We're on the outskirts of Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport here in Victoria in
Australia and this is home to some of the busiest airspace here in the country
and the second busiest air route between Melbourne here and Sydney in New South
Wales. It's shared by planes so anything as small as a Cessna 152 right up to An A380.
Okay that was a 737 but the point remains this airspace is some of the
busiest here in the country but how do pilots know where to go and who's
helping everybody up there?
This is Melbourne's air traffic control main complex which is based here at
Tullamarine airports. So the airport itself it's just over behind me here
you'll recognize those two things. So this is Peter from Airservices who's
going to be our guide for the day. What are we gonna be having a look at?
So today we'll have a look at the training facility and specifically
the 360 degree training simulator and have a look at Melbourne Centre where
controllers are working away looking after our country. Australia looks after 11
percent of the world's airspace, hmm, and that's divided up between Melbourne and
Brisbane and all the associated. Wow 11%? I didn't realise that.
Australia is divided into the two regions so if you put a diagonal roughly
through Alice Springs to the Northeast that's done by Brisbane centre and to
the southwest that's done by Melbourne centre. One of the things I was learning
though is it's not you guys don't just cover the country it's not just the land
area itself so right ocean regions. So we do the ocean regions so we've got
oceanic airspace it's when you are handed off to another
FIR. An example that I like to give is the Dubai - Melbourne flight approximately
fourteen hours, nine of which is spent with Melbourne Centre. In the most recent
year we looked after 156 million airline passengers. Wow. Well we're gonna take a
look around today we can have a better look around now with Peter just one
question though before we start. Sure. Do you get distracted by all the planes
because every time one goes past I'm just desperately trying to look round
and... Yes when I'm at home I tend to run outside and have a look
not all controllers do that. Some are de-sensitized to it but I know
it's good to know that you do this. Yes. Alright well should we take a look
around but we're gonna start in the training centre. We'll start in the training centre. Let's go.
This is one of the training setups that they have down here this is the 240 degree simulator.
This Airport you should recognise, that's the apron Tango Delta Sierra
is probably over there somewhere, this is Moorabbin Airport. Mel what's
happening at Moorabbin today? We've got three in the circuit so as far as Moorabbin
is concerned it's a very quiet day. So we've got one on final you might be
able to see another one turning base to follow is number two and the other one
just on crosswind now that's the third one in the circuit. You're right that's
probably the quietest day I think I've ever seen a Moorabbin airport. The planes
themselves are actually being controlled by other trainee controllers here at
the airport? They're not trainee controllers
their simulator support officers so we don't control their own runs we have
people doing it for us so we usually would have two students and one
instructor based on Moorabbin. We do regional approach ... Echo India Uniform downwind touch and go. Echo India Uniform
number three follows the Cessna on base. Follow the Cessna Echo India Uniform. We do a radar tail
course which is based on Melbourne and we do a regional approacher course
which is based on Port Hedland with Alice Springs airspace. So who's coming
in next? We have India Tango Yankee just turning onto final now. Okay and so these
strips represent the ordering in which the aircraft are coming in? They do so Kilo
Oscar November's just on the runway now he'll be airborne shortly, he's airborne
now and India Tango Yankee who's on final he now becomes number one.
India Tango Yankee cleared touch and go. Cleared touch and go India Tango Yankee.
That's not a bad landing. Yes. He did quite well.
Roughly how long would it take from someone right from the start to get to
the point where they could be managing live aircraft. It's probably about if
you say about an 18-month period. So the training in the initial training area
where we're teaching the skills from the start is around about 12 to 14 months
and in that time that's when they earn the diploma of aviation. They'll then go
out to the field and they'll train again in a simulated environment where they
will practice the skills required but on the actual airspace that they're going
to be tested on. And then after that they'll go into the field and actually
train in the live environment with somebody always behind them making sure
that they are making the right decisions. And that lasts for about three to four
months until they are suitably qualified to control on their own. If I wanted to
become an air traffic controller if if I'm out there in school at the moment
and I'm looking at sort of qualifications and what I should be
studying, what are some of the key areas that people should focus on? We take people
with a broad range of skills and talents and education background because we're
teaching from a base knowledge of nothing it really doesn't matter what
you have done in the past. Because we will test you thoroughly to make sure
you have the skills and attributes that it takes to be a controller. If someone does
want to find out more information what's the best next step for them where should
they go, the Airservices website? Yeah onto the Air
Services website and if you look at the air traffic control area on the
vacancies page put your email address in and therefore can send you an email to
let you know when the link is open again. I'll put the link below, but thank you very much. Nice talking to you Deb.
So we've got the India Ocean on the right, Central Australia is in the same aisle
and then over here we've got the Melbourne Sydney which is the second
busiest route in the world. We've got the sectors underneath them which I
work on and in the next two aisles we have Adelaide approach the arrival function
into Adelaide, Canberra approach and Melbourne. 50 operational
consoles, yep, in this room approximately 350 controllers that work in the centre.
So we're gonna take a look now one of the actual screens that the controllers
use here, so what are you guys looking at?Yeah so we've got Albury in the middle
Canberra and Melbourne. Green tracks the tracks that we control any blue track is
a track that's coming our way. This aircraft here is a Seminole PA44
it's flying to Mangalore it's call sign is November Charlie Echo. It's
light in wake category passing 4,800 feet on climb to 5,000 120 knots ground
speed. And that little B means it's ADS-B equipped. Departing Wagga we've
got a Melbourne bound Rex aircraft passing 7800 on climb to the flight level
one eight zero, 180 knots ground speed. I'll put up his route there you go.
He's going to Melbourne so he's tracking to position TEMIS and then BOYSE.
We're just gonna see if we can simulate an emergency situation here as well so
you know on your transponder in an aircraft if you squawk 7700 for an
emergency what does it look like when it comes up on screen?
Okay so I've just asked them to select radios for squawk code which is
7600 and made it that's how it presents itself. So when I selected I've
acknowledged the alert it still stays for as long as the aircraft squawks radio
fail. We asked the aircraft to squawk ident if they're receiving this
transmission yep and we'll get the indication there's the
ident, a blue flashing circle. So VFR pilots,
yeah, who are flying around just uncontrolled airspace potentially or
around around Class C airspace have you got any tips from air traffic control
for pilots. Some of the things that you can do is submit a flight plan if you
submit a VFR flight plan then it's available to us. Always ensure your
transponders on and selected to altitude so we can see your altitude. The other
thing is listen out on the appropriate area frequency and a good indicator that
you're on the right frequencies that you can actually hear aircraft talking and
they're talking about places that you're familiar with. So we've got this aircraft
here near Mount Hotham Aerodrome at 8500. So he's not identified however because
of the shape of the actual return which is an hourglass
we know that aircraft squawking 1200 so most likely he's VFR and it looks
as if he's heading towards Albury.
I've crowd-sourced a couple of questions as well on my Facebook
and Twitter accounts just some of the questions that pilots and
travelers wanted to ask air traffic control. So Dravid asks he said were any
of the controllers here, were any of them pilots before? Yeah yeah I was a
pilot before I started ATC that was my interest I moved on to ATC but we have
many pilots that become ATCs and some ATCs that have become pilots in the past
as well. Nick asks, Nick says what do you think of the movie pushing Tin?
I liked it
up to the midway point sure there's a bit of Hollywood spice in it we don't go
around pushing it each other's motorbikes over if we're not happy with
each other. But it tried to replicate what actually happens and they seem to
work a lot less hours than we do.
Ben has asked how often does an aircraft
call tower instead of ground for example how often does do you get Essendon
Tower when its Melbourne Centre? Well the example that we give is we keep getting
called Brisbane Centre yeah instead of Melbourne Centre. We just keep
reiterating Melbourne Centre until they change their mind. So you don't mind too much?
no it's not a problem not a problem.
Stephen has asked, this is a good question actually and I was wondering
this when I came down because I fly around here quite a lot and I've never
known this. Stephen good question - why are there two towers at Melbourne? Okay so the new tower
the new tower has been built and operational the old tower, at its base multiple buildings
that are used for other purposes. Once those functions are relocated to new
premises then that will allow the old tower to be
removed. I'll finish on this question I really like this one this is a very
important question. Mustafa, thank you for this one he says have you got any
tips for new student pilots to get over the fear of talking to you scary scary
people at air traffic control? Yeah well we're not that scary. My recommendation
is you take time think about what you're gonna say wait for a pause on the
frequency and then say what you want to ask and if we don't answer you
immediately it doesn't necessarily mean that we haven't heard you. Yeah that's a
good point actually because I know sometimes I have called air traffic control and I
don't get a response about it and for new pilots that's quite worrying because
you start wondering am I on the wrong frequency I done something wrong?
We know you've called and we'll get back to you if we haven't responded to you in
a reasonable amount of time try again and wait for a response.
Brilliant alright thank you Peter I have to run now I've got some other flying
myself to do. Thank you for your time if you've got any more questions that you
might want to ask Airservices, Air Traffic Control, Peter specifically as
well, put them in the comments below. Thank you thank you for time, it was really
nice to meet you. Thank you Peter, see you later. That was really cool that was
really nice having a good look around. At least now I know when I'm flying the
Cirrus next time and I'm talking to the guys at Melbourne Centre I can put some
faces to the names or faces to the voices of you know what I mean.