What airport has the worst controllers?

[Lrjtcaptain]

Well...heres the deal. We mess up all the time. I loose about 1 plane a week which isn't terrible...well maybe 1 every two weeks. Forget, cant find em whatever. But that is no big deal. The bottom line is we bust our ass for you guys and it almost sounds like we are a thorn in your side. Lets just turn it into a free for all and the major airports, see how much you like that. As for pilots...you know what, we do everything for a reason, we don't put you in the penalty box cause you all suck, cause if we did that we would screw our selves up.
i gave a guy a 360' on downwind the other day, he was in a bonanza of course. He got pissed, he had no clue why i was spining him, but it was to keep in locked into his position while a malibu came in on a right base after he could find the airport after being radar vectored in, i told him to go nw bound and set up for a straight in but he didn't do that, just hit a right base and killed my downwind people....the bonanza didn't realize that the 360 was to keep him from smashing into this guy. He thought i was being a dick....GET a clue people!

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

GET a clue people!

I think the point is, one pilot who's hosed up out there is a temporary pain in the ass for the few planes in that airspace and the controllers handling him at the time. However, one hosed up controller affects everyone in his airpace for the entire time he's hosed up...could be temporary, or could be a full-time gig for some of the lesser ones. The point of this thread is to toss around the places where we find some of the lesser ones ( or groups of lesser ones in some locations). They are out there. Or do you think they aren't? If you think they aren't, perhaps a clue would help you as much as it would help us.

 

[atcloser]

pilotman is right, as controllers, especially in NY, we have an SOP about 400 pages in length. there are established procedures for everything and they really have to be followed since 3 of the nations biggest airports are within 15 miles of each other. so pilots, when it seems like you are being vectored all over the sky, it is probably because there are only certain parts of airspace that you can go in if you are an arrival, and certain parts for departures. NY's airspace is so chopped up its insane. In one 7NM by 7NM box of airspace, one sector owns 0-2000 ft, another owns 2000-4000, another 5000-10000, another 11000-17000 each with aircraft going in all different directions. Through in VFR's and its a mess--and thats just a little chunk of space. Shortcuts do exist but they take an awful lot of coordination, many times which time and workload will not allow. anyone who departs JFK and is filed over say GAYLE or COATE intersection gets vectored about 40-50 NE of the airport until turning northwestbound oncourse...just because of airspace limitations.

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

Hugh Jordan
you have a point....but at the same time pilots are a pain in our ass constintly.. I hear bitching a moaning all day long "why are you making us do that, why cant i have runway32 when the atis says 14. We do things for a reason. Im sure some controllers out there are high strung. I get that way sometimes, a little flustered a frusterated and that can send me down the tubes from time to time but when the controllers get edgy its becuase the pilots end up screwing them up and not doing what they were told to do. Now if this post is for infomational purposes to serve as a guide for pilots as to which airports to look out for for crappy controllers then thats fine. We are all out to get you and make your lives hell. Thats on my mind everytime i grab my headset and plug in, whoz life can i make miserable today. Usuaully I plug in with a mindset of okay Mark, your not gonna bitch out any pilots even if they do act stupid and usually I keep my composier and let alot of it slide, I have never violated anyone, i rarely make them call upstairs because it doens't do any good. Alot of pilots out there just dont get it. Now for the 121 and 135 drivers. you are all usually a pleasure to deal with because i never have to repeat instructions, you do what we ask and we get you down and off the runway as soon as we can. For instance, I had a 135 operator call on last week, i know this guy, he is professional and i work with him to make life easier on both of us. He was SE of the airport, winds were calm and i was using 14. He politly asked for a straight into 32 and that is what he got, because i knew he wasn't gonna screw anything up so i extended my downwinds and slowed down my guys on final to 14. It worked great because i didn't have to shift him into the sequence for 14 which already had enough people in it. ill work with you if youll work back, but if a controller gives you a hard time its usually because there is a reason. You all dont see whta goes on behind the scenes. ON ground and flight data im getting bitched at constintly because someone is ready to taxi and i didn't hear there call, probably because i was on the land line talking to Flight service, Center, Flow control.....and oh my god if someone should have to sit off the active for 30 seconds before they get taxi instructions. Half the time they just keep rolling. That is a straight pilot deviation. If you havent gotten taxi instructions and you roll off the runway and keep moving then that is a straight violation. Most you guys either dont realize that or dont seem to care. Pilots are gods, they can't do anything wrong, its ATCs fault that they were delayed...has nothign to do with the massive thundstorms in the area, or the fact that i have to hold a guy going to LAX for 15 mintues because the LAX runways can only handle one every 45 seconds....Its my fault they can't get direct routing because center needs them on the airways to fullfil some operational advantage as to not go busting through a million airways enroute and confilct with other aircraft.
My favorite is the VFR chumps that call the tower when its IFR and ask for either a special or ask us to make the field VFR cause its boderline, sure let me get write on that....logonto ASOS augment the celing and Vis so you can go fly your airplane. No problem. AS for the SVFRs....sorry, expect a 10 minute delay due to multiple IFR inbounds..."but we are vfr" yeah, but my 7110.65 says I can't run you within 10 minutes of an IFR so get over it.

 

[Hugh Jorgan]

Deep breaths......deep breaths...

Hey, there are right and wrong ways to work with the controllers. And that's what all of us out there are doing...working with each other-the controllers and the pilots. I was with a captain a few weeks ago who downright embarrassed me. We were holding short, #3 or so and there were two, four-ship flights recovering and arrivals up the ying-yang. We had to wait about 5 minutes and this guy gets on the radio telling this VERY BUSY controller how he could have gotten 5 jets out by now. He later that evening yelled....YELLLED on the radio while he was flying because we were asked to slow to final approach speed 12 miles from the airport because we were following a Caravan. But each cockpit is a different case, just like each controller is a different case. I'm sure on some ATC forum, you guys can all bitch about which airlines have the worst pilots to have to work with. It's good for both the pilots and the controllers to realize that we can frustrate each other and we should both know how we can frustrate each other. Personally, I don't think I've ever had a problem with being vectored around...I don't enjoy it, but there's no point in bitching because I know there's a reason. I do, however, have a big problem with controllers who lose their composure and express anger, sarcasm and impatience when we didn't hear you correctly. The aircraft is loud and we do get stepped on at times. Oh yeah, we're also flying an airplane, sometimes in crap wx, getting the $hit kicked out of us. We're also talking to each other, running checklists out of necessity. Remember that. Keep your cool and be professional when the morons arrive and I think you'll get better reactions from all of the aircraft you control.

One last item. Someone once observed in my presence, that if we talked to a lot of the controllers the way a lot of them talked to us, they would be violating the daylights out of us. Be nice out there. We all have our hands full out there in busy airspace.

 

[Jedi_Cheese]

The only problems I have had with ATC are when there is a cloud layer above or below me and it's creeping torward my altitude and I get sandwidtched (higher traffic or the ground). I am not instrament rated soooooo it becomes a problem that needs to be dealt with. If you don't deal with it, I will and my idea of dealing with it involves radar services terminated and possibly screwing up the rest of the guys you are running.

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

well Jedi_cheese....if your vfr your vfr. The only airspace that has to provide you with separtion from other aircraft is BRAVO. other then that your on your own. your in my sky wanting to do something do it, your VFR, all i have to apply for you is runways separation casue your VFR. It goes with out saying VFR pilots, "you all be careful out there"

 

[Future SNA]

we were asked to slow to final approach speed 12 miles from the airport because we were following a Caravan.

I find this to be a load of SHIZNIT If I had to count the number of times I had to slow up for Lear's, or the coveted, "your traffic is 12 o'clock, 3 miles, a Citation X, your overtaking by 90 knots, better slow it up!"

In reality, I'm just sticking up for my baby, in the terminal area I used to fly it around at 175KIAS all the way to the runway, I refuse to believe that people had to slow for me!

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

I thinkyou figured us out. We just love your little blip on our radar scope so much we ask you to slow down so we can see it even more.

 

[Vector4fun]

I find this to be a load of SHIZNIT
(snip)
In reality, I'm just sticking up for my baby, in the terminal area I used to fly it around at 175KIAS all the way to the runway, I refuse to believe that people had to slow for me!

Hey SNA,

I don't have any problem with our Caravan drivers. As you said, almost any of them will do 160-165kts on final for us, AND make the first turnoff too!

The problems happen when the WX is down, late evening, and the last arrivals get bunched up. Since it's late, and they're late, they're almost all high and fast coming to us, but the finals get stretched to 20 miles or more. Then even if I slow the jet at 9000' to 170 kts to follow the C208 at 160 kts, the jet still eats the Cessna up because of the difference in TAS and wind at 90 vs the Caravan down low. The GS difference may still be 40-50 kts.

The solution is to avoid sticking the Caravan in the final more than 10 miles from the FAF if possible. So Caravans get lots of strange vectors, and jets wonder why the controller is using 170 kts or less 20 miles out. It's not the Caravan's fault, the difference in GS would still exist if it was a LR35 at 2500' and 165 kts...

All you guys keep in mind, it's not unusual, (especially in winter!) for there to be a 20 kt or greater tailwind component at 6000' on final, and a 25 kt headwind at 2000'. It's not a simple matter of just lining everyone up three miles in trail sometimes.

(And some controllers still don't get it either!)