126.025 Manteo

[ai8o]

Often times while listening to The CAR-A and CAR-B HF frequencies, I hear NY ARINC Center telling aircraft "upon reaching ONGOT, contact New York Center on 126.025".

Usually these aircraft are using the track LAMER-BOREX-ONGOT.

I looked at the FAA WATRS map, and saw that the next NB mandatory reporting point is OXANA.
Leading NW from OXANA is a clear path between MOA 27 and MOA122 (AR8) that points directly from OXANA to the ECG 112.5 Beacon at Elizabeth City, North Carolina .
I call this path the "tunnel".

I never hear any aircraft on CAR-A or CAR-B after they approach ONGOT.

Question 1) Do aircraft contact the regular ZNY ARTCC on 126.025, or do they stay under NY ARINC Center control until they reach some other point?

Question 2) Do the aircraft approaching ONGOT turn and fly north on a track farther east of the MOAs, or do they fly up the tunnel to over land, and come under the control of ZDC or ZJX ARTCC?

Question 3) I see the ground transmitter for 126.025 is listed as MANTEO, so I presume it is co-located with 124.725 xmtr. Should I send in a RR submission requesting that this Xmtr be listed on the North Carolina RR page?

Question 4) I see a similar xmtr (133.575) for NY Center listed as Wilmington, North Carolina.
Is there a "tunnel" leading to Wilmington? What is its' switch over reporting point?

Question 5) I could see that there might be a RABAL-GRAMN-PERDO-??? path.
Are there other similar "tunnels" between other MOAs along the East Coast?

Question 6) At what point do aircraft leaving the US switch over from VHF to HF?

 

[AirScan]

Question 1) Do aircraft contact the regular ZNY ARTCC on 126.025, or do they stay under NY ARINC Center control until they reach some other point?

Yes, they contact regular ZNY 126.025 over ONGOT. There is a a feed over at LiveATC that covers this frequency.

https://www.liveatc.net/search/?icao=ilm

Question 2) Do the aircraft approaching ONGOT turn and fly north on a track farther east of the MOAs, or do they fly up the tunnel to over land, and come under the control of ZDC or ZJX ARTCC?

The vast majority of traffic northbound over ONGOT is flying via L543 which keeps them east of the MOA's, from 126.025 they switch over to New York on 133.500 approaching LEXAD. There are rare cases where you might hear a flight routing from ONGOT then via M325 to OXANA then AR8 to ECG, but there is not a lot of scheduled traffic that would take this route.

Question 4) I see a similar xmtr (133.575) for NY Center listed as Wilmington, North Carolina.
Is there a "tunnel" leading to Wilmington? What is its' switch over reporting point?

There is no "tunnel" to ILM through W122 if that's what you're getting at. 133.575 is mostly used for traffic routing north/south on M201. Although on rare occasions I have heard some commercial flights get cleared direct through W122 when it was not active. 133.575 by they way is almost always combined with 126.025 (one controller works both frequencies).

Question 5) I could see that there might be a RABAL-GRAMN-PERDO-??? path.
Are there other similar "tunnels" between other MOAs along the East Coast?

You can look at high altitude charts on the Skyvector website. They clearly mark what routes or "tunnels" transition between or through the various MOA's on the east coast.

https://skyvector.com/

There is one particular route AR9 between ZIBUT and ORF that you can see on the map transitions throught the W387 warning area. This is one of the rare routes where the military will control civilian traffic flying this airway. Callsign "Giant Killer" on 118.125. There are a couple of feeds over at LiveATC that monitor this frequency as well.

https://www.liveatc.net/search/f.php?freq=118.125

Another useful source to see who is flying where is the the playback option at Flightradar24.

https://www.flightradar24.com/

AS

 

[alphazulu]

Thanks Airscan (as always!), that answered some questions I had relating to this area.

ai8o, I also like to use flightaware to track a particular flight number
FA includes the flights scheduled route - which is helpful for plotting the route on the skyvector map and/or any of the a/c tracking sites

alphazulu

 

[AirScan]

Slight correction, the New York frequency at ILM is 133.525 (not 133.575). And to clarify on the LiveATC radio you are hearing the controller on 133.525 while most of the aircraft are on 126.025 and out of range of the radio. So "most" of the time you will only hear the controller on this radio. However they do have the capability to cross-couple the two frequencies, and if the controller decides to turn it on you will hear the aircraft on 126.026 loud and clear.

The high altitude chart is a bit misleading because it looks like the north part of L454 from SAUCR and the southern part of M201 from VEGAA are in Oceanic airspace and should be on HF. However the border of the VHF sector itself is not depicted on the chart and extends out to cover these areas. Probably the reason for the confusion ?

AS

 

[AirScan]

it looks like the north part of L454 from SAUCR

I meant L453 from SAUCR. L454 is HF northbound until 5 minutes before OKONU, then to New York on 133.500.