We're working on all new "box cards" for the fire company (basically, these are a script for how response for different kinds of incidents are handled) and my task was to get all of the Landing Zones (LZ's) checked, and get their coordinates and a site naming convention done.

Instead of just making something up that seemed right, we took the radical step of asking the helo pilots how they would like us to present them with coordinates.

Here's how we do it now.

LZ Designators for Station 47 are Lat/Long Decimal Format as follows:

DEG.MIN
DATUM WGS-84

To notify dispatch of coordinates for an LZ, tell the dispatcher:

"We are setting up an LZ at "(name of LZ)"
GPS coordinates for as follows:
40.559 Say "Forty POINT FIVE-FIVE-NINER North"
75.122 Say "Seventy-Five POINT One-Two-Two West"

Listen for dispatcher readback and confirm accurate information.

Rather than "Forty" which can be heard as "Fourteen" and "Seventy" being heard as "Seventeen", I'd recommend saying "Four-Zero decimal Five-Five-Niner North", and in the same format I'd recommend, "Seven-Five Decimal One-Two-Two West". Putting it in context, "Fourteen" and "Seventeen" may not make much sense, but break it all down so there's no confusion.

Good point, we'll update.

I would think that method would actually make more since, especially to an aviator helicopter pilot, as that is similar to how numbers/radio frequencies are called out over aviation communications. (I think they say “point” instead of “decimal”, though, but I could be wrong.) Keeping things consistent to the way pilots normally do things could prevent a lot of confusion.

Wait a sec, is that DDD.MMM or DDD.DDD? If the part after the decimal is minutes, i.e. only goes up to .599, I could see that causing problems, especially if you have helo guys from out of the area or otherwise unfamiliar with your system.

Most GPS have a display option of DD.DDD (decimal degrees, not minutes) which will actually give more precision with the sme amount of digits.

Just a thought from someone who uses GPSs but knows next to nothing about flight ops or fire/rescue.

They told us DDD.MMM is all they need.
It's THEIR system we're using, not ours Thats the point here. We asked them.

Martin:

You mean your agency cannot talk directly to the pilots in these situations? I would seem to cut down on mistakes being made.

Our agency (as are most in Idaho) are allowed to coordinate directions, patient updates and landing zones directly to the responding lifeflight helicopter service. Usually, while the pilot is busy flying, the nurse or paramedic will take the information from a ground crew member. This avoids the hassle of trying to relay through several dispatchers.

Take care,

Stargazer

I'm afraid I find these two lines confusing.

The first line says "Lat/Long Decimal Format", which I take to mean degrees and decimal degrees, i.e. 0.5 degrees is 30 minutes, 0.75 degrees is 45 minutes.

The second line says DEG.MIN, which I take to mean the number of degrees followed by a point followed by the number of minutes. This is at odds with the previous line.

Since I have interpreted this incorrectly I am worried that someone else could too, which I think it what WScott (above) was alluding to.

I know you are using someone else's system, which is great (I wish it happened more often) but IMHO the instructions need to be entirely unambiguous so that you can be sure you are using it properly.

Perhaps you have paraphrased the description of the system, inadvertently introducing confusion?

A

I agree, didn't pick up on that before. I assumed the decimal point indicated a DD.DDD format, not a DD.MMM format. I'd use a hyphen rather than a decimal point, but as Martin said:

So, sorry to bring this up, but are you going to clarify this post? If I and two others are confused reading about the system, isn't there a risk that someone using the system might get confused too?