Belfast Aldergrove |
Unlike airports within the London and Manchester TMA's, Aldergrove departures contact Aldergrove Radar once airborne and not area sectors.
Aircraft should be transferred by ADC to Aldergrove Radar straight after departure, preferably no later than 2000ft.
Aldergrove Radar also controls Belfast City departures.
Aldergrove and Belfast City departures are not free flow - The tower must call up for a release on every aircraft.
As Aldergrove does not have any SIDS, aircraft are given an airway joining clearance and a squawk obtained from the appropriate area controller, which is coordinated on an aircraft by aircraft basis.
All departing IFR aircraft from Aldergrove and City must file via airways. The 3 main airways used by departing aircraft are L10, P600 and N517.
Aircraft should be routed as agreed with the relevant area sector and climbed to the agreed level (usually FL90) before being transferred to the WEST area sector
- If WEST is not online, they should be transferred to Unicom
All departures should be instructed to Squawk IDENT on first contact to validate the mode A. Aircraft must also be instructed to report their passing altitude (if omitted from the first call) to verify the Mode C readout. (Readout has to be +/- 200ft from the reported altitude).
Separation between departing aircraft is applied so that after one aircraft takes off, the next aircraft does not take-off with less than the number of minutes needed. There are 3 departure separation methods in use at Aldergrove; Vortex, Route and Speed separation. When calculating the correct departure separation, the highest of the 3 values is the one to use.
Vortex Separation
|
First Aircraft Vortex Category
|
Second Aircraft Vortex Category
|
Separation
|
| HEAVY | HEAVY | 1 minute |
| HEAVY | MEDIUM | 2 minutes |
| HEAVY | SMALL | 2 minutes |
| HEAVY | LIGHT | 2 minutes |
| MEDIUM | HEAVY | - |
| MEDIUM | MEDIUM | 1 minute |
| MEDIUM | SMALL | 2 minutes |
| MEDIUM | LIGHT | 2 minutes |
| SMALL | HEAVY | - |
| SMALL | MEDIUM | - |
| SMALL | SMALL | 1 minute |
| SMALL | LIGHT | 2 minutes |
| LIGHT | HEAVY | - |
| LIGHT | MEDIUM | - |
| LIGHT | SMALL | - |
| LIGHT | LIGHT | 1 minute |
Route Separation
A standard route separation of 2 minutes should be applied between all departing aircraft from Aldergrove and City.
Speed Separation
|
Group 3
|
Group 2
|
Group 1
|
Group 0 |
| All jet aircraft excluding: BA46 C501 C551 CARJ CL60 E145 |
BA46 C501 C551 CARJ CL60 E145 L328 |
ATP AT43/44/45/72 BE20 DHC7 DH8A/8B/8C/8D E120 F27 F50 G159 JS31/32/41 SF34 SW3/4 |
BE99 E110 SH33 SH36 C404 PA23 PA31 |
When a faster aircraft follows a slower aircraft, the minimum separation is increased by one minute for each successive group (e.g. Group 3 following Group 2, add 1 minute. Group 3 following Group 0, add 3 minutes)
The time is counted from the moment the first aircraft begins its takeoff roll. If the first aircraft commences a full length take-off and the following aircraft departs from an intersection, the spacing should be increased to 3 minutes.