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I absolutely could not believe it!!!

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ch47fe

Active member
Joined
Jul 13, 2002
Posts
44
I solo'd yesterday out in the pratice area near GMU and tuned up the tower bto report my position to enter the pattern for touch and go's.

Well, I end up turning to delay entering the area to listen to the traffic and ATC talking.

It was quite busy for a Sunday afternoon at this airport. About 3 aircraft in the pattern ad a few inbound.

ATC says "808, turn to heading 360", No repsonse from the pilot...."808 tower, do you copy?".....
"808 copy, Understand(heavy german accent)".....
"808, Ma'am I need for you to turn right, do you undertand?"
808.."Why I don't see any other traffic!"
Tower."I don't have time to explain, Aircraft are inbound to your position!!"
Tower."Do you understand?!?..(Controller then starts Dutch/German Phrases)

I was scared to enter the pattern with this yo-yo doing touch and go's. This controller was freaking out(rightly so) and pi$$ed. This pilot continued to do whatever she wanted. She never did what ATC told her to do. ATC made everyone else work around her.

My question is, what is the FAA going to do? She was not flying out of the airport so teh controller couldn't say anything to her. The controller didn't say anything about writing her up.

What will happen to this pilot for totally ignoring ATC?

I am still stunned this pilot asked "Why!".

Whassup?
 
I'll bet that will end up in some sort of FAA enforcement action. Personally, I hope it does too. The only reason to deviate from ATC directions is for safety purposes. That's the only time you're allowed to break an FAR and get away with it too. Yes, the pilot in command of any aircraft has the final say-so as to what to do with his/her aircraft, but disrespecting ATC and having an attitude problem is one way to loose brownie points in this business. If the pilot would have simply said "unable to comply" the controller probably would have had a better understanding and worked the problem in a more relaxed manner. We all know that just because you can't see another aircraft approaching your position doesn't mean that there isn't one. Remember the F-16 colliding into the Cessna 172 near Tampa a while back? That's a perfect example. More could have been done to prevent that accident but that's another story.

For the record, I will tell the tower "unable to comply" when they instruct me to turn to a heading other than runway heading when I still have over 4000' of runway left after lifting off. If the engine were to quit on climb-out, I'd rather try to land on the rest of the runway and the extended runway area that exists at most airports as a grass area with approach lights than in a bunch of trees, hangars or even a terminal building.

P.S. Congrats on the solo :)
 
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As you fly more and more, you'll be amazed at the kind of crap you hear on the radio. All of us have stories, and you'll have more to add as you go along.

Long ago, I shared the pattern at CMA (Class D) with a pilot who insisted on calling each leg of her pattern as if she were operating at an uncontrolled airport. She'd respond to the tower's instructions and clearances too, but for example she'd call, "Camarillo traffic, Cherokee xxx is left base for 26." She made calls for crosswind, downwind, base, and final. It was hilarious. The tower kept telling her that the calls weren't necessary, but she just kept going. I couldn't stop laughing. She did this for at least 4 trips around the pattern - maybe more. I'm not sure if the tower had a talk with her after the flight was over or not.
 
Language barrier

Ditto on your solo, my friend. :)

Funny that this discussion should come up. It was nine years, eleven months ago nearly to the day when I had my scariest experience ever.

I was demonstrating a maximum performance landing in a Seminole for two students. We were flying into Fort Pierce. Tower was giving instructions to a linguistically-challenged Baron, who was circling north of the field and wanted a landing clearance. The tower had pointed out a Cherokee that cut in front of us and which we had in sight.

Things went from bad to worse. Tower was trying to tell this Baron to follow us, but the Baron wasn't comprehending. He was coming from our right. I was scared half to death that we would be midaired. The Controller kept asking the Baron if he had us. He said he did not. The tower told him repeatedly to turn downwind. This moron did not. He converged on us from the right at our altitude. When it became clear that he might midair us, I reduced power and dived as this "pilot" passed overhead. My students, from Italy, estimated 20 meters of separation. I estimated 50 feet.

This gets better (?!?). Tower told the Baron to set up for another runway, but he set up behind us for our runway. Tower kept telling us he was about to eat up our Six. We landed safely. So did this guy.

Bad enough that he near-misses us the first time. We had him in sight. The second segment was far more frightening because he was on our Six and was not in sight. Not to mention that this began with someone cutting in front of us.

This whole deal scared me sh#!tless. I filed a NASA report.
 
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It always amazes me when I hear about guys like this flying high performance equipment like a Baron. I always ask myself - how can they get far enough in aviation to fly something like that when they can't even follow directions?

I was practicing approaches in AUS when I overheard the tower screaming at a King Air that just couldn't do anything right. The guy would follow every instruction with a simple "xxx Roger" and then turn the wrong direction, pick the wrong altitude, and finally line up for the wrong runway. After telling the King Air that he was lined up for 17R when he was cleared for 17L (followed again by "xxx Roger"), the frustrated controller finally just cleared him for 17R.

Jeez...I can MAYBE see a student getting spooked and making these kinds of mistakes, but in a King Air? It's scary to think that we share airspace with these dudes.
 
Not to take that lady's side but...

You don't have to accept everything from ATC.

You always have the power as PIC to reject ATC demands.

But I don't think you should reject them because you don't see any traffic.
 
not to be argumentative...

It is my understanding that you are to follow ALL ATC directives, unless you are exercising your PIC authority in order to assure the safety of your flight.

In other words, you had better have a darn good reason to ignore a directive. It sounds like she had no such reason.
 
It sounds like in this particular case there was a language barrier. I fly all over the world and always hate overflying England. For some reason I cant understand the Kings English.
 

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