Military at civ airports

[dash8driver]

does the military keep their pilots up to date much on the facilities in use at civilian airports? the reason i ask this is because of an event that happened the other night in honolulu.

it was night and there was a "reach" aircraft landing on one of the runways (8L) in honolulu. they were on short final and went around because they saw the hold short lights at the intersection with the other runway (4L). the radio conversation that followed would lead one to believe that until that night they didnt know that those hold short lights existed.

not a slam or anything.. just found this to be curious.




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[RedDogC130]

Do not forget that the callsign "REACH" is also used by civilian contract companies such as World, North American, ATA, when flying troops and/or contract work for the military around the world. Did you see the a/c or just hear the callsign?

 

[tumbleweed]

Not authorized...

According to AFI 11-202 Vol.3: USAF fixed wing pilots are prohibited from accepting LAHSO clearances. (waivers do exist for those with a need)

Maybe they saw the lights and were just trying to play it safe.

 

[TonyC]

According to AFI 11-202 Vol.3: USAF fixed wing pilots are prohibited from accepting LAHSO clearances. (waivers do exist for those with a need)

Maybe they saw the lights and were just trying to play it safe.

Maybe if we'd all refuse to land with those LAHSO lights flashing, they'd start turning them off. They keep them on as long as LAHSO operations are in effect, even if your landing clearance is not a LAHSO. One of these days there's going to be a runway incursion and a landing aircraft that will trade paint because the landing pilot mistook the taxiing aircraft for the LAHSO lights that he has become accustomed to seeing when he lands. I don't think having the LAHSO lights on continuously is safe.

In my opinion - - if your clearance is LAHSO, turn the lights on. If it's not, turn the lights off.

Of course, that and 50¢ won't even get you a decent cup of coffee.




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[dash8driver]

Do not forget that the callsign "REACH" is also used by civilian contract companies such as World, North American, ATA, when flying troops and/or contract work for the military around the world. Did you see the a/c or just hear the callsign?

i did not know that. we do get a lot of those civilian contract companies in here, but i never noticed them using reach also. i did see the aircraft and it was a KC-10.


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[dash8driver]

According to AFI 11-202 Vol.3: USAF fixed wing pilots are prohibited from accepting LAHSO clearances. (waivers do exist for those with a need)

Maybe they saw the lights and were just trying to play it safe.

i know they're not authorized.. and its obvious they were playing it safe.. but only because they didnt know what the lights were and didnt understand them.

this brings us back to my original question. is the military pretty good at keeping their guys up to date or when newer things like this come around do they just leave it up to the pilots or wings to figure it out for themselves?


tony,

i'm with ya.. i have always thought it was odd that they leave the lights on all the time. it sure seems like its giving the impression of a shorter useable runway than what you have. or, like you said.. eventual confusion with real aircraft/airport vehicle lights.

i'm glad i'm not the only one that thinks they should be off when LAHSO is not issued.

do you have any insight on this?

 

[RampFreeze]

Air Mobility Command (the branch of the USAF with the airlifters and tankers) does a pretty good job of keeping its pilots up to date on the newest developments and most heavy pilots read the AIM in addition to the USAF pubs. Each year, besides annual checkrides, every pilot has to take an instrument refresher course where the latest changes are covered. Airlift pilots (like C-5s, C-17s, etc.) are usually more up to speed on international airport ops since they fly to int'l airports fairly often. The tanker guys (KC-135s and KC-10s) generally fly into military airports only because of their mission. Even though trained, they aren't quite as familiar as the airlift pilots are with civil ops. (KC-10s do more airlift type flying than the KC-135 guys, but still obviously not nearly as much as the pure airlift guys do)

Short answer: yes they are trained, but my guess is that the KC-10 crew probably had not flown into Honolulu at night before and didn't remember anything from the LAHSO slides at the briefing a year ago except that they could not accept a LAHSO clearance.

 

[dash8driver]

rampfreeze,

thanks for the info. they were not issued a LAHSO...they didnt seem to know that the lights were a part of the airport lighting system, let alone the LAHSO program. they just said they saw lights across the runway and thought the runway was closed or something. the controller then explained what the lights were, that they were on all the time, the runway was open and clear.

i'm sure the once a year briefing probably had something to do with it along with the fact that tanker crews dont fly into civ airports often. the other thing i thought of was we get lots of guard guys out here. could be that it was some guys that havent flown in a while... at least to an airport with this new fangled LAHSO lighting.

 

[RampFreeze]

Probably right. The only KC-10s are Active or Reserve at Travis AFB, CA and McGuire AFB, NJ (both active and reserve squadrons share the exact same airplanes) Believe it or not, the reserve guys are usually more on the ball with respect to civil ops than the active guys since they commonly fly for the airlines when not flying in the reserves.

I wish I could say that this crew was on the ball with respect to knowing the lights, but it doesn't sound like it. The good news is that they did the safe thing and went around. The bad news is that professionally, they made USAF tanker guys look like amateurs...

 

[dash8driver]

i wouldnt go as far as to say they make the USAF look like amatures. mistakes happen. who knows how long that flight was that landed them into HNL at 9pm or why it all happened. having only seen it in your last refresher course a year ago could have something to do with it. i cant say that i dont learn something "new" every time i have recurrent ground school.


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