Agreed. How this is worded on the ATIS is unacceptable. It needs to go away. Instead, it should say to get performance for both runways. In the Airbus it could take up to two minutes to get numbers back. If they told us to get numbers for both, then it can save time.
This isn't trivial. We're all old and fat. How many times have you seen an old fat guy in a sitcom say "I said LEFT, LEFT. I mean RIGHT, RIGHT". If they can't push enough metal off the runways, that's their problem. I can hold exactly one engine-out procedure in my fat old pointy head at a time.
Thanks. I do understand that. This IS NOT trivial. If I made it sound that way, it was due to another lame attempt on my part to adapt myself to the zeitgeist and local weltanschauung. ...and then to receive the compulsory pounding.
C'mon man. Pretend you are an efficiency consultant. I'm trying to figure out precisely why you need to spend so much time to accomplish something that seems, well, really pretty quick and simple.
For example...You are expecting 1R, flaps 2 for example, now rushed over to 1L and performance there is suddenly a flaps 3, but for this argument were trying to keep the bar brawler in the tower happy and we launch off a runway with improper flap setting bc we didnt stop and see the flaps where supposed to be 3 on this runway, and barely clear the runway end....This is why we dont rush.
Thanks! Already got that. Already responded. I want an answer from the source.
Look, like I've pointed out. This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed if what's being asked is impossible for a flight crew.
Let me save you some time.
Gracias. I'll probably have to type the same thing again after the cocktails start swirlin'
Gracias. I'll probably have to type the same thing again after the cocktails start swirlin'
I mean, you said it all. For SFO to operate, you gotta bend the rules or eff everything horribly. Ops normal most of the year at night, when the marine layer would roll in, was planes calling in on the visual then popping out of the clouds a minute or two later out over SF bay. It's gotta be one of the only airports in the world where controllers can sometimes be heard saying "Are you SURE you don't have the runway?", knowing that PIREP is about to start a ground stop. When it does happen, the pilot always sounds pissed and shocked as they likely don't get how things be at SFO. I remember XL Airways France one time checking in "Starways 063, we were assigned the visual however we do not see the runway and we are currently on the localizer for 28R", there was a very light layer of cloud where I could faintly see their landing light out in the distance but it was definitely obscured. Tower told them "OK sir, well you were assigned the visual and you already accepted it so that is between you and NorCal, runway 28R cleared to land". And they came back all pissed with something like "But we are telling YOU that all the other airplanes are just flying through clouds and yet we are being told to maintain visual separation from the Regional Jet (for 28L)". I think what followed was the first time I've seen a go-around that felt out of spite by ATC LOL, an EDCT started a few minutes later, the clouds blew past within 20 or 30 minutes but the rest of the night had 60-90 minute delays for most flights under 2 hours.I’m curious to hear what @ChasenSFO thinks about both the SFO thing and the SQL thing.
I love SFO, because according to the 7110.65, AIM, all the airport design rules about the parallel runways being closer than 4500 ft, etc, it shouldn’t be able to handle the traffic that it does. It gets away with it through converging simultaneous charted visual approaches that rely on the pilots accepting visual separation with the traffic to the parallel before getting too close, local controller telling you “don’t pass the guy on final for the parallel”, local blasting off departures side by side on 1L/1R basically in formation (but it’s ok because the 7110.65 says you can do it if they’re turning away from each other and diverging by more than X degrees) while two other airliners are on short final in formation for the 28s. It’s awesome, but it only works because the “localisms” and exceptions to rules are letting them get away with making an airport handle twice the amount of traffic it’s technically designed to handle, at least on paper. Really they should have built another parallel runway out in the bay on fill greater than 4500 ft away, but the are wouldn’t allow it so they make do with what they’ve got. Like touching the brakes and coming to a stop at O’Hare if you can’t get a word in on ground, all it takes is for someone to refuse a visual separation or not get the bridges and the airport in sight or for the weather to turn IMC and their traffic capacity basically gets cut in half.
As far as treating 28L and 28R as interchangeable departure runways during west flow, that’s a localism that’s based on them not knowing which arrival runway will have a a bigger hole on final they can slot you in and they decide at the last possible moment. If they just dedicated one runway to arrivals and one to departures it would become more predictable, but by smearing them across both they probably eek out more capacity. If finding out your departure runway at the last possible second is not conducive to 121 ops, it’ll probably take ASAPs and meetings between the airlines and the facility to come up with a better system. But keeping in mind that their localisms are what keeps the airport capacity as high as it is, and airlines benefit from higher capacity and on time departures, I’m a bit suspicious that some of your companies (especially the ones with big SFO bases) aren’t slightly biased to maintain the status quo.
As for SQL, it’s a contract tower. Big-ish airplanes operating off a comparably tiny runway. Close proximity to SFO complicates the class D airspace and where to put all the traffic. The place has a ton of local procedures that aren’t written down anywhere official. Besides the “Diamond shaped waterway” noise abatement departure, they didn’t even used to have official TEC routes. I took a tower tour there ~15 years ago and found the coveted unofficial TEC/preferred IFR routes laminated into the table (they weren’t published in the AF/D yet) and the consensus at the time was there was no way to know them unless you were locally based and had the tribal knowledge. Finally, as far as I know there’s STILL no way to legally depart IFR off runway 30. There’s an obstacle departure procedure off Rwy 12 but Rwy 30 is NA. Therefore they do an unofficial / uncharted hybrid VFR to IFR departure off Rwy 30, that’s given verbally by the controller. The local pilots association charted it with heavy caveats:
You don’t depart IFR. You are VFR until crossing the OAK R-165 on right downwind, and I think you receive your actual IFR clearance from Norcal departure on downwind (those in the know correct me if I’m wrong).
Edit: Hoo boy, after listening to that twin Cessna thing all the way through it’s clear he just punched direct to KBFL into ForeFlight and expected the controllers to tell him what to do. Pretty shocked he didn’t bust the bravo on the way out. Oh well rich people gonna do rich people things, at least he was apologetic.
Lol, with the runway construction, you don't know if you're going straight out or turning until you're taking the runway a lot of times. SFO can't do left turns with the terrain off the 28s unless you're a small prop, so the only way to keep the line moving is every other plane goes right and the next guy is in the roll as you peel off and someone might be on a 1 mile final behind him. The right turn aircraft go right past my apartment. The other day, I was woken up at 4 something AM with the whole building shaking and the landing light lit up my top floor apartment window (never seen that before). A Kalitta 744 had passed over at 800AGL in a tight ass turn! 'Murikeh!
Was doing just that a few years ago and the Captain admitted to me the first time he ever got those instructions, he as a west coast guy, took a left at the lady then a right up the East River.