86 SA Flyer Magazine
O
F course, as with
most things in life,
with freedom comes
responsibility. In
uncontrolled airspace
there are no air trafc
controllers maintaining trafc separation
by keeping a beady eye on aircraft in their
sectors. There are no barked commands
from others who have the duty to prevent
aircraft from bumping into each other, and
there is nobody to sequence trafc in and
out of the local aireld. All of these things
are entirely the pilot’s responsibility. It is just
you and the few basic tools that you and
the other pilots in the vicinity are presumed
to have that keep you separated and out of
gory news reports.
WHAT IS VFR?
The good old Visual Flight Rules have
been unchanged for many decades and are
unlikely to see signicant changes in the
foreseeable future.
In a nutshell, VFR requires the pilot
to avoid other trafc by looking out of the
windows and seeing other aircraft – and
taking the appropriate actions to prevent
himself from trying to occupy the same
piece of space as the other users of the air.
VFR navigation is required by the
Rules to be by reference to identiable
objects on the ground and requires only
rudimentary instrumentation. Even the
archaic AM VHF radios that still are the
mainstay of aviation separation are not
necessarily a requirement. Any electrical
system is optional. At best, other pilots
with whom you are sharing the sky have
functional eyeballs, a map, compass,
altimeter and hopefully, a brain. Aircraft that
have any kind of cross-country capability
are nevertheless usually tted with a radio,
but we cannot presume that it is always
functional.
RADIO PROCEDURE WITHOUT
CONTROL
There are plenty of manuals, learning
tools, courses and other published
information regarding formal procedures,
phraseology and radio interactions with
tower, approach and radar controllers, but
pitifully little that prepares the pilot for that
portentous psychological realisation that
under VFR, he is often entirely on his own
with other users of the air. Indeed, many
seldom even make the realisation that there
is nobody in charge.
The three C’s must now come into play:
cooperation, communication, and most
important of all, common sense.
COOPERATION
The rst of these, cooperation, requires
a major psychological change of mindset,
AOPA BRIEFING
Chris Martinus ‒ Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association – South Africa
UNCONTROLLED
COMMUNICATIONS
The VFR pilot ying
around uncontrolled
airspace and unmanned
airelds enjoys a great
deal of freedom.
Freedom to decide where
and when to go. Freedom
to change his or her mind
at any time. Freedom
from continual oversight,
and also freedom from a
lot of formal procedures.
The freedom of VFR flight
in uncontrolled airspace
comes with responsibility.
Jeremy Holdcraft
87 SA Flyer Magazine
particularly for pilots who learned to y at
controlled airports. You are no longer being
told what to do. But this does not mean
that you are now in a position of authority
where you tell other people what to do. Nor
should you presume that other pilots are
particularly sensitive to what you are doing
or what you want to do.
Pilots are more guilty of using rank,
seniority and self-importance in their
interactions than most other creatures. This
is a tendency that should be consciously
suppressed in a cooperative environment.
Neither timidity nor arrogance are helpful in
the uncontrolled environment where nobody
is in charge.
Politeness and an honest effort to
understand the needs and circumstances
of other airspace users are the essential
components of achieving a safe cooperative
uncontrolled environment. Bombast,
self-importance and insensitivity will
swiftly break down that essential sense of
teamwork that keeps us safe.
Simply announcing your intentions
on the radio without consideration of
what others are doing is very unhelpful.
By the same token, being too timid and
accommodating brings its own perils. There
are simple rules and procedures that must
be followed.
A common ‘politeness’ error is for
the less-experienced pilot to yield his
clear ‘right of way’ to a bigger or more
important-seeming aircraft. Although the
politeness and consideration of yielding
to a bigger aircraft (that perhaps carries
more passengers and burns more fuel)
seems like the nice thing to do, it creates
uncertainty about the pilot’s actions and
creates consequent misunderstandings and
danger.
This is akin to the situation we often see
on the roads at four-way stop streets. When
several happy drivers arrive from different
directions, they politely wave each other
through, instead of simply going when it is
their turn to do so (after the person on their
right has gone). This game soon sours and
the now annoyed drivers all simultaneously
pull away and collide with each other in the
middle of the intersection. The rules should
always take precedence over politeness
and the desire to be regarded as a nice
fellow.
COMMUNICATION
If your mother didn’t point out to you in
your formative years that God had a reason
to give you two eyes and two ears, but only
one mouth, then please take note of this in
uncontrolled airspaces and at uncontrolled
airelds.
Listen! Look out! Think!
Do this before even considering
pressing that PTT button. Listening to
other radio calls, processing them and
getting a mental picture of the trafc around
you and the other pilots’ intentions is far
more important than making your own
announcement of your intentions. First think
about what you should be doing, then make
the call.
When formulating your position report,
think hard about what other users of the
sky may want to know about you. This is
once again very different from a controlled
environment where ATC has told you where
to go and what to do – and everyone else
has heard it.
In this instance, the formalised
reporting that is used at controlled
airports and airspaces is not necessarily
appropriate. Rather use ordinary language
to describe your intentions, taking into
account what information would be useful to
other pilots. Keep transmissions brief. Other
pilots are not really interested in details
AOPA BRIEFING
BELOW - Reliance on GPS's in VFR keeps
your eyes in the cockpit when they should be
looking out, and can tempt you to give unhelpful
position reports.
88 SA Flyer Magazine
about how many passengers and pets you
have on board. It is usually not necessary
to mention your destination or point of
departure unless your position report
specically places you en-route between
these two points. In that case, it is prudent
to state that you are overhead or abeam
some identiable place or object on the
ground along that line.
When arriving at or departing from
the circuit at an uncontrolled aireld, it
is usually best to give a simple direction,
such as, “XXX departing the circuit to the
north-west,” or, “XXX joining left downwind
Runway 36.” Radio trafc is heaviest in the
circuit and aircraft are in close proximity to
each other, so this is where it is important
that calls should be brief. Calling, “XXX is
left downwind Runway 36, number two,” is
enough information for other trafc to look
out for you.
Stating your aircraft type is usually
sufcient to give other pilots an idea of your
expected speed and other performance
parameters. In the interests of brevity
and clarity, it is best to identify the aircraft
by name, such as “Cessna Skyhawk”
rather than “Cessna one seven two”.
Stay away from speaking in numbers
to avoid confusion with real numbers
such as headings and altitudes. Aircraft
identication using ICAO codes such as
“charlie one seven two” may seem clever,
but is just confusing to others, especially if it
is an unusual aircraft type.
Ums and errs, drawn out wafing and
‘happy chat’ wastes air time and irks others
who may need to say something important.
Formulate your call before pressing that
PTT.
COMMON SENSE
This uncommon quality is best acquired
by thinking before speaking.
I have heard radio calls in the
Johannesburg Special Rules area such
as, “I am to the left of the hill.” What hill?
Whose left? In what direction are you
ying? How high are you? What general
area are you in?
“I am 47.6 miles north of Carletonville,”
heard while ying overhead Magaliesberg.
Well, he could possibly be near my position,
but I’m going to have to pull out a chart and
try to plot his position to nd out. By which
time it is too late if he is.
Quoting published IFR waypoints or
GPS data like ETAs is common among
those who rely too much on their GPS.
It may be helpful when talking to ATC,
but is usually unhelpful to other VFR
pilots. Remember that VFR navigation is
dependent on identiable objects on the
ground. VFR also does not presume that all
aircraft are GPS-equipped. GPS seduces
the user into thinking that other VFR trafc
can see his fancy screen, including his
magenta line. It also lures the mind into
thinking that other trafc will be visible
on that colourful screen. Look out of the
windows instead. That is where you will see
other aircraft and what the other pilots are
also seeing.
Referring to IFR waypoints is useless
unless all other VFR pilots in the vicinity
have that same GPS screen or an IFR chart
in front of them. AOPA has vehemently
opposed the publication of VFR waypoints
which do not coincide with clearly visible
objects on the ground. The drafters of some
of these rules simply don’t understand
that it’s not possible to accurately identify
a point in an expanse of desert with the
naked eye, even if it is supposedly on an
imaginary line drawn perpendicular to a
runway ve miles away.
Common sense is quite simple really.
Just mentally place yourself in the position
of the pilots with whom you are attempting
to communicate, and understand that
they do not necessarily have the same
information in front of them that you do.
CONCLUSION
Visual Flight Rules are very simple, as
are ordinary interactions with ordinary pilots
who know the basic subject matter. Keeping
communications simple, keeping our egos
in check and empathising with the pilots
with whom we communicate will keep us
all safer.
AOPA BRIEFING
j
BELOW - In uncontrolled airspace it's important
to listen out and form a visual picture of what's
going on around you before pressing the PTT.
