Anyone flying in IAH today?

triple7

Well-Known Member
I am glad I am off. Sitting here listening to the heaviest rain and TS I've heard in a while. Radar looks like a mess too. I am assuming its in a ground stop. Only thing I can imagine.
 
I'm about to. There's a ground stop whenever there is a cloud in the sky at IAH.
 
I'm about to. There's a ground stop whenever there is a cloud in the sky at IAH.

Are you kidding? I thought IAH handles the tstorms pretty well compared to some of the other hubs. todays weather was especially bad...giant cells off both ends of the airport.
 
I dunno, I'm pretty unimpressed with IAH controllers. In Newark they've got almost no airspace to work with, and I seldom get holds or speed restrictions unless something really nasty is going down.

Going into Houston, though, it can be CAVU and I'll get 250 knots from Memphis on in. It freakin' blows me away that they have miles and miles of airspace to work with, but they can't figure out how sequence aircraft in it?

I hate Houston, and Houston crews.

PWOP BABY!
 
I dunno, I'm pretty unimpressed with IAH controllers. In Newark they've got almost no airspace to work with, and I seldom get holds or speed restrictions unless something really nasty is going down.

Going into Houston, though, it can be CAVU and I'll get 250 knots from Memphis on in. It freakin' blows me away that they have miles and miles of airspace to work with, but they can't figure out how sequence aircraft in it?

I hate Houston, and Houston crews.

PWOP BABY!

My favorite is "Jetlink 1234. you are six entrail of a company 145, slow to 160."

followed shortly by...

"Jetlink 1234, Houston monitor, slow to final approach speed."
 
Houston

I dunno, I'm pretty unimpressed with IAH controllers. In Newark they've got almost no airspace to work with, and I seldom get holds or speed restrictions unless something really nasty is going down.

Going into Houston, though, it can be CAVU and I'll get 250 knots from Memphis on in. It freakin' blows me away that they have miles and miles of airspace to work with, but they can't figure out how sequence aircraft in it?

I hate Houston, and Houston crews.

PWOP BABY!

I agree wholeheartedly.

Out of every class B airport I have flown into, Houston impresses me the least and in fact depresses me.

What a colossal waste of resources.

Three runways a MILE apart from each other and they are telling people to slow to final approach speed because there is traffic five miles ahead of them on a visual approach!

The controllers are the rudest, most impatient, know-it-all bunch I can think of. At least the guys at JFK who get on youtube have some foreign pilots with bad English that are a legitimate annoyance.

The taxiway double-lettering thing is asanine, eats up radio time, and inevitably leads to massive amounts of partial readbacks because nobody wants to say six letters when they can say three. Even the controllers disregard the standard phraseology to shorten it. There is no reason the entire western sector of the airport needs to have taxiways that start with the letter W. The northern side of the airport does not need to have taxiways starting with the letter N.

But by far the worst thing about IAH airport is the contacting clearance at ramp spots. Never, ever, ever should a jet aircraft have to sit for even ten seconds at a ramp spot while someone else reads back their full route clearance. If there is a line for the runway it does not matter but when there is no line to the departure runway this clearance delivery-at-the-ramp-spot directly results in wasted fuel. Do it at the gate like every other airport in the USA.

Too bad Mr. Happy retired.
 
My favorite is "Jetlink 1234. you are six entrail of a company 145, slow to 160."

followed shortly by...

"Jetlink 1234, Houston monitor, slow to final approach speed."

i can explain this one. when i get paired with a houston FO and am going to IAH, this is usually what happens.

approach: "Jetlink, 40 miles from MKAYE, cross MKAYE at or above 7000, cleared ILS 26L approach. you are number 2 behind traffic on short final, 180 or better to the JEPNI."

FO: "flaps 9" and an attempt to slow to 180 kts...

it is almost as if they dont realize people are following us and slowing down 40 miles out is going to have an effect on planes hundereds of miles out.

i make it a point when i fly with these guys to demonstrate the 250 kts to 5 mile final, gear down, flaps 9, speedbrakes out until 160 kts, flaps 22 to 145kts, flaps 45 landing checklist, configured by 1000ft approach.
 
Maybe they just gave in :)

i can explain this one. when i get paired with a houston FO and am going to IAH, this is usually what happens.

approach: "Jetlink, 40 miles from MKAYE, cross MKAYE at or above 7000, cleared ILS 26L approach. you are number 2 behind traffic on short final, 180 or better to the JEPNI."

FO: "flaps 9" and an attempt to slow to 180 kts...

it is almost as if they dont realize people are following us and slowing down 40 miles out is going to have an effect on planes hundereds of miles out.

i make it a point when i fly with these guys to demonstrate the 250 kts to 5 mile final, gear down, flaps 9, speedbrakes out until 160 kts, flaps 22 to 145kts, flaps 45 landing checklist, configured by 1000ft approach.

I routinely do what you say in the last sentence of your post.

You would be astounded at the number of captains who are on the edge of their seat, squirming around, hovering their hand over the flaps handle, asking if I want the gear, asking if I want the flaps, telling me it's barely going to work and on and on.

I reject their suggestions at flaps and gear because I know when they are needed and to put it bluntly, I don't care what they think because I know they are wrong (I want to reiterate they are the minority, not the majority).

I respect their PIC authority and if they ever thought safety of flight was going to be an issue then they can give me flaps without me asking.

But there are a lot of people I fly with who, after thousands of hours in one airplane type, have literally no clue as to what the machine's capabilities are.

What have they been doing all these trips?!

I need to fly with YOU!
 
Re: Maybe they just gave in :)

You would be astounded at the number of captains who are on the edge of their seat, squirming around, hovering their hand over the flaps handle, asking if I want the gear, asking if I want the flaps, telling me it's barely going to work and on and on.

i flew with those same guys before i upgraded. watching the sweat beading on their brows as i approach DQO and still havent left FL270, aim to make my crossing restrictions at the fix, not 10 miles early, fly visuals without setting up for a 5 mile final, etc. not the majority but they are out there.

as for flying with me, i lose the stripe on sept 30 along with many of my fellow G CA's.
 
Damn casey, sorry to hear about your bid result :(

The flap handle hoverers are hilarious. Sadly, they exist in both seats I've come to find out.

It was pretty bad in IAH today. I was about #35 in line for 15L when I left the ramp and ended with a 1:15 taxi. There were still at least 30 planes on WA in the lineup when I left. That's child's play compared to EWR though.

I have suggested flaps to my FO's twice in the 18 months i've been in the left seat, and felt bad about it both times. Once was a slam dunk into OMA at night where I'd been put in a bad situation the week before and probably overreacted. I apologized afterwards. The other one was a messed up visual into SBA where they have some asinine noise abatement procedures and we were going to end up flying a downwind to malibu if my FO didn't get us down :) That 6500 ft runway doesn't leave too much room for error either.

Both times I did it by saying "I think we need some flaps" not this passive agressive "you want flaps 9?" or hovering my hand over the handle B.S.
 
Yeah, we get the "180 or better" in MEM a lot when it's busy, and I can probably count on one hand how many people actually hear "or better." I think I've had one FO actually go faster than 180, but he'd been here for a while and was actually senior to ME. Some guys are amazed that the CRJ will config and slow at the marker if you know how to do it.
 
As luck would have it, I started 1/2 trips on IOE today from KADS -> KIAH.... that was some of the largest cells I'd ever seen. I think it was also the first and last time I would have a 777 from emirates to test the waters before me in the falcon.

The weather wasn't really that bad though....

On the way back at around 9:30 or so to Dallas, that was a REAL light show.... but still not too bad.

Also - it was my first trip to KIAH, and I really hate Houston. The double alphabet taxiway letters and rude controllers don't help either.... Things aren't very efficient there at all with how many runways they have....

Anyhoo... off to sleep, I'm legal again in 8 hrs :-/
 
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