Professional Pilot, March 2018

Towards the Southern Cross 58 PROFESSIONAL PILOT March 2018 Frankfurt No matter how big the plane an outside check is a must The author during walkaround of a B747 400 Buenos Aires T ristan da Cunha is probably the most remote inhabited island in the world Only 274 people live on this British Overseas Territory at latitude 37S and longitude 012W The island lies on the great circle route between São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro and Capetown 1800 nm from Brazil and 1400 nm from South Africa Tristan da Cunha has no runway not even a helipad So to get there you have to take the supply ship from Capetown a 5 day journey I mention this not only because I had the privilege to visit this beautiful island by ship of course but also because it illustrates how vast the South Atlantic is and how far away any runway or help can be if you would ever need it as you cross these waters by plane Flights across the South Atlantic As both South America and Africa have become ever more important for overseas investment corporate flights to these continents have become much more frequent in recent years New mining opportunities and oil fields telecommunications real estate finance and insurance attract ever more executives to do business in the Southern Hemisphere Many of the air routes to their destinations cross the South Atlantic ocean The South Atlantic has generally much better weather than the stormy and cold North Atlantic Air routes for postal delivery to South America from Europe via the Sahara desert Bathurst Bangui in Gambia and Natal in Brazil had already been developed in the 1920s Sometimes seaplanes were used as they could land on the usually quiet seas close to support ships stationed halfway across the ocean where the seaplanes would then be refueled and relaunched for the next leg of their journey Antoine St Exuperys book Flight to Arras recalls this era poetically Today the major traffic flows across the South Atlantic are from the US East coast to Brazil and South Africa from Europe to the Caribbean Central America Brazil and Argentina and recently also from Dubai and other Middle East hubs to destinations in almost all South and Central American countries This is significant as it means that we deal with much more crossing traffic than on the North Atlantic where almost all traffic flows West to East or vice versa S Atlantic routes and controls The North Atlantic airspace is structured around the well known organized track system NAT OTS which is controlled by Gander and Shanwick oceanic control centers Waypoints and routes change twice daily to make best use of the prevailing jetstreams On the other hand the South Atlantic uses a fixed route system or random routes and is controlled by several Air Traffic Control ATC units some of them in Africa Santa Maria Operations Control Center OCC located on the southernmost Azores island of Santa Maria controls a large part of the central and eastern Atlantic ocean New York OCC located in Ronkonkoma Long Island controls the western part south of Gander OCC all the way to the Caribbean Further south it gets a bit more exotic with Dakar OCC located on the west coast of Senegal Cayenne OCC in French Guiana on the northern coast of the South American continent and Piarco in Trinidad sharing control of the central and equatorial oceanic airspace Atlantico situated in Recife in Brazil controls most of the Atlantic south of the equator All these ATC units have adopted CPDLC procedures by now which FRANKFURT TO BUENOS AIRES Flying the South Atlantic routes By Peter Berendsen ATP CFII Boeing 747 MD11 On long haul flights the aircraft may be close to its performance limits FRA EZE is a great circle distance of 6200 nm but planned routes vary due to weather and winds Routes average 6500 nm and over 13 hours flight time at Mach 085 Image courtesy Google Earth