You may not know that there are many airports that are international yet have no airline service. There are also many international airports that have airline service yet no international airline service.
As mentioned previously, Guam has two airports: Agana and Andersen. The former is a Navy base with a civilian side to serve non-military aircraft.
When I was there Won Pat was NAS Agana . At least on the East side. There was this little Building on the other side that some large commercial aircraft would arrive at .
Ok, from the 7110.65, apendix A:
a. Heavy. Aircraft capable of takeoff weights of more than 255,000 pounds (emphasis added) whether or not they are operating at this weight during a particular phase of flight.
“Heavy” is determined SOLELY by the Maximum Takeoff Weight. Thrust? Nope. Winglets? Squat. Number of seats or windows? Zero. An aircraft with an MTOW of, say, 248,000 pounds is a Large, regardless of all else. If the aircraft’s MTOW is 255,001 pounds? It is a “Heavy.” What about a 767 that weighs in at 140,000 on final? It is still a “Heavy.”
As far as Wake Turbulence separation in the terminal enviroment, a Heavy is a Heavy and a Large is a Large UNLESS the Large is a B757. If its a B757 then Heavy wake turbulence separation applies. Now having said that, we still don’t refer to it as “. . .traffic, Heavy Boeing 757. . .” unless the ‘57 is an actual, honest-to-goodness, no-foolin’ Heavy.
Someone mentioned waiting two minutes for B757 wake turbulence. Correct, for a full length departure following a heavy aircraft/B757. Three minutes is required if you depart from an intersection or opposite direction.
Three minutes also applies if you are following the B757 in your Cessna or what have you. UNLESS visual separation is applied “. . .traffic, Boeing 757 short final, runway whatever, cleared to land/touch and go/stop and go/for the option, caution wake turbulence.” If the pilot can’t maintain visual or doesn’t want to, we’re back to three minutes.
Radar wake turbulence separation is obviously different from runway separation. Large/heavy behind B757- 4 miles. Small behind B757- 5 miles or visual separation for a reduced interval.
Radar wake turbulence separation is obviously different from runway separation. Large/heavy behind B757- 4 miles. Small behind B757- 5 miles or visual separation for a reduced interval.
Actually that is incorrect.
A small behind a B757 is 6 miles
A Large behind a B757 is 5 miles
A B757 behind a B757 or Heavy is 5 miles
A Heavy behind a B757 is 4 miles.
Confused? I’m a controller at So Cal Tracon, in the LA Arrival Area. Six months ago (I’m guessing) the FAA changed the minimums for radar separation landing behind a B757.
The reasons we were told has to do with the inability of ICAO to classify B757’s as heavies in their database. For example, American Airlines operates many B757 into and out of LAX. As the B757’s got 300 series aircraft, they were capable of carrying more than 255,000lbs., and were then classified as heavies, but it was up to the airline to pay for and reclassification of “heavy”. ICAO couldn’t put a B757 as a “heavy” in their flight plan, at least that is what we were told.
Earlier in the year, more and more B757’s checked in on frequency and included “heavy” with their callsign. We modified their type in the Arts and then added miles in trail upon landing. This brought up the point; if we didn’t ask, or we didn’t catch that a B757 was actually a heavy, we could have brought a B737 or A320 (large) in behind a H/B757 with 4 miles in trail instead of the 5 miles in trail behind a heavy. Separation error… safety concern of course.
We began asking every B757 if they were heavy or not, we then used the prescribed miles in trail. This was of course very time consuming and cumbersome. We were told ICAO would fix the problem. The FAA finally took action to fix the problem. They instructed all controllers to treat all B757 as heavies even if they told us they weren’t.
This meant a: Small behind a B757 is 6 miles in trail (mit)
Large behind a B757 is 5 mit.
A B757 behind a B757 is 5 mit (because you aren’t sure if the trailer is actually heavy or not so treat em as heavies)
Heavy behind a B757 is 4 mit.
I’m certain this is why departure separation is two minutes, just like Heavy separation, but you **can’t **waive the intersection 3 minutes because the towers treat B757 as non-heavies too.