Well, I'm late to this party, but just chock full of observations. First, I can identify with everything Hold West has said!
Pilots who don't listen. Listening is more than just reading back the clearance, it's the guys who change freqs and start transmitting without ever listening to what's going on the frequency. As HW said, if I issue a clearance, I need a read back of same. That 2 second pause between the time I unkey and the recipient answers is NOT a good opportunity for you to ask for direct to ZFDAT or whaerever that dang fix is. Or, just as soon as I tell two guys to stand-by while I coordinate, not 3 seconds will go by before more folks start transmitting. Hello! Good pilots can tell a lot about what's happening by listening to what the controller is telling the other guys, if they just listen up a bit. Yes, I know there's facilities and freqs so busy you have to butt in to be heard, but way too many guys are blocking readbacks when all they had to do was listen for 10 seconds first.
Descents; I know you guys are under constand pressure to save fuel, but there's a reason why I said "Descend and maintain XX", and it often has to do with separation. I almost never say "Pilot's discretion" anymore, because I don't have time for any. Yet I often still get pilots reading back "Roger, discretion to six." You just went from #4 to #6 in line fella. And even when you do read it back correctly, I can't make you #2 because if I tried, you'd be 1500' above glideslope at the LOM. That's right fellas, some of you are getting a 20 mile final instead of 10 because you won't get that hot-rod jet down and slowed in a timely manner, so I'm not screwing up the finals by trying to shoehorn you into a 7 mile gap at 240 kts and a grand high. You're going to the end of the line. There are some Mitzi drivers I know who are good enough, I don't know you.
"With you". I hate it, didn't use to bother me much, now I get Students and Private pilots calling me out of the blue "With you". That's nice, did you want something? A transponder code? Flight following? Anything in particular?
On the flip side,
Runway changes and slam dunks. I try to be conservative here, because of stuff I hear on boards like this, but I work with controllers who use them gleefully; because nobody complains, and some guys will ask for them to get to the airport 30 sec faster. That's right, it doesn't do a damn bit of good for me to tell my peers and trainees "Try not to switch runways on them inside 15 miles" and then have three pilots the next day offer to switch runways at 6 miles to beat the King Air to the ramp. Same for the slam dunks. I just saw an Emb 170 the other night do a dam fine impression of a B727 that I didn't even think was possible in the newer jets. I didn't instigate it, they did it on their own. A non-pilot controller sees that, and some will assume every airliner can do the same.
It used to really annoy me that some pilot's obviously never even looked at a chart or DP when they filed, but then I learned that a lot of you aren't filing yourselves anymore. Still, it's mildly annoying to see a C-750 filed for FL410 on a DP which is clearly marked for aircraft AOB 11,000'...:erm: Stand by while I fix this....
Enough for now, more later.
-- I left FNT in '78 for a twenty year stint at ORD. Procedures may very well be the same now, though, I think there's still a NWS on the field at FNT.
