Questions for the commerical pilots
 

I was listening in to the tower chatter before take off on a flight last night at O'hare.

-What does 'heavy' mean? "Delta 523 heavy"

-What is the penalty box? A pilot asked to go to the penalty box.

-Is there an online guide to the codes the pilots and the tower use to communicate?

"Heavy" means passengers on board. No clue to the "penalty box"

According to my son, the pilot. Heavy refers to aircraft weight. A 747 is a heavy, a 757 is not. Penalty box refers to the waiting line for take off when there has been a delay.

I thought "heavy" was simply a designation that indicated that the plane was not a "light aircraft" (i.e. Cessna, etc.). I thought all passenger jets (everything from DC-9 and up) was a "heavy".

Heck, I work for Boeing and sit in between two airport runways and don't know the answer to this. Ironic. :>)

Mike

The callsign "heavy" refers to any plane whose maximum certificated takeoff weight (MTOW) exceeds 255,000 pounds. This callsign is used because heavier planes make more wake turbulance, which poses a real but unseen flight hazard to light planes.

Iroc..
You may be thinking of the FAA regulation that defines Large and Small aircraft. 14CFR 1.1 defines LARGE as an aircraft of more than 12,500 pounds, maximum certificated takeoff weight. However, being large does not automatically mean heavy.

Except when referring to women from the south.

My guess on the penalty box is the "hold short" line at the entrance to the runway. After a pilot recieves his departure clearance, he typically calls ground control to request clearance to taxi to the active runway. Upon recieving taxi clearance the pilot is usually cleared to taxi to a specified runway. This means you can taxi to the approved runway, but you must "hold short" at a painted line near the entrance to the runway. In other words, you are cleared to the entry of the runway, but not actually onto the runway. At that point, usually you must receive additional clearance from the tower frequency to enter the actual runway. Sometimes it will be clearance for takeoff, sometimes it will be a "position and hold". After actually taking off, tower will tell you to contact "departure" who will then send you off on your intended route.

In the old days a "heavy" meant any plane over 500,000 pounds. The whale (B747) and such were all heavies. Had to do with wake turbulence and anyone flying behind a heavy needed more space to let the wake die down. Now we have the Airbus series, B75/76/77 series and military planes that all need extra room for traffic.

Penalty box is where you wait until the ATC (air traffic control) gets you up in the system. Nothing that you have done, just that you are not allowed right out in line.

Online guide? Its called experience and grey hair... By the time you spend 30 years sitting in the pointy end you mumble this in your sleep! :)

JoeA

Penalty box is an out of the way place you can pull over out of everybodies way so that you can wait for your sequence to take off. If you ask to go there, you probably have a mechanical problem you need to work out before you can take off, or return to the gate.

An example would be if you have 20 planes waiting to take off, and just out of luck the first three planes are all going to New York. But New York has bad weather so instrument approaches are being conducted, meaning that each plane going in there now has to be a little further apart. ATC will call for '20 miles in trail' going to N.Y. from all departure airports. So now those three airplanes have to be spaced out, and instead of having everybody behind them wait, they tell them to go to the 'penalty box' to wait for their time to take off, and the line moves up behind them.

Heavy refers to weights and is used for wake turbulence seperation. And 757 are considered heavies as far as wake is concerned even though they dont use that as part of their callsign.

The new A380 is going to be a "super heavy" and require 10-15 miles of seperation. ( FAA has not ruled yet)

Guys! I was in the penalty box so long today, this question was well answered before I got home.

OK, just talked to an air traffic controller friend of mine. He explained that it has to do with flow control of arrivals into big busy airports. He claims that special flow controllers contact controllers at airports where flights are preparing to depart. These flow controllers assign a "wheels up" time to certain flights. This is to help reduce holding in the air at the destination due to heavy traffic (it is cheaper to hold for spacing on the ground rather than in the air). This assigned takeoff time must be met within two minutes prior to 1 minute after. These flow controlled aircraft are sent to the penalty box where they can be quickly released at their proper time. He also stated that deicing at larger airports is now right near the penalty box which allows these aircraft to be de-iced and still get off the ground at the proper time.

It is VERY common at peak arrival times into ATL to have a 1 1/2 - 3 1/2 hour delay at the outstation for a wheels up time.

Also entrail seperation requirements differ for "heavy" designated aircraft and "normal" aircraft. I'd have to check my books but I believe it's 3 minutes entrail of a heavy jet versus 2 for a normal one (and it depends on what the following aircraft is, etc.) Sometimes the restriction is a certain number of minutes, under other conditions it's a number of miles. . . ATC stuff. I'm just a pilot. Any controllers on here?

The wake tubulence is from the vortices coming off the wings at the ends. The bigger the plane, the bigger the vortices left behind and need additional time to dissipate.

ATA's 757-200 fleet has a max TO wt. of 255,500. The 757-300 MTOW is 270,000. Both use "heavy" with the callsign.

Wake turbulence link

Don't forget the air blown off the engines. I beleive Top gear used engines 2 and 3 of a 747 to destroy cars.

Wow. Thanks guys.