What air force pilots want other users of unattended aerodromes to know about the way they fly.

Flight Lieutenant Ryan McRae is one of 17 instructors who, each year, turn about 20 zerohour ab initio students into qualified air force pilots.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force students learn to fly on the T-6C Texan II – a high-performance training aircraft that can approach an unattended airfield at up to 240 knots.

“They can slow quite happily to 140 knots – depending on the way they’re joining – but at these speeds, they can appear quite quickly at an unattended aerodrome,” says Flight Lieutenant McRae.

The students fly mainly in the regions closest to Ohakea, where 14 Squadron (training) is based. But once they’re being schooled in IFR, or are on navigation sorties, users of unattended aerodromes around the country can expect to be sharing airspace with the air force students.

“They’ll be making standard radio calls and there’ll be an instructor supervising them making sure they are accurate,” says Ryan.

“But for some students, this will be their first time at an unattended aerodrome and their calls might not be 100 percent correct. There might be some corrections quickly coming in a second radio call, to make sure that everyone’s up to speed with what they’re doing and where they’re coming from.

“We’d ask that other pilots are patient with them.”

The students, as part of their training, will also fly in formation. Helpfully, their call signs can alert other pilots to this.

“Texan zero-one to Texan one-one denotes a single aircraft,” says Ryan. “But ‘Texan’ followed by a metal – for example, gold, silver, or bronze – represents a formation.”

If civilian pilots deduce there’s an air force formation of Texans approaching to land, they can also anticipate the pilots might use the ‘buzz and break’¹ manoeuvre.

“Even a two-ship might use this because that gets us from being a formation to being nicely sequenced and separated in the downwind to land.”

Ryan says the rare student with a ‘Top Gun’ mentality is soon humbled by the Texan.

“It’s pretty hard to jump in that aircraft and just nail it. It does have an awesome avionics suite, but there’s no flight director, and there’s no autopilot – it demands a lot of the pilot.

“It gets them honest pretty quick if they’re inclined to a big ego.”

That humility extends to courtesy in the circuit. Ryan says his student pilots have noticed, and appreciate, how often GA pilots give way to them, but he says it’s important his students understand the ‘rules of the road’ at the unattended aerodrome.

“We definitely expect them to give way if someone else is in the circuit – they’ll be happy to be number two to operators who were there first.”

Rotary flying at unattendeds

Once the students have qualified with Ryan, they specialise in fixed-wing flying with 42 Squadron, or in rotary-wing flying with 3 Squadron.

“The first thing to know about our rotary ops is that the way we fly cannot always be predicted,” says the Commanding Officer of 3 Squadron, Wing Commander Christopher Ross.

He says while most operators will fly to an unattended aerodrome because it’s their destination, or they’re calling in for fuel or to carry out some other task, RNZAF helicopters may land and, perhaps inexplicably to some pilots, take off again a few moments later.

“In those circumstances, we’re probably conducting a nav sortie. We’re not using the aerodrome as a destination, but as a waypoint. We just want civilian pilots to be aware that we may not be on the ground for long.”

The NZDF flies three types of helicopter around the country – the NH90, AgustaWestland A109, and SH-2G(I) Seasprite.

Christopher says that, at over 10 tonnes, the NH90 can create considerable wake turbulence.

“Our pilots will tell other pilots in light aircraft operating close to a medium wake turb NH90 to ‘give due consideration’ to how closely they follow us.

“Basically, we’re saying to give it a couple of minutes, because our wake turb could have catastrophic consequences.”

Christopher says that military helicopters, like civilian helicopters, may join via standard means, or in some sort of direct or abbreviated arrival.

“Helicopters don’t always join a circuit, but if there’s other aircraft around, they might.

“The point is, they’re not altogether predictable and communications between the aircraft need to be really good.”

He says air force helicopters training in low-flying areas are typically there to practise low-flying operations.

“We have dedicated low-flying areas, but we can also fly anywhere in New Zealand down to 100 feet. If we’re carrying out low flying, we’ll typically avoid unattended aerodromes because of possible congestion and difficulty with traffic de-confliction.

“But in a formation flying a route, we may plan to use an unattended aerodrome to land because they’re big open areas (ideal for large formations), and we don’t necessarily need landing consent.

“But of course, we will always consider the needs of other pilots at those aerodromes.”

The importance of good comms

Christopher says ADS-B is only now being fitted across the RNZAF fleet.

“So RNZAF pilots building a mental picture rely heavily on everyone having great lookout – and other traffic making good radio calls.”

He says his pilots flying IFR will do standard IFR calls but then ‘translate’ for VFR pilots.

“If we’re inbound on an NDB, say, at Whanganui, you would hear ‘Whanganui, Traffic, Warrior 06, established inbound on the NDB/DME 11’. But then we’d say, ‘We’re currently eight miles to the northwest descending through 2400, tracking towards the aerodrome’, and that way, those unattended aerodrome folks who are VFR go, ‘Sweet, I know where they are’.”

Christopher says, because the helicopters are not that predictable, a civilian pilot who’s unsure about what they’re doing, or about to do, “can just ask, in plain language”.

“And we’ll answer in plain language right back. That’s much better than everyone assuming they know what’s happening”.

Something the RNZAF pilots have in common with just about every other pilot in the country is being disconcerted by locals using informal reporting points.

“‘Overhead Dave’s shed’ gets you hunting on the VNC with that feeling, ‘I have no idea where that is’. It’s potentially a really dangerous distraction,” says Christopher.

“A further issue for us is that our radios are really good quality, and we can be in the Hawke’s Bay but picking up calls from the West Coast.

“If pilots don’t start with, for instance, ‘Buller Traffic’, we have no idea where they are. When they say, ‘Charlie Bravo Delta, Bob’s shed, 3000’, we don’t know that they’re, firstly, using an informal VRP, and secondly, are literally hundreds of miles away.

“So complete information in a radio call, including location, is really important to us.

“In that way, we’re really no different to civilian pilots.

Flight Advisor tool

flightadvisornz.io(external link)

Flight Advisor is a free online tool designed to reduce the risk of mid-air collisions and/or collisions with hazards at low level.

Those hazards include fixed obstacles, or aircraft that have indicated they plan to operate in the same area at the same time.

It displays, in near-real time, locations of hazards reported by users, and intended flight operating areas of users, altitudes, and routes – so other pilots can log in to identify any areas of conflict – before flying.”

An example: An RNZAF Texan crew uploads a low-level navigation route, and finds it will potentially conflict with a low-level agricultural operation happening in the same area at the same time.

That gives the air force crew the opportunity to modify their route to avoid that area, or change the flight timing so the risk is removed.

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Footnotes

¹ Buzz and break manoeuvre – aircraft flies at high speed to halfway down runway, then turns sharply left or right to circle back and join downwind. This rapidly reduces the aircraft’s speed, without it having to fly for a long time at lowered speeds.

Main image: A NH90, one of three helicopter types flown by the NZDF. Photo courtesy of the RNZAF.

 

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The ‘buzz and break’ at unattended aerodromes

The Autumn edition of Vector had a very good article regarding RNZAF operations at unattended aerodromes. (Autumn 2024, “The RNZAF at unattended aerodromes”)

It mentioned that other users may expect the buzz and break procedure to be used. We appreciate that this procedure plays an important role in the expeditious recovery of fast military aircraft, and that it provides a spectacular cameo airshow. However, we have concerns about its use at unattended aerodromes.

A lot of good work has been done by the CAA education team recently on the description and use of the standard overhead join. But the buzz and break runs counter to the standard join in some respects.

With the use of a left-hand circuit the buzz and break could potentially work, albeit removing the overhead component. This is provided all other traffic established in the circuit (some possibly NORDO or ab initio) are given priority.

With the use of a right-hand circuit, however, the situation changes. Then the aircraft (again potentially NORDO or ab initio) joins overhead with the airfield on their left.

What if then they commence descent to circuit height and a right turn for crosswind and are confronted head on with traffic on initials at 250 knots?

This would be extremely unhealthy. There appears to be very little documentation of this procedure in GA training documents.

There’s certainly no mention of the associated FRTO (flight radio telephony operation) phraseologies in AC91-9 and AC172-1 Radiotelephony Manual.

From a flight safety and peacetime point-of-view, the buzz and break has no place at unattended non-MBZ aerodromes, where NORDO aircraft may be operating.

Less risk is posed if the procedure is used at an unattended aerodrome within an MBZ, where the vector-in-use is known and it’s left-hand.

Virtually no risk is involved when the procedure is used at a controlled airfield.

Rodger Ward (RAANZ Operations)
Scott James (RAANZ CEO)

The CAA responds

Paula Moore, Team Leader of Certification Adventure & Recreation, and Marc Brogan, Chief Advisor of Standards

General aviation recreational pilots should never use the buzz and break procedure except for those of high performance ex-military fighters/trainers and those in a formation, all of whom have been specifically trained in the manoeuvre.

It’s used by high-performance aircraft to reduce speed just before joining the traffic circuit without having to fly for an extended period at a low airspeed.

For aircraft formations, it’s an efficient way to integrate into the traffic circuit, maintain sight of the other aircraft in the formation during the join, and space for a stream landing.

This provides the safest way for such aircraft to join the circuit.

All pilots using this procedure are appropriately trained, including on positioning and sequencing with other aircraft.

If the runway-in-use is not already known, the aircraft will overfly the aerodrome at above circuit height and then position to join via the ‘initial’ point, downwind from the runway-in-use threshold.

Depending on the size of the formation flying this procedure, it may take the aircraft beyond the vicinity, before turning back, to track to the left/right initial point.

The rules about operating in the vicinity of an aerodrome still apply, including priority for aircraft already operating in the circuit. As stated in the Autumn 2024 article, RNZAF pilots will give way to those aircraft who are ahead of them in the circuit.

The break procedure flown at airshows is a display manoeuvre and is different to the buzz and break normally flown, as it will often go below the minimum VFR heights, requiring the pilot(s) to hold a display approval.

Information is published in AIPNZ AD 1.6 section 10 Buzz and break procedure(external link) to give awareness to the other pilots operating in the vicinity of the aerodrome, when the manoeuvre is being flown in the circumstances described above.

The diagram depicted in that section for a left-hand circuit, which is reversed if the join is for a right-hand circuit pattern. That section also details the associated phraseologies used, which are generally the same as for any joining procedure, with only a couple of different calls.

The AIP will be amended shortly to clarify that the procedure is normally flown only by high performance aircraft or formations.