NZFF

Greaty day in Welly today, ideal for spotting, which is what I and a mate did and heres the pics (and sunburn ) to prove it....








This is why I luv spotting in welly, u can get so close to the action...





An interesting couple of 'incidents' while we were there, a B1900D was on short short finals, a Saab 340 was on the take off roll and not gaining alot of speed, and then suddenly there they were together, the 1900 still airborne the 340 trying to be, the Saab kept a very shallow climb while the 1900 finally peeled left to go around, got interesting for a few minutes as we held our breath... Someone stuffed up big time, its the closest I've seen in all my years of spotting.

The second incident involved 2 GA aircraft, once again one on a take-off roll the other landing, we saw the guy coming in suddenly doing step S turns to loose speed quickly, we turned and there was a cessna chugging along trying to get airborne, he acheived wheels up just as the inbound guy kissed the tarmac, bit more room but what was going on in the control tower today?

Wow pretty interesting stuff Jon. Perhaps give airways a call?

yes, I can ask them about air2there while I'm on the phone?

Great pics, my fav is the first.
Interesting story as well...

Alex

JonARNZ wrote: Greaty day in Welly today, ideal for spotting, which is what I and a mate did and heres the pics (and sunburn )

ah yes, the perils of spotting.
nice pics there Jon, good to see the Qantas 737 fleet still out and about in Wellington

don't bother ringing the tower -

1. you'll just be REAL unpopular and
2. you are not going to get a comment about any "incident" or "occurence" that may or may not have taken place anyway ... and
3. it takes up time needed for other tasks.

as I was told during training - if you don't get the odd go around ... you ain't trying hard enough!

Nice pics Jon, great to see a JetConnect 737-400 in the mix

Must be a new guy in the tower

great to see a JetConnect 737-400 in the mix

Yay for JetConnect... personal bias not withstanding...

the 2nd to last pick scared the hell outta me for a couple of seconds... its kinda hard to see the undercarriage with the dark trees in the background and i thought the aircraft had come in without lowering it!!!

but what was going on in the control tower today?

I dare say those were probably more pilot error than tower problem...

HardCorePawn wrote:

great to see a JetConnect 737-400 in the mix

Yay for JetConnect... personal bias not withstanding...

the 2nd to last pick scared the hell outta me for a couple of seconds... its kinda hard to see the undercarriage with the dark trees in the background and i thought the aircraft had come in without lowering it!!!

but what was going on in the control tower today?

I dare say those were probably more pilot error than tower problem...

You'll have to enlighten me on your Jetconnect bias hardcorepawn, yeah we saw one depart and the next arrival was a second 400.

A scanner would have been great, speculation is a nuisance in these matters of interest.

Don't know if it works the same way in NZ - perhaps Towerguy can enlighten, but in the UK, you can be given a late landing clearance (unlike the US, and indeed FS, where you can be cleared from halfway to the next state, and have multiple planes cleared to land, all at the same time). In the UK, once you're cleared, either to land or take off, you "own" the runway, and nobody else can use it. Thus, when you call final, if the preceding plane is still on its take off roll, the tower might respond something like "Runway is occupied, continue approach, expect late clearance". The late clearance call is justification for the pilot to proceed beyond the normal decision height.

Of course the pilot can't actually land until the clearance is received, and it's not unknown for that to be as late as in the flare. But each pilot will have a final decision point beyond which they will not go without clearance, and this will vary depending on reaction times, cleanup time for the aircraft, temperature, altitude etc.

So it could well be that the B1900 late clearance played out into a go around because the Saab didn't get off the ground as quickly as anticipated. Either the pilot or the controller would have called the go around as soon as they saw it wasn't going to happen. The GA pilot got his clearance either in the flare, or held off for long enough...

Or not, of course

Haha, I can imagine just holding the Tecnam a foot above the runway clinging tightly onto my speed in gruond effect , waiting for Nelson Tower to clear me to land!

As a layman on such matters I wouldnt have a clue, it was simply the closest I have ever seen two airliners come together, the 1900 went around after it was a third of the way down the runway, and the shallow climb of the Saab gave me the feeling they were almost waiting for the impact. But all was well at the end of the day.

wow you can get rather close! I didnt know the jetconect p[erated 734s too.. I thought it was only 733s..

Kool photos, thanks for sharing.

James

Jimmy wrote: wow you can get rather close! I didnt know the jetconect p[erated 734s too.. I thought it was only 733s..

Kool photos, thanks for sharing.

James

Yup, had them for a while now. I was lucky to fly on one late last year.

You'll have to enlighten me on your Jetconnect bias hardcorepawn,

my wife works there

Ahh, kewl. My paths may cross with hers then, I travel with jetconnect a couple of times a month to Auckland.