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Transoceanic HF Use

B

Bert Beryy

Member
Is it typical to fly transoceanic and pass all position reports through guard (assuming HFs checked good on the ground, but not in flight)?
 
In my experience, not typical, and not permitted. How would you pass reports via guard once you were outside of vhf/uhf range of land? Flying under atc, pretty sure the answer is no, though I've flown with degraded hf radios while in close proximity to another squadron aircraft that was able to help me relay. I've also turned around an hour into a flight when I couldn't establish HF comms with atc. If you have a sat phone, I believe you can call atc with the report if you have the number, but you're still supposed to have an hf radio monitoring effectively.

If you're talking about flying transoceanic 'tactical' and not under atc, then comm requirements are dictated by your theater commander and the mission.
 
Last edited:
Random and odd question, but I'll bite.
You do hf ground checks and you do them again in the air before losing vhf/uhf contact. If you don't have good hf, you turn around. If your hf somehow go bad mid ocean, you have limited choices. Best would probably to be get on a oceanic common vhf/uhf freq, and ask someone to relay your situation, intentions and position reports. I've done this before, but as the relay to atc. Typically guard would not be needed, but could be helpful to find someone to relay for you if you can't get someone on common. The question would be to continue the flight as planned, go home, or go somewhere else to get fixed. Numerous conditions/situations would dictate what you should/would do.
 
There was a PPC in my first P-3 squadron whose solution to a botched flight plan and resultant oceanic clearance denial was to attempt to chop "due regard" to cross the pond (talking to no one). Fortunately her crew talked her out of it...

I suspect all P-3 NFOs have passed PTAPTPs via VHF/UFH/SATCOM/smoke signals at some point..
 
In P-8:
HF Primary, required to go oceanic. If I lost HF after I started transit, would try Inmarsat Phone secondary (pretty reliable) tertiary would be via relay on 5 Fingers.

Other radios, if loaded/configured, could be used to talk to homeplate and relay as well...

Pilots do all the talking now on HF Oceanic. Much less painful (except when SelCal doesn’t work, like my trip home from Hawaii last Thursday) and I have to monitor HF’s...
 
Isnt the new hotness to get “texts” from ATC and HF is just a backup? Did the navy not buy that option on its P8s?
 
picklesuit said:
In P-8:
HF Primary, required to go oceanic. If I lost HF after I started transit, would try Inmarsat Phone secondary (pretty reliable) tertiary would be via relay on 5 Fingers.

Other radios, if loaded/configured, could be used to talk to homeplate and relay as well...

Pilots do all the talking now on HF Oceanic. Much less painful (except when SelCal doesn’t work, like my trip home from Hawaii last Thursday) and I have to monitor HF’s...
Click to expand...
Are the HF's on the P-8 digital now?
 
To clarify, we have weather radar and a mission screen up in the cockpit but we can't overlay the weather radar. The guys in the back can look at the radar in certain modes but it is a separate window from the other mission screens. We have SA but it is lacking.
 
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