SLC Controllers and everyone else in the system

[Goose Egg]

BOS center controllers are some of the best. Cream of the crop in my opinion.

I completely agree--those guys are some darn good controllers.

NY approach, on the other hand...

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

In all fairness, there are some very good controllers in SLC, and that includes tower, approach, and center.

In all fairness, however, there are also some controllers that really do suck. BOS approach/center, Norcal/Socal, LAX/SFO tower generally do a lot better.

And if you are the one that built an airspace that requires three to four heading changes of right/left five degrees in 3 minutes, maybe you should have thought that one through a little more. I fly to DYANN and turn heading 155. It ain't rocket science.

-Goose

Goose,
The reason for those heading changes is as you go further on the downwind, your right wing is basically fliying in the MVA and as you go south it moves east and curves toward the east. There is no straight line for the contoller to just follow. Also the upper wind regularly comes over the mountains and they have to work with that also. In addition as you are on the left downwind to 34L, straight in traffic from over FFU is on the 34R loc. There is VERY little room for you to make the left turn from downwind to base then base to final. Anyone who is not turning at 30 deg of bank is going to have serious trouble. Most of the time it was American's 88's. 15 deg and no more. Yes, I asked them. My soulution, along with most all conrollers was to climb them to 110 and send them to OGD to either hold or end of the line.
There is NO room to do anything with the MVA's so the heading changes are the only way to keep you out of the mountains and the controllers from having a deal, I know, I had one right there over U42.

Just like every job there are good and bad. I saw several people there that barely checked out. I agree with that completely, however painting all of the controllers at S56, (tracon) is assnine. Just like painting all of XYZ's pilots are idiots. I am sure you have flown with some that you wonder how they even got a private, let alone qualify for comm or ATP.

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

You built it? Yea, many years ago when I was a controller, I met many guys like you in planning and procedures. My old supervisor use to say "we're (controllers) are down here to help those people (pilots) up there, not the other way around." Seems like some of you planning/procedures people have never heard that.

I was NEVER in plans and procedures. I was a journeyman controller my entire career. I, along with SD was asked to rebuild the TRACON airspace along with two great guys from ZLC. NONE were from P/P. We spent almost a year with the project.

SAV, PBI and S56.
What facility were you at?

 

[Stryker]

My favorite is a flight that takes 1 hour 36 minutes and a taxi that takes 27 minutes. No joke and this is not just one occurrence, we are 3 for 3 of landing 34 right and taxiing all the way to the east side. This followed by a 22 minute delay for departure with both engines running. Total waist of fuel for just one of the days was about 1500 lbs, or about $1600.00. Very sad when they have a nice general aviation runway that dumps you right off into Million air

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

My favorite is a flight that takes 1 hour 36 minutes and a taxi that takes 27 minutes. No joke and this is not just one occurrence, we are 3 for 3 of landing 34 right and taxiing all the way to the east side. This followed by a 22 minute delay for departure with both engines running. Total waist of fuel for just one of the days was about 1500 lbs, or about $1600.00. Very sad when they have a nice general aviation runway that dumps you right off into Million air

Did you request 35? Agreed, taxi time seems excessive for that flight, though 5h 38m taxi for a 52m scheduled block probably beats that.
The Tower calls the rwy in use and tells Tracon to take all the arrivals to whichever rwy they decide.
Depends on the bank, arrivals or departures.

 

[Stryker]

Did you request 35? Agreed, taxi time seems excessive for that flight, though 5h 38m taxi for a 52m scheduled block probably beats that.
The Tower calls the rwy in use and tells Tracon to take all the arrivals to whichever rwy they decide.
Depends on the bank, arrivals or departures.

I requested 35 twice, dont get me wrong I know there will be delays. Just dont have me start my engines until you are ready to launch me. I get 10 to 15 minute start delays running into places like vegas all the time. The difference is they have me call for start and I am not wasting all that fuel

 

[SSDD]

A few years ago I was a liason with ATC. We used to hold regular meetings with the tower, tracon, and center, and sometimes the military. It was basically a territorial fight. Center would impose certain restrictions on approach, and approach would fight back with some restrictions of their own, and vice versa. That's why we get assigned 250kts by center, and as soon as we check in with approach they ask for maximun forward speed. No one between us and the runway.

That territorial fight between the tower and tracon was one of the reasons they were so slow to start using the east runway. We could be backed up on H, and RWY 35 would go unused.

I understand that the terrain imposes some limitations that flat landers don't have to deal with, but there is a lot more to it than just the mountains.

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

The problem with the outer fix speeds is very simple, whoever is working flow control that day or shift, looks at the ASD and issues speeds to flow control in Washington. Pretty stupid since the center is just across the airport. But, that is how the FAA operates. Unfortunately the controllers manning the positions have no say in the speeds. So when you are switched to TRACON is trying to flow 4 feeds into one downwind. I was usually in trouble daily due to my refusal to accept speeds when they were not needed. I would just call the sector and tell the controller to drop the speeds if there was a tie, just stack them up. Always pissed off the 'weak' flow controllers. The good ones never put speeds on my side, ever.
Still, there are good ones and some not so good.
And yes, the tower was the ones directing the show and it really ticked us off in the TRACON....

 

[Goose Egg]

Goose,
The reason for those heading changes is as you go further on the downwind, your right wing is basically fliying in the MVA and as you go south it moves east and curves toward the east. There is no straight line for the contoller to just follow. Also the upper wind regularly comes over the mountains and they have to work with that also. In addition as you are on the left downwind to 34L, straight in traffic from over FFU is on the 34R loc. There is VERY little room for you to make the left turn from downwind to base then base to final. Anyone who is not turning at 30 deg of bank is going to have serious trouble. Most of the time it was American's 88's. 15 deg and no more. Yes, I asked them. My soulution, along with most all conrollers was to climb them to 110 and send them to OGD to either hold or end of the line.
There is NO room to do anything with the MVA's so the heading changes are the only way to keep you out of the mountains and the controllers from having a deal, I know, I had one right there over U42.

I humbly stand corrected! Gosh, there I go doing exact thing that gets me all riled up when other people do it--making judgements without any remote knowledge of the facts of the matter. And orignially suspected that it was some sort of scenario exactly as you had described before I jumped on the bandwagon. Apologies, apologies!

-Goose

 

[ATR-DRIVR]

I humbly stand corrected! Gosh, there I go doing exact thing that gets me all riled up when other people do it--making judgements without any remote knowledge of the facts of the matter. And orignially suspected that it was some sort of scenario exactly as you had described before I jumped on the bandwagon. Apologies, apologies!

-Goose

No worries at all man!!