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All hail the miracle of the iPhone...that sees weather data that we, the clueless dispatchers of this industry, have no ability to see otherwise.
OK...so lets break this down to what REALLY happened.I think that sounds closer to how the story probably really went...
- Needing to kill time during this 3 hour groundstop...pilot fires up his iPhone to look at a little porn.
- When his favorite porn site won't load up...he decides to look at the radar so he can see just what exactly that line of storms he will be barrelling right through a little later on looks like (despite the fact that his dispatcher filed a good route to deviate around the level 5 storm).
- Meanwhile, the storms have let up and the groundstop in EWR has given way to a nasty flow program.
- Pilot sees no more storm on top of EWR...thinks in his egomaniacal, "I'm-the-only-one-that-matters" way, that is all it takes to get a groundstop/GDP lifted. Backed up traffic be damned.
- Calls dispatch and demands a better time.
- Calls dispatch again after calling and bugging the hell out of the tower controller.
- Calls dispatch and wants to talk to the sup on duty about why he is still sitting on the ground in ORD.
- Dispatch, tired of dealing with this toolbag, fires up the Command Center TCA Hotline/Request page and begs Ricky Bell, the God of ATC, himself for a better flow time just to get this guy out of their hair.
Dude...Ricky and his "braintrust" are a constant source of entertainment. I know it's gonna be a good day when I hear Ricky Bell running any telcon.THAT WAS THE FUNNIEST DAMN THING I HAVE EVER SEEN! ROTFLMAO!
One of my counter parts told me that Ricky once put out a ground stop for Hou Hobby for the Houston Center, Ft. Worth Center, and Toledo. Yes, I said said Toledo. After about 10 seconds of silence on the SPO, Ft. Worth chimed in and said, "uhh Ricky, that's Tulsa. I laughed for hours.
I'm just waiting for the stories of angry passengers at LGA during a ground stop asking the pilots why they don't have an I-Phone. I'm sure some moron will videotape the altercation and put it on youtube.