Medevac

ATC Jesus said:
Ahhhh...one of the photo mission folks. :D Deep down, it irritates us, but we get over it. Ha!



Both. They will come over on the preferential routing, so they are getting it on the ground. Most recently, when direct routings are issued by controllers, other controllers/facilities are putting the aircraft back on the STARs while airborne, which is just absurd. I guess those controllers just don't feel like working a little harder to accommodate your flights. I'll bend over backwards to work you guys in on direct routings. I don't care how many people I have to move out of the way, or how much additional effort I need to put in to make it happen.
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Of the couple of times I've ever gotten anything but direct anywhere I want to go, and it was also an issue, simply saying something along the lines of "We can't do that today, request X, we're critical" solves all the problems. If it was a 100 mile STAR re-route, it will always simply be "unable". I guess if it was a repeating issue, I'd put no STARs in the remarks section. I just can't imagine anything beyond the, "sorry we can't do that, we're a medevac" is needed though. There's always the 17.5 + 1200 option, lol.
 
MikeD said:
Weird seeing ARTCC drama....would've thought they're one of the more laid back ATC places to work at.

Then again, I don't ever talk to or deal with ARTCCs anymore, so maybe things have changed.
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"Are we clear for tactical down The Boulevard? ARE WE CLEAR FOR aww, never mind"

(spend a lot of time flying over the theater enroute to India.
 
genot said:
Keep it in your jeans for goodness sake. I've unabled a member here flying LN during the post DCA opposite direction deal-a-thon. Is this how Center trash air their grievances? Its cute though seeing Center people even begin to pretend they know what an IAF is.
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Usually it's you approach folk (i.e. SCT) who can't seem to handle the Medevacs. You are all so caught up in your procedures that you completely lose sight of actually controlling. Most of the approach "controllers" we deal with I wouldn't even call controllers. Monitors are more like it. They just want to issue descend via clearances all day long, and probably couldn't vector if their lives depended on it. I know, heaven forbid you have to...oh...do your job. No IAF pretending here. Have been flying for 20 years.
 
genot said:
Keep it in your jeans for goodness sake. I've unabled a member here flying LN during the post DCA opposite direction deal-a-thon. Is this how Center trash air their grievances? Its cute though seeing Center people even begin to pretend they know what an IAF is.

I've never encountered a controller where it counts who wouldn't stand up for an LN. I also happen to have an inkling that any LN pilot worth anything would not hesitate to declare. I see them ALL THE TIME from other continents. Seeing that makes a spark go off in my awfully dull TRACON brain thinking, well he's LN from Chile. Maybe the patient isn't in a 1,000 mile helo medivac Oddesy post traffic accident. He maybe, just maybe is stable. Guess what? If there is a question, I'll ask!

The controllers unable to function off STAR, now that's funny. I imagine its a lonely world where you can't vector your way out of a wet paper bag. I've lost ALL radar before. Do I get a cookie?
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Ah ha! That's why I'm confused by all this. Center pukes! I just thought something was in the water on the left coast.




Kidding guys... kind of ;)
 
Derg said:
"Are we clear for tactical down The Boulevard? ARE WE CLEAR FOR aww, never mind"

(spend a lot of time flying over the theater enroute to India.
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Like I said brother, it was weird working a TIC situation at a friendly firebase, bombing and strafing the enemy as the battle was raging below, while at the same exact time having to acknowledge a traffic call from AWACS regarding civil airliner traffic passing overhead enroute to Pakistan. "[on VHF to AWACS] Yeah, copy Saxon, visual separation on the Cathay 74 overhead; [followed immediately on UHF to ground FAC] ...Lead's in hot from the west with guns, hitting the south wall of your perimeter, copy they're inside your wire...."

Unreal.
 
ATC Jesus said:
Most of the approach "controllers" we deal with I wouldn't even call controllers. Monitors are more like it. They just want to issue descend via clearances all day long, and probably couldn't vector if their lives depended on it. I know, heaven forbid you have to...oh...do your job..
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And ARTCC controllers do more than solicit and pass on ride reports/requests, and do handoffs? :D
 
MikeD said:
Like I said brother, it was weird working a TIC situation at a friendly firebase, bombing and strafing the enemy as the battle was raging below, while at the same exact time having to acknowledge a traffic call from AWACS regarding civil airliner traffic passing overhead enroute to Pakistan. "[on VHF to AWACS] Yeah, copy Saxon, visual separation on the Cathay 74 overhead; [followed immediately on UHF to ground FAC] ...Lead's in hot from the west with guns, hitting the south wall of your perimeter, copy they're inside your wire...."

Unreal.
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Yup, calling up "Washington Center" in the middle of Iraq enroute to Mumbai and hearing a strange mix of VHF traffic and that weird paranoia about sparking up the weather radar so at least y'all would know we were a friendly is odd.

I do have to say that Kirkuk has some interesting lights at night, is that the city with the huge lit ring around it?
 
Derg said:
"Are we clear for tactical down The Boulevard? ARE WE CLEAR FOR aww, never mind"

(spend a lot of time flying over the theater enroute to India.
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DAL123 Heavy Cleared tactical spiral overhead approach. Better?
 
Derg said:
I do have to say that Kirkuk has some interesting lights at night, is that the city with the huge lit ring around it?
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Am trying to remember.....was based out of that airfield for 6 months, but back then, the city was mostly dark in many parts. Power was, shall we say, unreliable back in '04 there.
 
ATC Jesus said:
Usually it's you approach folk (i.e. SCT) who can't seem to handle the Medevacs. You are all so caught up in your procedures that you completely lose sight of actually controlling. Most of the approach "controllers" we deal with I wouldn't even call controllers. Monitors are more like it. They just want to issue descend via clearances all day long, and probably couldn't vector if their lives depended on it. I know, heaven forbid you have to...oh...do your job. No IAF pretending here. Have been flying for 20 years.
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Nah, I don't think it's us approach folks. I honestly think this might be a cultural regional difference type thing.

I've read through the last page of this thread honestly trying to grasp what the hell I was reading. Talk about wrapped up in procedures - yeesh.

It's an airplane. Give it a heading, punch a line, and tell the next guy/gal what you just did. And for good measure, make a scathing comment about whatever sports team they like that sucks before you hang up.

And please, don't take any of this the wrong way. I'm not trying to bust your chops - it's just an honest observation.

The Lakers suck.

See?

:)
 
MikeD said:
Am trying to remember.....was based out of that airfield for 6 months, but back then, the city was mostly dark in many parts. Power was, shall we say, unreliable back in '04 there.
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I just remember passing over a fairly "major" city and it was like there was a huge lit particle accelerator around it. Kind of strange. I'll have to find it in iPhoto and see what (if anything) the geolocation services said.
 
ATC Jesus said:
Usually it's you approach folk (i.e. SCT) who can't seem to handle the Medevacs. You are all so caught up in your procedures that you completely lose sight of actually controlling. Most of the approach "controllers" we deal with I wouldn't even call controllers. Monitors are more like it. They just want to issue descend via clearances all day long, and probably couldn't vector if their lives depended on it. I know, heaven forbid you have to...oh...do your job. No IAF pretending here. Have been flying for 20 years.
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Now that I realize you aren't actually a controller, how are those 20 years of flying working out for your night job as ATC troll? Approach doesn't assign descend via. No more so than Tower vectors for and clears for an instrument approach. Seriously, no excuse you could possibly have, no realistic procedure in place could have caused a real controller to make that error.

FYI, you wiffed on ZLA pay.
 
ATC Jesus said:
We do, LOL! I can't imagine the central/midwest guys doing anything more than that.
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I just like (at least back in the old days when I used ARTCC), when at 0200ish, ZAB would have the same controller working every sector between ABQ and PHX, and the same guy would just hand me off between sector freq's, to contact him again on the next one; as I was about one of maybe 4 planes he was working. :)
 
Ha! No, it's definitely a regional issue. Have several friends who control at centers and TRACONs in the midwest and east coast, and everything in general is different, I'm guessing the medevac stuff included, though admittedly, I never really asked them.

It's an airplane. Give it a heading, punch a line, and tell the next guy/gal what you just did.
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Makes perfect sense to me! Not busting my chops, I'd do that all day long. The receiving controller will just simply issue a control instruction or not take the handoff. And then of course you would get written up for doing the right thing...errrrr...disobeying a control instruction.

Now you understand why we're so pissed off??
 
TripSix said:
Nah, I don't think it's us approach folks. I honestly think this might be a cultural regional difference type thing.
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I personally cleared a medevac direct this week, after asking him if he wanted it, and SCT put him over the star when we "punched on to TELL THEM he's direct". Just because and it's not the first time. It's come to be expected. They dont take anyone on vectors from us or direct unless it's an emergency.

There's no punching on and telling them how it is. I'll bust right through the next controllers Airspace that pulls that crap on me and stand in front of the chief explaining why. And I'll put down a weeks pay that I'm the only one in our facility who'd do it to prove the point.

You can yell that from your arm chair but unfortunately that's not how it works.

100% of the Medevacs we've worked in the past 45 days have been re-routed over stars or been unabled direct routing by center and approach controllers alike with no accountability by management. There are very few if any cowboys left willing to whip it out and tell someone to take it no matter what the cost. The west coast cultural mentality for the most part is very "One for One and None for All". It's not just an ATC thing...
 
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