Controllers...what are your pet peeves?

Chrisj13

Chrisj13

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Chrisj13
Didn't see a thread started on this topic, and I'm interested to hear what we as pilots can do better to make a controller(s) job easier.
I know, I know "read the AIM" some will say....just curious to hear opinions from people actually working the other side of the mic.
Thanks!
 
Chrisj13 said:
Didn't see a thread started on this topic, and I'm interested to hear what we as pilots can do better to make a controller(s) job easier.
I know, I know "read the AIM" some will say....just curious to hear opinions from people actually working the other side of the mic.
Thanks!
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I spent thirty years in ATC. First nine years at Chicago ARTCC, then 21 at Green Bay TRACON/ATCT. I felt that most pilots talked too much, taxied too slow, and made their patterns too big. About twelve years ago I decided to finish my commercial. My instructor told me I didn't talk enough, I taxied too fast, and made my patterns too small. Go figure.
 
One I always had was not stating that they had the ATIS. I was a USAF controller so that pertained mostly to military pilots. But probably my biggie was at a satellite airports we provided approach control service too. IFR being cleared for an approach into a airport and not cancelling, and having another plane ready but having to hold them until we knew the previous IFR was on the ground or we finally heard from them. Usually we'd call the FBO and track 'em down.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Ironic. My pet peeve as a pilot is the controller asking me to confirm ATIS after I already told him I had it
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Yup I've had the same experience as a pilot, but I didn't worry about it as they sometimes are busy on a landline or another controller (different sector for instance) is talking into his ear, and talking to traffic almost simultaneously.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Ironic. My pet peeve as a pilot is the controller asking me to confirm ATIS after I already told him I had it
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I've asked that of pilots at times. Deliberately. I would do it because on their initial contact, a transmission in which they said they had the ATIS, they would request something that was carried on that ATIS as unavailable.
 
roncachamp said:
I've asked that of pilots at times. Deliberately. I would do it because on their initial contact, a transmission in which they said they had the ATIS, they would request something that was carried on that ATIS as unavailable.
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I can understand that, but I can honestly say that I have never been one to do that.
 
Surely one is, having to repeatedly call the same a/c because they arent listening/cant hear for some reason. Has resulted in atc 'aggravation voice' going to 8/10 more more than any other thing, ime.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Surely one is, having to repeatedly call the same a/c because they arent listening/cant hear for some reason. Has resulted in atc 'aggravation voice' going to 8/10 more more than any other thing, ime.
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...might be 'cause you're calling them 'Shirley'? :D
 
roncachamp said:
I've asked that of pilots at times. Deliberately. I would do it because on their initial contact, a transmission in which they said they had the ATIS, they would request something that was carried on that ATIS as unavailable.
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That's because they quit listening after they got the winds and altimeter.
 
How they restrain themselves, when absolutely every plane is complaining about chop or minor turbulence, at all altitudes, across the entire sector, is a minor feat of heroism.
 
Never really had pet peeves when I did ATC. A few observations:

1. Not cancelling IFR while good VMC to an uncontrolled airport with traffic to follow. Odds of crashing after switching over to CTAF 5 miles out and no one hearing / seeing it is remote. Just cancel...unless you're in BF Egypt.

2. Don't assume ATC is going to issue you traffic on something just because you see it.

"Approach, do you have traffic at my 3 o'clock, and slightly high?"
"Affirmative, I'm talking to him."
"Well...did you plan on telling me about him?"
"Negative. That traffic is 4 miles away from you, 500 ft above you, and going away from you. Traffic is no factor."

3. You can call "radar contact" or "got'em on the fish finder" all day but until the controller hears "traffic in sight," the controller is just going to keep issuing traffic. Most pilots realize this though.

4. Don't call back 3 seconds after your initial call if the controller doesn't answer. They're on the landline. One of the reasons why I always preferred a "wake up call" for FF.

5. You can switch over to FSS to get a weather update, but they're just going to read off the same CWA that approach has. Plus, approach has real time weather radar that's only 30 secs old.

6. "Approach, are we cleared to transition thru the class D?"
"Affirmative." :rolleyes:

Never had any problems with large patterns, slow taxi, pilots talking too much or not checking in with ATIS. Then again, my airport ops were mostly fighters. They don't have those problems.

Oh yeah, don't be this guy. :D

Warning! Language.

 
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There's this one controller at my airport who is super anal on what pilots call the airport. It's called Republic airport and located in the city of Farmingdale. Lots of pilots call it "Farmingdale tower" and he always corrects them. He also hates when people just call up with their numbers. He likes them to call up and make a request because it just ties up the radio.
 
Velocity173 said:
3. You can call "radar contact" or "got'em on the fish finder" all day but until the controller hears "traffic in sight," the controller is just going to keep issuing traffic. Most pilots realize this though.
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If a pilot told me he had the traffic on TCAS I generally stopped issuing the traffic. Didn't see the point in issuing it again when he had the same information in the cockpit. The exception was when using visual separation, that requires eyeballs on traffic.
 
Velocity173 said:
Never really had pet peeves when I did ATC. A few observations:

1. Not cancelling IFR while good VMC to an uncontrolled airport with traffic to follow. Odds of crashing after switching over to CTAF 5 miles out and no one hearing / seeing it is remote. Just cancel...unless you're in BF Egypt.

2. Don't assume ATC is going to issue you traffic on something just because you see it.

"Approach, do you have traffic at my 3 o'clock, and slightly high?"
"Affirmative, I'm talking to him."
"Well...did you plan on telling me about him?"
"Negative. That traffic is 4 miles away from you, 500 ft above you, and going away from you. Traffic is no factor."

3. You can call "radar contact" or "got'em on the fish finder" all day but until the controller hears "traffic in sight," the controller is just going to keep issuing traffic. Most pilots realize this though.

4. Don't call back 3 seconds after your initial call if the controller doesn't answer. They're on the landline. One of the reasons why I always preferred a "wake up call" for FF.

5. You can switch over to FSS to get a weather update, but they're just going to read off the same CWA that approach has. Plus, approach has real time weather radar that's only 30 secs old.

6. "Approach, are we cleared to transition thru the class D?"
"Affirmative." :rolleyes:

Never had any problems with large patterns, slow taxi, pilots talking too much or not checking in with ATIS. Then again, my airport ops were mostly fighters. They don't have those problems.

Oh yeah, don't be this guy. :D

Warning! Language.

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Is that video real? That's horrible
 
jordane93 said:
There's this one controller at my airport who is super anal on what pilots call the airport. It's called Republic airport and located in the city of Farmingdale. Lots of pilots call it "Farmingdale tower" and he always corrects them. He also hates when people just call up with their numbers. He likes them to call up and make a request because it just ties up the radio.
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The only place I've run across this is at Sacramento. There are two Sacramento airports, so neither of the towers goes by that name. Executive is at KSAC, Capitol at KSMF. These are in the A/FD and on the approach plates. As talking to the wrong one could be really bad (they are pretty close to one another, and Capitol sees a lot of airliner traffic and Executive has a ridiculous number of runways), they often insist on the official name. It's also pretty easy to substitute KSAC when you want to land at the international airport, as that sure sounds like the name of the city.

Rather understandable, IMO. I've never heard any controller be rude or nasty about it, just insistent.
 
And a case of the opposite: the official name of KDET is Coleman A. Young, but no one calls it that when calling up the tower. Nor do you say "Detroit", as that's reserved (I assume, since I've never flown in there or had reason to talk to the tower) for KDTW. The usual call is just "City Tower".

I imagine lots of cities with multiple airports have similar odd and peculiar conventions.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Ironic. My pet peeve as a pilot is the controller asking me to confirm ATIS after I already told him I had it
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Haha, yea I get that about every other time. Me to CFI, "didn't I give him the ATIS?" "yep you did".
 
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azure said:
And a case of the opposite: the official name of KDET is Coleman A. Young, but no one calls it that when calling up the tower. Nor do you say "Detroit", as that's reserved (I assume, since I've never flown in there or had reason to talk to the tower) for KDTW. The usual call is just "City Tower".

I imagine lots of cities with multiple airports have similar odd and peculiar conventions.
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DTW is Metro Tower. I just say "tower" everywhere I fly.
 
azure said:
And a case of the opposite: the official name of KDET is Coleman A. Young, but no one calls it that when calling up the tower. Nor do you say "Detroit", as that's reserved (I assume, since I've never flown in there or had reason to talk to the tower) for KDTW. The usual call is just "City Tower".

I imagine lots of cities with multiple airports have similar odd and peculiar conventions.
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Before Coleman Young got memorialized it was just Detroit City Airport. "City Tower" stuck.
 
MAKG1 said:
The only place I've run across this is at Sacramento. There are two Sacramento airports, so neither of the towers goes by that name. Executive is at KSAC, Capitol at KSMF. These are in the A/FD and on the approach plates. As talking to the wrong one could be really bad (they are pretty close to one another, and Capitol sees a lot of airliner traffic and Executive has a ridiculous number of runways), they often insist on the official name. It's also pretty easy to substitute KSAC when you want to land at the international airport, as that sure sounds like the name of the city.

Rather understandable, IMO. I've never heard any controller be rude or nasty about it, just insistent.
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Big Sac Tower and Little Sac Tower???????
 
Listen before keying up. Also, when I talk to a pilot and as soon as I un-key another pilots calls up with something. Did you think the pilot I was talking to wasn't going to respond? Whether you can hear him or not (your frequency or another), he is responding. Pretend like you are responding, and wait the amount of time it would take you to respond to that, and then wait another 2 seconds and talk. Also, if all you are doing is checking in, and the controller is busy, just wait. When the controller has a second, he will reach out to you. Don't worry, he won't be mad you didn't talk. He knew he was busy! He is silently thanking you. If there is a decent gap, then try again but don't be impatient. It's just the altimeter and it's probably within a point or two of your last altimeter ;)
 
We have one grumpy controller that always messes up tail numbers. If you think he is calling you and it's not you, you get chewed out. But then he messes up your tail number and you don't answer because you get chewed out and then he chews you out for not responding. All others are awesome but when I hear his voice I just smile and look forward to getting chewed out.
 
Velocity173 said:
6. "Approach, are we cleared to transition thru the class D?"
"Affirmative." :rolleyes:
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Just wondering what's wrong with this one. It had two instances where an approach controller dumped me into a Delta, one even saying "stay with me so I can deconflict you and the departing aircraft off of [destination airport]" and then handed me off, and the Delta controllers were both all sorts of ****y until I said clearly and plainly that the Approach controller purposefully told me NOT to leave their frequency in time to call them.

(Hint: He hasn't bothered to call you on the land line yet, but I bet it just buzzed in your ear with his request to talk to you right about... now... haha...)

If the dude at KAEG hadn't settled down, I probably would have filed an ASRS report just to cover my ass. Grumpiest controller I've talked to in years. Dude sounded like he was going to pop a vessel there for a sec. Had a whole speech prepared and everything. I felt special while I mostly ignored him until I could point out the ABQ approach guy held me for his departing Citation jet they launched directly at me. Three whole aircraft operating at KAEG that day and they aimed two of us at each other and then had to scramble to fix it.

That or maybe he somehow knew the Monkey was on board. It's all @eman1200 'a fault. Ha.
 
denverpilot said:
Just wondering what's wrong with this one. It had two instances where an approach controller dumped me into a Delta, one even saying "stay with me so I can deconflict you and the departing aircraft off of [destination airport]" and then handed me off, and the Delta controllers were both all sorts of ****y until I said clearly and plainly that the Approach controller purposefully told me NOT to leave their frequency in time to call them.

(Hint: He hasn't bothered to call you on the land line yet, but I bet it just buzzed in your ear with his request to talk to you right about... now... haha...)

If the dude at KAEG hadn't settled down, I probably would have filed an ASRS report just to cover my ass. Grumpiest controller I've talked to in years. Dude sounded like he was going to pop a vessel there for a sec. Had a whole speech prepared and everything. I felt special while I mostly ignored him until I could point out the ABQ approach guy held me for his departing Citation jet they launched directly at me. Three whole aircraft operating at KAEG that day and they aimed two of us at each other and then had to scramble to fix it.

That or maybe he somehow knew the Monkey was on board. It's all @eman1200 'a fault. Ha.
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Because it's the approach controller's job to get approval for a transition through any surface areas in their airspace. If it doesn't get done, it's not on you but the approach controller. No need to remind them.

That's two stories about KAEG on POA where approach switched late or didn't coordinate with tower. Not sure what they've got going on there but it seems they drop the ball quite regularly. Once again approach is required to coordinate your arrival with tower. They're required to switch you prior to the boundary as well unless otherwise coordinated or in an LOA. Personally, If I'm inside any surface area and doing an IAP (except GCA), I'm going to prompt approach to switch to tower. That is unless they've told me it will be a late switch.
 
mulligan said:
We have one grumpy controller that always messes up tail numbers. If you think he is calling you and it's not you, you get chewed out. But then he messes up your tail number and you don't answer because you get chewed out and then he chews you out for not responding. All others are awesome but when I hear his voice I just smile and look forward to getting chewed out.
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And the pilots put up with this why?
 
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