arrivals

It will be best if you first read the page on departures from Halifax for a description of reporting points, VOR's and NDB's, and as well the sectors and frequencies of Moncton Centre. Click here.

As of June 27, this page is scheduled to be revised to better describe for scanner listeners just what is happening and what all those abbreviations and acronyms mean!

Aircraft arriving to land at Halifax will first be transferred from Moncton Centre to Halifax Terminal ("Arrival") on 119.2 MHz at a distance of at least 35 n.m. from the airport. There is also an overflow frequency of 128.55 MHz rarely heard in recent years and apparently intended for peak periods. For VFR aircraft (small aircraft) there is also 118.7 which sometimes is used as a maintenance backup to 119.2. Aircraft sent to Terminal by Centre are generally already in descent with a clearance to an altitude such as 10000 ft but this varies considerably.

Altitude clearance: Altitude clearances on arrival are many and varied and therefore not able to be described here. These are to not only avoid other traffic but also to take into account the capabilities of the particular aircraft. It is not possible to descend and approach on a whim.

Direction clearance: IFR aircraft are generally assigned to arrive at major airports via standard sets of procedures called STARS. For Halifax there are three named sets of approaches, i.e. MAHONE, LISCOMB and FUNDY, each with a variation for each of the four runways. As they are modified over time they are given numerical suffixes, so that today the current MAHONE arrival procedure will be the MAHONE5 arrival. Each of the three STARS is based on the aircraft beginning the procedure at a particular reporting point. MAHONE begins at reporting point HIDIG, FUNDY begins at CETTY, and LISCOMB begins at IGTAS. Each of these ends at the reporting point at the commencement of the final approach, i.e. the straight final path on runway heading. Reporting points are specified locations whose identifications can be entered into navigation equipment and a course to it will be displayed, or in fact the aircraft if so equipped will fly there automatically.

A map of central Nova Scotia showing the three beginning points will be provided in the near future. Click here for a map showing the four final approach fix reporting points as well for each a secondary, inner point. For runway 05 the inner point after ODKAS is a radiobeacon (actually its location, not necessarily its actual beacon transmission) called Split Crow. For runway 23 the inner point is also an NDB, this one called BLUENOSE. These two radiobeacons are named after taverns in Halifax! The other two runways do not have a radiobeacon on their approach paths and therefore their inner reporting points DUTSA and IMANO are the usual type with no physical "thing" to relate to.

The four final approach fix points (Bold) with their associated inner points.

Identifier	Type	What	Where
ODKAS	Reporting Point	OUTER REPORTING POINT FOR FINAL APPROACH TO RUNWAY 05	LIES OVER DOWNTOWN BEDFORD
SPLIT CROW	NDB	INNER POINT FOR 05	NEAR HIGHWAYS GARAGE, MILLER LAKE.
LEROS	Reporting Point	OUTER POINT FOR RUNWAY 23	nr. Carrolls Cnr
BLUENOSE	NDB	INNER POINT FOR 23	SSE of Dutch Settlement
VOKIL	Reporting Point	OUTER POINT FOR RUNWAY 32	north of Porters Lk
DUTSA	Reporting Point	INNER POINT FOR 32	over L. No Good
TETAR	Reporting Point	OUTER POINT FOR RUNWAY 14	nr McGrath Lk, Beaverbank Rd
IMANO	Reporting Point	INNER POINT FOR 14	just west of Grand Lk

Click here for an official depiction of the Fundy Six arrival. You will see the start point at CETTY, several intermediate points which depend on the runway to be used, and as welll the final approach fix points as mentioned above. Others may be provided at a later date. This "plate" is now a little outdated, being from 2009, but plates similar to this are carried in all IFR aircraft approaching Halifax. I do not purport to be completely accurate with this description.

The STARS can be modified or disregarded on instruction from the controller. For example it will be most common to hear aircraft from wherever they are being cleared directly to the final approach fix for the runway in use. Only in bad weather does it seem that the full procedures and steps are followed.

Also in good weather, landings can be accomplished visually, i.e. manually and this is generally what happens whenever conditions allow a pilot to see the airport for an approach. Usually when a pilot "calls the field" which is to state to the controller that he or she can see the field, the instrument arrival and approach is abandoned, if indeed it even began, and the pilot is cleared for a visual approach. Occasionally you will hear a pilot request to continue on an instrument approach, for training purposes.

Instrument approaches are most often based on using the ILS system. ILS is something best read about elsewhere, but simply put it is a combined direction and glidepath guide. A narrow VHF beam called the localizer tells the pilot if he or she is on track or to the left or right of the approach path, while a UHF glide slope indicator tells the pilot ot go up or down to stay on the proper slope of approach. At Halifax there is ILS on runways 14 and 23. For each runway with ILS the VHF localizer works just as well on the reciprocal runway but the UHF glide slope indicator does not. Using the ILS on reciprocal is termed a "localizer back course" approach and therefore it will be very common to hear such approaches on runways 32 and 05 (reciprocals to 14 and 23).

There are other instrument approaches using GPS, NDB, RNAV, etc. I am not describing these but you can research these on Wiki and elsewhere.