllers would normally have given a straight in because eventually they would have to mix IFR and VFR traffic to get them on final anyway. As it was I had to extend my downwind for a C172 that was 4NM DME out and was making 110 IAS to let him in as #1 to land. Perhaps it adherence to the rules that VFR traffic must enter at certain designated points.
Does anyone know what the ILS separation spacing is, here in Germany?
What do you mean by “ILS separation”?
There is the standard radar separation of 5 NM, which can be reduced to 3 NM with an appropriate radar system. On top of this would come any wake turbulence and/or formation minima.
By day, you could be offered to maintain your own separation to the aircraft in front.
But in Airspace D, this only applies between IFR traffic anyway. So technically “not hitting” the IFR traffic would be enough.
I’m not sure whether this was your question, though.
