Real World Aviation: DRVSM

[AWACS 12]

Hi, Being in the military and flying on AWACS in particular, the Air Force has been stuffing us AWACS guys with this DRVSM stuff for a while now, it was implemented at the beginning of this year and from what I know has already cause one mid air collision. And listening to our pilots VHF when doing missions, the FAA controllers seem to be a little bit slower. Has everyone heard of DRVSM yet? If not I'd be happy to explain it, but my question is, has anyone had any real world problems or concerns with this new system so far?Jeff USAF

[Guest bisinchi]

Hi,Maybe the problem is the responsibility problem. I think in Europe (and maybe it's the same in other parts of the world), the pilot is responsible for its plane and has to follow any indication the instruments are saying not matter what the controller tells you. Trusting the instruments come ahead of controllers indications. So if your TCAS tells you to climb and the controller tells you to descent, you descent.There were some major thinking done in Europe after the midair collision over Switzerland a couple of years ago, I don't know what the outcome is.Regards,Francois

[CF104 0]

Hi Jeff,Actually DRVSM only came into effect on Jan. 20/05 at 09:01 zulu. http://www.faa.gov/ats/ato/rvsm1.htmWith only three days in effect I would like to hear about the mid air collision caused by this recent implementation.As for commercial operations, our aircraft are in the process of being modified to be capable of flight into RVSM airspace so our only complaint is the extra fuel required to fly at or below FL280.Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 & Lockheed C-130/L-100 Mechanichttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[michal 44]

> So if your TCAS tells you to climb>and the controller tells you to descent, you descent.NO, you climb :-)Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[AWACS 12]

John,It was a class A mishap, between an Air Force training aircraft and a civillian aircraft, one of our navigators told us before we flew the other day, he said, "I'm sure all of you heard what happened the other day," I didn't hear about it until he said something so I'll ask him for more details and if it's ok for me to post the info here.Jeff USAF

[CF104 0]

Jeff,I'm sure that if a civilian aircraft was part of a mishap with a military aircraft it will show up in the NTSB database this coming week. Otherwise I would say it's a bit premature to be blaming DRVSM for an incident nobody knows about. Midair collisions are a bit hard to hide.Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 & Lockheed C-130/L-100 Mechanichttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[Guest bisinchi]

Michael,You are absolutely right, you corrected it rightly, that's what I meant, sorry about missing the explanation!!Francois

[Guest Philip Olson]

Here is a link to the story http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144768,00.html so you all can read a press account of the incident.Philip OlsonI'm the luckiest man in the world, my girl friend has a yoke and rudder pedals! Eat your hearts out!http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

[KevinAu 441]

How did that cropduster make it up to RVSM airspace?

[CF104 0]

Now that we've all read the Fox news account, DRVSM appears :-lol to not be the root cause of this accident.Quoted from the release:"A base spokesman said he did not know what caused the collision, which happened at about 5,000 feet."Hmmm about 24,000 feet below DRVSM. How DRVSM had a role to play in this accident would be interesting to piece together.EDIT:BTW, I forgot to add that this accident was 2 days before DRVSM was implemented so, even though it was at 5000 ft, DRVSM could not have played any role in this as there was no DRVSM.Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 & Lockheed C-130/L-100 Mechanichttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[AWACS 12]

I guess I'll have to ask the nav what this had to do with DRVSM. Could it be an overworked controller due to implementation of DRVSM?Jeff USAF

[CF104 0]

Hi Jeff,I highly doubt it as the accident was 2 days before DRVSM even came into effect. As an aside, it would be interesting to know if the crop duster was flying in controlled or uncontrolled airspace.Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 & Lockheed C-130/L-100 Mechanichttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg

[CF104 0]

Preliminary NTSB report:http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=2...126X00109&key=1Cheers,JohnBoeing 727/737 & Lockheed C-130/L-100 Mechanichttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/ng_driver.jpg