Ok, I know you are talking about extremely busy airspace and from talking with former and current pilots of the AF they themselves to particularly like to fly into the UPT bases. However, I have questions with other bases such as Scott AFB. Now I already know that this is a huge training base for ATC, first actual time broadcasting, but some of those procedures create so much extra work for everybody and makes the freq so busy that when I was training there the student was so overloaded and was barely able to hold on even after solo! Her is a sample of what ATC communications would be for a standard training flight for one time around the pattern.
ME-"Scott/Mid-America Tower Cessna 12345 Holding short runway 32L ready for takeoff."
TWR-"Cessna 12345, Scott/Mid-America Tower wind calm, cleared for takeoff runway 32L"
ME-"Cessna 12345, request left close traffic"
TWR-"Cessna 12345, left close traffic approved, report left base runway 32L"
ME-"Cessna 12345, left close traffic approved, report left base runway 32L"
ME-"Cessna 12345, left base runway 32L"
TWR-"Cessna 12345, Scott/Mid-America Tower, wind calm, check gear down, cleared for the option runway 32L"
ME-"Cessna 12344, gear down, cleared for the option runway 32L"
Repeat every pattern, this does not include any talk to ground control and don't forget that if you throw the KC-135 from the IL guard in the mixed they will make you do 10, yes TEN, 360's so that the 135 can do three ILS's. :sitaware: The tower has made me fly a 10 mile final, in a C152 because they didn't know how to handle me, WITH TRAFFIC IN SIGHT, and a Lear 35/C-21.
anic: I can honestly say they are not the absolute worst controllers, one controller in the tower at an airport very close takes that, but it is very difficult to see why they want to train their controllers to talk so much that they make it worse than MEM on the radio (yes, I understand MEM isn't bad, but with the afternoon FedEx push I can get that way). There are some things that I understand, like asking about the gear, makes sense because the AF doesn't have any aircraft with fixed gear. But why clog the airways? :banghead: