Hi all - in the past four flights from Melbourne to Sydney (all with Qantas and all in the last two weeks), I've been following the inflight 'moving map'.

Hi all - in the past four flights from Melbourne to Sydney (all with Qantas and all in the last two weeks), I've been following the inflight 'moving map'.

On each trip the pilots have taken a right turn and 'dog leg' over Canberra before positioning in for a direct line into Sydney.

There didn't seem to be any weather issues so I wonder why this might be? Is it to slow down incoming traffic to Sydney? I was hoping to catch the Captain on leaving the aircraft but no luck!

Thanks!

J

I believe it's the 'usual way'.

I can't find the specific reference, but there is a spot between Canberra and Sydney (a nav beacon if I recall correctly) where traffic usually holds for clearance from Sydney tower for approach. A significant portion of CBR-SYD flight time is usually spent flying around it. This seems to be a major air corridor for SYD.

Aircraft don't need "clearance" from sydney tower to approach, only to land and that's given when you are well into their airspace. The sector controller probably needs to adjust your arrival time into syd for sequencing purposes and just puts you into a hold to burn time, if it's a small amount of time a vector can do it but for anything >1-2 minutes you are going into a hold

So you are saying ATC puts people flying around that point before coming into land. A management/controlling of entry... Hmm I wonder what that can be referred to as!

Thanks watson and gippsflyer.