Being an air traffic controller...

Autothrust Blue said:
Probably because I know some airline or "professional" pilots who are equally offensive on the frequency.
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"Delta's Four Oh Two, checking in onboard level at flight level three eight oh, looking for direct Pottstown"

Ears... BLEEDING.
 
"#6 in sequence, ready for takeoff"

Really.... Those other five guys in front of you are just taxiing for the hell of it?
 
Doug Taylor said:
"#6 in sequence, ready for takeoff"
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The thought process goes like this:

"Delta 1054 heavy Las Vegas Tower hold short runway 25R at the full length...Southwest 1175 Las Vegas Tower runway 25R at bravo one, cleared for takeoff."
 
A150K said:
Agreed. I'm a huge supporter of GA myself, and one of the things that gives it a bad name is the attitude of some GA pilots...Including radio comms (listening to the way some people go about requesting VFR flight following makes me want to go out and beat a child, and I am somebody who talks to center 90% of the time when I'm on a VFR cross country.)
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I absolutely HATE the guys requesting flight following that just start giving all of their information without having been acknowledged first. It is almost always replied to with "say again callsign." Of course, I get the whole thing again, which usually means it takes me at least twice as long to get everything down. Speak at an even pace, ANNUNCIATE clearly, and skip the jargon and jive. It seems like most of the guys asking for flight following also have the worst radios, making everything that much worse.

Trying to get someone's position, altitude, and equipment suffix is like pulling teeth sometimes. When I had my primary training, I was taught to ALWAYS give that information when requesting flight following.
 
Barty said:
...ANNUNCIATE clearly...
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800px-C441annuncloseup.jpg


? :)
 
canadian_atc said:
The stress of this job is something we can't explain to those who have never done it... I dont think about smashing planes together, but it's still stressful, in an underlying cumulative sort of way.

Most of us have our ways of handling it, but it's hard to explain.
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I love that avatar... PUSHING TIN!!! Anywho... At one of the many Class D airports we serve in the dash it is not uncommon to be out getting dinner and see the local tower controllers at the bar of the restaurants we go for food. How do we know they are controllers, well they usually end up walking up and asking, "Hey do you guys fly for... ?"
I think I would enjoy that job if for any reason I couldn't fly anymore, but I would much rather be in the plane.

When I was still Flight Instructing as my full time job there was one particular company based at the airport that never fly VFR... They had a GV that went down for maint for about 2 months, during this time the guys were getting out of currency for landing in the aircraft so all of the pilots, 8 total, piled in one night and when to do 3 night landing each after the tower was closed. I was up with a student working on his 10 night TO and landings for his PPL and gave them plenty of room, for two reasons. First, its a GV and they burn a lot more gas, 2nd, it had been so long since any of them had flown VFR they had forgotten how to make radio calls. Made it difficult to figure out exactly what they were doing each time.
 
Barty said:
I absolutely HATE the guys requesting flight following that just start giving all of their information without having been acknowledged first. It is almost always replied to with "say again callsign." Of course, I get the whole thing again, which usually means it takes me at least twice as long to get everything down. Speak at an even pace, ANNUNCIATE clearly, and skip the jargon and jive. It seems like most of the guys asking for flight following also have the worst radios, making everything that much worse.

Trying to get someone's position, altitude, and equipment suffix is like pulling teeth sometimes. When I had my primary training, I was taught to ALWAYS give that information when requesting flight following.
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This is what I heard the other day:

Experimental driver: FLIGHT FOLLOWING?!?!?!

ABQ Center:Aircraft calling say again?

Experimental driver: REQUEST FLIGHT FOLLOWING TO MONTROSE!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

ABQ Center: Say callsign, position, altitude and aircraft type....


It amazes me how patient ABQ center is (except for when the wx is IFR, then they start getting stressed. Dosen't happen too much around here.)
 
It's always entertaining when airline guys step over each other on the radio. Is is really that hard to listen for a few seconds?
 
A150K said:
It's always entertaining when airline guys step over each other on the radio. Is is really that hard to listen for a few seconds?
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My reply whenever that happened was usually, "Calling without checking the frequency first—standby. N123—your transmission was totally blocked by somebody who didn't listen to the frequency before transmitting. Say again, please."

Then, after the retransmission, I would go back and say, "Okay, the person who called without checking the frequency first—now say again."

A lot of times that would be met with several moments of silence because the idiot wouldn't want to self-identify who he was to everyone on frequency, and those who were about to call up didn't want anyone to think it was them.
 
"Heyyy there Center this is American 125 with yo... Er ahh American 125 HEAVY with you, checking in at flight level three six zeeero... And uhhh we're requesting a climb on up to three eight zero when you can work it out.... And if it's smooth up there, because we are in some occasional light chop right now"

I wish I was making this stuff up!
 
RDoug said:
My reply whenever that happened was usually, "Calling without checking the frequency first—standby. N123—your transmission was totally blocked by somebody who didn't listen to the frequency before transmitting. Say again, please."

Then, after the retransmission, I would go back and say, "Okay, the person who called without checking the frequency first—now say again."

A lot of times that would be met with several moments of silence because the idiot wouldn't want to self-identify who he was to everyone on frequency, and those who were about to call up didn't want anyone to think it was them.
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It's almost 100% or close they wait for you to talk to an additional plane then check-in. Just like the only guy on the frequency saying "blocked".
"Other aircraft calling say again". Crickets.................. "Now the only aircraft on my frequency , Air Carrier 24 , climb and maintain........"
 
canadian_atc said:
"Heyyy there Center this is American 125 with yo... Er ahh American 125 HEAVY with you, checking in at flight level three six zeeero... And uhhh we're requesting a climb on up to three eight zero when you can work it out.... And if it's smooth up there, because we are in some occasional light chop right now"

I wish I was making this stuff up!
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"And We'd also like direct when ya got it too"
 
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