KJFK--feed: Help by english speaking guys needed

[Susan27]

Hi,

I have this question to the US, UK or other english well prepared guys here:

As you perhapes noticed from my "school-english" at this forum here -  I`m from Germany -  I have some probs while listening to the ATC feeds here...but still trying to understand as much as possible nevertheless...

But here I really need your help because my english isnt good enough:

Yesterday (sunday, 27th) there were some thunderstorms that hit KJFK pretty bad and created some probs for departing acrfts. I downloaded and listened to this KJFK-GND feed from 27th July (yesterday) 1900Zulu...

http://archive-server.liveatc.net/kjfk/KJFK-Del-Gnd-Jul-27-2008-1900Z.mp3


1) At 20:24 Min of this feed a pilot talks to the ATC-GND-controller and asks something like "...Is Wavy coming good now...?"

Question: What is meant by the term "Wavy/Wawy" (dont know if the spelling is correct here)? At first I thought it might be a new SID-route (re-routing because of the bad weather over the field) but didnt find such a designator in the KJFK SIDs at all...

EDIT:

2) At 16:22 min. of the feed the controller says something like :

"...If you get a shift/ship(?) I can get you out of here..."

Question: What is meant by the term "shift/ship" (once again dont know if the spelling is correct here)?

Thanks for your kind help here...

[aevins]

WAVEY is an exit from Kennedy, it's a waypoint

[dave]

WAVEY is a waypoint on the KENNEDY ONE departure (SID):

<http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0807/00610KENNEDY.PDF>

Hope this helps.

-dave

[KSYR-pjr]

At 20:24 Min of this feed a pilot talks to the ATC-GND-controller and asks something like "...Is Wavy coming good now...?"

And when the pilot is asking "Is WAVEY good now?" he is more or less asking if the thunderstorms have moved off the flight path to WAVEY and that JFK is now allowing releases towards that point.

[Susan27]

Thanks so much for your very quick  help again (fortunately some of you guys live at the US with time-zones pretty much "behind" CET lol!)

Now I also understand my 2nd question "SHIPP-dep.".

So, as  follow-ups:

1) Are WAVEY/SHIPP dep. always used if there is trouble north of KJFK?

2) I looked at the weather-pictures with the rain-falls displayed. I also went through a 4 hour(!) delay during my last flight back from KJFK to Germany due to rain showers...

My questions:

a) Well, why is departing-traffic immediately stopped at KJFK because of rain showers and some winds, is this perhapes of stricter U.S. "rules" according to weather incidents? Or is this the same here in Europe...?

b) I wonder why the departing traffic is stopped at once in this ATC-feed from yesterday while approaching traffic into KJFK is kept up for a very long time? The arriving pilots (Tower feed of the same time) report "only" light/mid rain-showers and visibilty on short-final of the 3 NM...

What do you think about it...?

[KSYR-pjr]

a) Well, why is departing-traffic immediately stopped at KJFK because of rain showers and some winds, is this perhapes of stricter U.S. "rules" according to weather incidents? Or is this the same here in Europe...?

Based on my experiences of flying through the various airspaces that also feed the three big NY airports (JFK, Newark, and LGA), once the visibility and ceilings begin to go anywhere below CAVU (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited - somewhat of a joke but not always) those airspaces become heavily saturated with IFR aircraft very quickly.  Low IFR approaches require stricter separation than visual approaches and consequently aircraft have to be lined up farther apart.

In these cases ATC in the NY area is quick to slow or stop all IFR traffic until the saturation level returns to a manageable point.

[w0x0f]

My questions:

a) Well, why is departing-traffic immediately stopped at KJFK because of rain showers and some winds, is this perhapes of stricter U.S. "rules" according to weather incidents? Or is this the same here in Europe...?

b) I wonder why the departing traffic is stopped at once in this ATC-feed from yesterday while approaching traffic into KJFK is kept up for a very long time? The arriving pilots (Tower feed of the same time) report "only" light/mid rain-showers and visibilty on short-final of the 3 NM...

What do you think about it...?

As the weather builds up aircraft begin deviating around it.  This disrupts the normal flow of traffic which segregates arriving flights from departing flights.  New York's airspace is extremely complex because of the close proximity of JFK, EWR, LGA, TEB, HPN and other busy general aviation airports leaving little room for deviation.  Controllers at N90 have very few options available when aircraft begin to deviate.  New York, Boston, and Washington Centers are also very limited in their options as traffic begins to deviate due to the complex nature of the east coast airspace. 

Arrival traffic gets priority in these cases due to fuel limitation issues.  Departures have the option to shut down their engines on the ground, a luxury that airborne aircraft do not possess.  So it becomes an issue of not putting more traffic into an already chaotic situation.  Departure traffic is released with restrictions http://www.fly.faa.gov/current_restrictions/jsp/index.jsp when arrival traffic no longer is a factor along particular routes http://www.fly.faa.gov/rmt/coded_departure_routes.jsp

w0x0f   

[cessna157]

a) Well, why is departing-traffic immediately stopped at KJFK because of rain showers and some winds, is this perhapes of stricter U.S. "rules" according to weather incidents? Or is this the same here in Europe...?

b) I wonder why the departing traffic is stopped at once in this ATC-feed from yesterday while approaching traffic into KJFK is kept up for a very long time? The arriving pilots (Tower feed of the same time) report "only" light/mid rain-showers and visibilty on short-final of the 3 NM...

We have a joke in the airline industry that if a pigeon in Central Park farts, LGA goes on a ground stop and JFK departures are held.

[BWilliams]

1) Are WAVEY/SHIPP dep. always used if there is trouble north of KJFK?

The short answer: yes.

The explanation: a lot of weather rolls into the JFK area from the west (forms over the Great Lakes and runs across New York State), and in this case, passed north of the field.  So, looking at the direction of the various waypoints out of JFK (dave posted the link earlier for the Kennedy1 departure), their only real options that wouldn't take them into the weather are BETTE, HAPIE, SHIPP, and WAVEY. 

[Susan27]

Thanks for your answer!

[glencar]

Wavey/Shipp are used as departure fixes for Caribbean/Southern US/Africa flights. They are occasionally used for BOS flights too. Generally, if the flights to the north of JFK are going to be rained out, they'll be redirected over RBV or stopped altogether.