Illustrated Observations BRU 24/10/2004

Established02 · Post by **Established02** » 24 Oct 2004, 22:01

Hi,

I was able to spend a few moments at BRU this afternoon, together with my 3,5 year old daughter. Her eyesight is much better than mine and furthermore she screams from the top of her lungs as soon as she sees something moving on the airport. So nothing at BRU goes unnoticed to me, as long as my daughter is standing next to me. 8)

A rare looking B767(?) is parked at Sabena Technics H41 with light and dark blue markings on a white tail.

To my great surprise I noticed that a new parking lot has been built, next to the passenger terminal access road and close to the satellite. I guess this parking lot will be used for airline and airport staff. Somehow this concrete wall reminds me of its bigger brother in Israel, that keeps the Jews and Palestines out of each other's hair. I guess here the concrete is necessary to protect the parked cars from the occasional jet blast. Unfortunately this wall is now blocking some of the view.

Further on some other construction works are still under way, probably the modification of some RWY 20/02 taxiways.

It looks like the extension of the EAT building 2-3 will be finalised quite soon. This investment may now perhaps taste rather sour to DHL. According to some newspaper article, half of the EAT staff is expected to be laid off in some years time, but here you have now enlarged and modernised maintenance facilities!

Due to the ungoing social unrest among DHL staff at BRU, the DHL management had decided to relocate a great deal of the BRU traffic to other airports. You may know how the DHL ramp looks like on a normal Sunday afternoon, namely cramped with yellow and white planes. This is how it looked like today. One could expect a Kalitta 747 on Sunday afternoon, however today this one did not show up either. Edited correction: the Kalitta 747 did show up today!

Around 15:00 RWY 25R became closed for normal operations in order to calibrate the 25R ILS system. I was surprised to see how the calibrating aircraft had to perform that many (large) circuits. A few times the aircraft flew over the whole length of the runway, however most of the times it broke off its approach procedure even before reaching the treshold.

Due to the RWY 25R closure, all landing traffic was guided to 25L and departing traffic had to take RWY 20. This led to considerable delays. The SQ 744F below had to land on RWY 25L. I believe it reached its position at Brucargo only 20-25 minutes later. Taxiing took up a lot of time, however it also had to wait a considerable amount of time before it could cross RWY 25R, due to the ongoing calibrating flights and an odd departure of the BR MD11 on 25R.

I believe the yellow BIAC car is a 'FOLLOW ME' vehicle. Is there really a need for such a 'follow me' service at BRU, as the BRU infrastructure does not seem to be very complex or confusing? Is there a need for a 'follow me' car when there is no problem with visibility whatsoever? The 'follow me' car was sitting idle on the Brucargo ramp for about half an hour, as long is took for the SQ 744F to reach its position. Finally it seemed that the only purpose of the 'follow me' car was to give an indication to the SQ 744F of where the aircraft had to finally turn right. This looks like a rather expensive and perhaps not so useful service to me. Is it the airline that requests such a service or is it BIAC that imposes it?

Thanks for any additional comments.

Established02

Sabena_690 · Post by **Sabena_690** » 24 Oct 2004, 22:08

Hi Edwin,

First of all glad to see you again more actively participating on this website!

Thanks for the detailed report! We would appreciate more of those in the future

Out of curiosity: the new staff parking (the first picture): please don't tell me that the marvellous views you had in front of that fence on the staff car park are over? Or is this car park situated on the right side of the orginal car park? I can't really judge from the picture whether the original car park is now part of the big one in your picture, or whether it is situated behind the car park in your picture.

I know that what I write is a bit confusing, but I don't know how else to explain it...

Frederic

Post by **Bottie** » 24 Oct 2004, 22:37

Indeed, I liked to read your detailed report

Established02 · Post by **Established02** » 24 Oct 2004, 22:40

Hello Frederic and Bottie,

Thanks for appreciating my 'opstelleke'.

For all the interesting contributions that I've been reading from others, it's perhaps desirable for me to return something as well from time to time.

> please don't tell me that the marvellous views you had in front
> of that fence on the staff car park are over?

Unfortunately some views in that taxi corner are definitely over. Other views do remain. However, I would not be surprised if some day this concrete wall would be extended even further.

Hopefully the picture below can explain better how the situation looks there currently.

Regards.

Post by **Bottie** » 24 Oct 2004, 22:59

I don't believe it

they placed a "berliner wall" ...

744rules · Post by **744rules** » 24 Oct 2004, 23:28

Edwin,

about the follow-me vehicle. Note that on the cargo apron there is no visual docking system, but only yellow lines that indicate the parking positions. The crew cannot see where the actually have to stop. This is important as some companies want their a/c theathered (*) during turnround.

a theather : some kind of strap that is put through the nose-gear and attached to anchor-points in the concrete to avoid the a/c of tipping during ground operations (loading/offloading and fuelling)
(not sure about the spelling, spellcheck does not know the word)

The Kallitta did show up, but probably after you left.

rgds

Established02 · Post by **Established02** » 25 Oct 2004, 00:32

Thanks for the additional info, 744rules!

> The crew cannot see where the actually have to stop.

The crew may not be able to see where exactly they have to make the full stop, but they are able to see where about they have to turn in for their assigned parking position, aren't they?

In absence of an automated system (like at Terminal A?), isn't it the role of the marshaller to assist the pilot in turning the aircraft and bringing it to a proper halt?

When using this follow-me car, is there still a need for a marshaller? If so, does the driver of the follow-me car execute the marshaller's job as well? Or are 2 different people required during this process?

What can a follow-me vehicle accomplish more than what a regular marshaller can do? Perhaps the flashy follow-me car is used to catch the attention of the pilot more easily, while a tiny marshaller might be hard to spot by the crew from a few hundred meters distance.

> some companies want their a/c theathered (*) during turnround.
> (not sure about the spelling, spellcheck does not know the word)

The correct spelling of the verb is probably 'to tether'. I just looked it up in my Oxford Pocket Dictionary. 8)

Do all parking positions have tether facilities or only selected positions?

I never knew that such a tether technique existed. It may seem more simple to tether an aircraft by its nose gear, rather than to install a supporting pole under the tail of the aircraft.

> The Kallitta did show up, but probably after you left.

I stand corrected

Thank you.

744rules · Post by **744rules** » 25 Oct 2004, 00:50

Edwin,

the marshaller drives the follow-me car. As soon as the a/c makes its turn into its assigned parking bay, the marshaller uses the appropriate handsignals to guide the crew in until the correct stopping spot.

On some occasions, the marshaller will be driving in front of the a/c to guide it to its "line", mostly with crews not familiar with the airport or when the a/c has to be parked abeam the terminal. Had this once with a SV 747 that had to load a piece of cargo longer than 17mr.

I think 3-4 wide body positions on the cargo apron have tether-points. I'm sure Brubiac can confirm this

About the tailstand. Note that most cgo aircraft are specially equipped to have a tailstand installed.

rgds

Post by **Kapitein** » 25 Oct 2004, 09:35

Nice to see one of me old colleagues (follow-me) doing there job.

To do a follow-me on brucargo depends on the marshaller. Some people do it other not. But it's not forbidden. When I was still a marshaller I did it always at the cargo apron. You can do at the same time a visual inspection of the taxiway, from time to time some FOD.

The driver parks the plane, there is only 1 person in the car. Only when there is a new guy learning then they are with 2 in 1 car.

744rules is correct, sometimes we have to park to plane parallel with the building. Not so easy as it seems. Only used for special unload procedures, with very heavy winds (at req. of the handler) and when there is a An-124.

Post by **luchtzak** » 25 Oct 2004, 10:45

Thanks for this detailed report Established02! I have noticed the Berlin wall too, maybe it's a temporary parking-lot

Glad that your daughter likes airplanes too