NZFF

Hi everyone. When I'm listening to Nelson Tower often I will head link aircraft cleared for a Left visual departure or a right visual departure. What exactly does the pilot do for these? Is it sorta mlike, he takes off and at a minimum safe altitude he turns the given direction and intercepts his route?

Correct, at Dunedin Airport if weather permits the visual departures are predominatenly used.

it means they can depart, by day, with the initial turn in the direction indicated and position the aircraft on track and above msa using visual reference, or once the pilot is above the first step altitude they can elect to continue above the subsequent steps,this means not having the extra fuel burn associated with following strict specific tracks and any intermediate altitude requirements associated with the instrument departure procedure.

this is different to another procedure that you probably hear "climb above dme steps" as it is a requirement for this procedure to position above the first dme step visually anyway by day or an instrument dep at night

Thanks Towerguy - the steps bit doesn't make too much sense to me yet. I sometimes hear something like "Link 378, maintain 9000ft til 20 DME, then 11000 until 50 DME, then climb and maintain FL180", or something like that. Is this DME steps? Or can you point me to an advisory circular that can tell me?

if you look at the area chart " ohakea- wellington-nelson" and look at the track from nelson 360, there is a step at 8NS DME and an even better example is the track inbound from the east H133 , the route MSA is 7600ft but at 10NS DMS it steps down to 5900ft and at 5NS DME it steps down again to 5300ft.

so for example if you were on an IFR flight approaching NS from o/head WB at 8000ft you would arrange your descent so you crossed 10NS DME at 7600ft or above and 5NS DME at 5900ft or above, its quite a step gradient and you would be looking at the approach. Depending n the wind either the vor/dme rwy02 or the vor/dme alfa (or one of the ndb appraoches if you really want a challenge).

Thanks Towerguy. Your chart references don't quite look accurate on my map, that's what you get for having charts from 1986 ! The explanation makes sense anyway.

I was told to do a left/right visual departure not long ago online somewere, I can't remember what I was flying or doing but I remember just getting airbourne and turning left lol I then intercepted my route I think...

monkeybdg pm me an address and I'll see if I have a few more charts I can send your way if you want

cheers