Leg 6: Tanger (GMTT) – Casablanca (GMMN)
PIC: Marco
Flying time: 2h00
Landing fee: EUR 5.40 (incl. Parking for a night)
The day started with a delay at the entry of the airport. Before we were able to go to our aircraft, the security had to take some time to deal with us. After that Etienne checked the plans that he had filed with the automated system of the Dutch Aeronautical Authorities. To his surprise the flight plans had not been received by the Moroccan authorities. The only thing that Etienne could do is to file all his plans again. At the same time Marco prepared the plane for the flight to Casablanca. After he had finished, Marco spoke with some French pilots. They told him that they were grounded because of the bad weather (IMC). This meant that we also would not be allowed to take off from Tanger. After a while the bad weather cleared up just enough to allow us to leave. We discussed the situation and our options and we decided to go.
In the air we noticed that the weather was not the best flying weather you could wish for, but it was good enough for us.
The beginning of the flight went very smoothly. We had put the VFR route into our PDA's, which run the navigation software PocketFMS, so we knew exactly how to fly. After the reporting point Ibdir we thought we could fly to our next reporting point Tiflet. Too bad, Casablanca control had other idea's. "Report Urtek (?!?) next".Urtek???, never heart of Urtek and it is not on the Rabat VFR map. So our reply was:
"Could we proceed to Tiflet?".
"Negative, proceed to Urtek. Are you familiar with Urtek?".
"Ehm, negative".
"Okay, no problem, steer heading 215 for the next 33Nm".
So the next twenty minutes Marco had to fly on his Compass, not knowing where he was. After twenty minutes we flew overhead a town called Sidi Allal el Bahraoui. This was Urtek. After that we had to proceed to Bakra, the border of the Casablanca TMA. We were handed over to Casablanca Approach and now the fun started. The reception was very poor so there were periods without any radio contact. Then there was some confusion about the instructions. Marco and the lady from Casablanca approach both spoke English with a different accent which lead to misunderstandings. Approach had cleared us to BRC, a VOR/DME (this is a beacon) close to the field. We noticed that she was constantly asking us for a radial and an estimate to the VOR. Etienne constantly had to recalculate our time to the beacon. The problem was that we didn't have a DME (an instrument that measures the distance to the VOR/DME) so we didn't know our exact distance to the VOR/DME also since it was not on the VFR map. We had not configured our PDA's to act as a DME (we did this right after this flight) and we had never used the old GPS in the plane (now we do). We only used the VOR and ADF receivers (now we use everything that we've got). After a while approach instructed us to report the field insight."Field insight".
"Report base".
So we should now turn base and leave our track towards the VOR/DME? Right, no problem. Marco steered towards base. Approach told us that we were number five. This is something that we could not understand, because Marco could not see any other aircraft in the circuit. This could only mean that Approach had misjudged our position in the circuit. Marco immediately reported approaching base, to indicate that we were very close to the field. At that moment an other aircraft (a relatively large aircraft) came in on final and landed (for people unfamiliar with flying; this aircraft showed up right into our windscreen). Approach handed us over to the tower. At first contact Marco immediately reported our position on base.
"Roger, report short final".
Short final? But we are number four??? Or did we misunderstood the message of approach? Then the tower asked for our position.
"Turning final".
"Roger. How long before short final?"
"We are very close to short final (a Cessna 172 doesn't need a very large circuit)."
"Okay, cleared to land runway 35 left".
When we were on final we noticed a B747 waiting at the holding point of 35L. The pilot requested a take off before we would land. A strange request, because if he would take off right in front off us, we would have no other alternative to brake to the left to avoid his wake turbulence. Correctly the tower denied the request and we could land ad 35L.
It was a strange approach and it was unclear why approach had let us fly right between other traffic. After we had parked the plane, a car from Air traffic control stopped next to our plane. O,o. This can't be good..."Good afternoon sir, two small questions: Do you have a VOR/DME on board, because you were constantly changing your estimates for BRC? First 5 minutes and then 8 minutes".
"We have a VOR but no DME"
"A, okay, I understand. Second question, do you have a transponder and is it on? Approach could not see you on the radar".
This came as a surprise to us. We had a brand new transponder (mode S) and it was on. Furthermore air traffic control never told us that they didn't have radar contact. If they would have told us that we would have checked our transponder and if that didn't work we would certainly have suggested to approach to leave their area.
Lessons learned:
- if Air Traffic Control (ATC) asks you for an estimate to a DME, simply tell them that you don't have a DME and that you have to make estimates. Most of the time ATC will ask you to report the field in sight.
- If ATC is constantly asking for your position, then you are probably not showing up on their screen => check your transponder (or they don't have a secondary radar; in that case it is probably a small field => no spang!).
- We have checked our transponder and we are now constantly monitoring our transponder
- We are now using two PDA's. We have checked the available functions of PocketFMS. One PDA is used as a moving map and the other is used as a VOR/DME/NDB.
- Although the software of the installed GPS is out of date, we have activated this GPS and are using it as an additional source of information.
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