h25b
Left for ProPilotWorld
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2002
- Posts
- 1,829
O.K. gang, opinions welcome... I just got back on a late night arrival and while I wait for my 2 mo. old son to go to sleep (Lord willing) approach really pi$$ed me off this evening so I thought I'd poll the audience.
Coming in (especially late at night) on clear evenings I'll typically set-up the FMS to fly to a point on a 3 mile final to the planned runway. When we check in to approach (keep in mind this is at 0100, YES A.M....) the controller tells us to expect the visual (which I already had set-up in the box and was proceeding to a fix as described above). He instructs us to call the field for the visual. About 9 miles out just as we were about to call the field he tells us to fly direct to the airport as we were off heading (no $hit Sherlock) to which I answer by reporting the field in sight. He answers back with a "cleared for the visual, but fly direct to the field..." Now at this point we're set up perfectly (thanks to my planning ahead) for a left base so I tell him we're on a left base. Now he's miffed and tells me we should have let him know before turning... For crying out loud man, we had been the only aircraft on frequency from Atlanta!!! The only time in 6 years of flying jets I have ever seen a controller be anything but happy that we had our act together. They're usually ticked off when you're flying directly over the field without the runway in sight.
Just wandering what other guys/gals do in such situations. I realize what I do is not exactly by the book, but good grief. The acronym "B.F.D." came to mind as I was interacting with this guy. I'm just trying to figure out what exactly he was expecting me to do. Evidently he was looking for me to perform an overhead break... This is probably the same controller that gets P.O.'d when it's a little hazy and can't quite get the field so you request an ILS.
Opinions welcome, I guess from now on I'll fly direct to the numbers and what will be, will be ???
Coming in (especially late at night) on clear evenings I'll typically set-up the FMS to fly to a point on a 3 mile final to the planned runway. When we check in to approach (keep in mind this is at 0100, YES A.M....) the controller tells us to expect the visual (which I already had set-up in the box and was proceeding to a fix as described above). He instructs us to call the field for the visual. About 9 miles out just as we were about to call the field he tells us to fly direct to the airport as we were off heading (no $hit Sherlock) to which I answer by reporting the field in sight. He answers back with a "cleared for the visual, but fly direct to the field..." Now at this point we're set up perfectly (thanks to my planning ahead) for a left base so I tell him we're on a left base. Now he's miffed and tells me we should have let him know before turning... For crying out loud man, we had been the only aircraft on frequency from Atlanta!!! The only time in 6 years of flying jets I have ever seen a controller be anything but happy that we had our act together. They're usually ticked off when you're flying directly over the field without the runway in sight.
Just wandering what other guys/gals do in such situations. I realize what I do is not exactly by the book, but good grief. The acronym "B.F.D." came to mind as I was interacting with this guy. I'm just trying to figure out what exactly he was expecting me to do. Evidently he was looking for me to perform an overhead break... This is probably the same controller that gets P.O.'d when it's a little hazy and can't quite get the field so you request an ILS.
Opinions welcome, I guess from now on I'll fly direct to the numbers and what will be, will be ???
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