Saturday I took two of the charter pilots down to O'Hare to
pickup a Citation.
I'm thinking... today (yesterday), finally I'll get VFR service
out of chicago approach -- because I'm landing in the middle of
their airspace. Beautiful VFR day, the traffic level at O'Hare
is pretty low, not much workload at all.
Flying down from RYV (Watertown), pick up the O'Hare ATIS (which
is quite long, by a hard-to-understand digitized voice).
Already had the Freq for Approach, crank it in ...
Chicago Approach
Arrow 33006
Lake Geneva, 3500
Landing O'Hare
with November
Chicago approach comes back with "We don't have time to deal with
you, just call O'Hare tower on xxx.yy". [ That isn't unheard of,
that is what they do to the VFR traffic into Midway -- MDW tower
takes care of all of it. ] Call O'Hare tower. They are "well
we can't let you into the airspace because we can't sequence you
any. Try approach on ZZZ.ww". Try that approach (different from
the first). They say try O'hare tower on a different Freq. That
turns out to be the S. O'Hare tower freq. They put us back to a
different approach freq. Who tells us to go somewhere else. ...
Someone tells us to just keep on coming closer, and maybe the tower
can deal with us when we are closer in. Well, the problem is that
I'm running out of room.
Finally I call back the first tower freq, the only people who have
actually had the time to talk to us. They tell us to remain
clear of the class-B. So, I've been doing that, but now I start
circling about 15 out. Get back with tower, explain that they
and approach are playing ping-pong with us. They explain again
that I have to talk to approach to sequence us into the airport,
because they can't do it. The tower guy tells us to stand by, he
is going to explain it to to the supervisor, see what can be worked
out.
After a while, someone got something worked out, tower calls back,
tells us to switch to approach (the first approach controller, I
called) who issues a B clearance, and a RV after a while. Finally.
Dave was like "faster would be better now" as I was already cranking back
up to cruise speed ... we've only been circling for ~10 minutes
and the flight started 20 late.
Even at full cruise in the Arrow (135 kts) it takes a long time for
the pieces of pavement at O'Hare to grow larger ... because they
are already so large. Crank onto a two mile final for 9L, watching
a 747 P&H on 32L, traffic departing ahead of us, etc. Land quite
long since signature is at the far end of 9L. Tower crosses us
over 32R, and taxies us to the ramp, doesn't bother with ground.
Its OK, we even beat the incoming citation by 5 minutes.
Going back out of Chicago was OK, here are a couple of notes.
Called up clearance, they just gave me a transponder code, said the
tower would work everything else out (does that sound familiar or
what
. Talk to ground metering.
Ground metering is like clearance delivery for ground control.
It gets you in the queue so they can figure out how to put you
in the ground traffic flow. I call them up, ready to taxi at Signature,
November, etc., Instead of the "monitor ground" they say ... "call me
back on the west edge of the ramp". Ok, that's different from the
other ground metering traffic ...
OK, taxi out to the west edge of the ramp, in the non-movement area
to where the taxi line splits to the lead for V and something else.
They see 006, "hold short of V, monitor ground .x", so I shunt to
that taxi line, and get the runup done... and monitor ground. OK,
ground gets to me after a few. V to 32R, good deal, no scenic
tour. Get there, hold short, monitor tower. Tower gets to me
after a while says to have patience, it will still take a few.
After a while they issue a P&H clearance, and tell me to expect a
5-6 minute delay on the runway. Again, a "just wait" once or
twice from them.
So, sitting out there, finally they give me a clearance like you
would get from clearance delivery, while P&H. Then they are oops
... did clearance give you a squawk? so I just did a full readback
on the CRAFT and they were relieved. Drive straight west out of
the B, remain low, and go. After a while, switch to departure.
Who totally ignores me so I keep on the RV. Tell tower unable
departure, they say try again. Radar finally talks to me, says
remain out of the B, do whatever I want. Finally I get up by Lake
Geneva, ask to terminate Radar, and they are like go away. Arrghg.
I used to think the controllers at Chicago were too busy to deal
with VFR traffic. Now I just think that they don't know how to
deal with it, as in they don't have much use for that part of their
skill. They are very good, pleasant to work with, but I think
the VFR traffic just throws them for a loop .. because 99.9% of
their traffic is IFR.
Just file IFR to Chicago, even on a low-traffic CAVU day.
ps: Other notes
Dave pointed out that they want you holding short _way_ back from
the hold-short line. They have a 3-side taxi centerline the last
30-50 feet or so, best to stop before the 3wide starts.
Print out the full-size 8.5x11 PDF of the airport diagram. I did
because I didn't know where signature was; wanted to plan on how
to get to get there before leaving the ground at RYV. The full-size
diagram makes taxiing at O'Hare a lot easier. The ground is so
complex that the IAP fulls-zie airport diagram is too small to
follow and use in a timely fashion. If I still had my Jepp
subscription I wouldn't have needed it, Jepp has a better large
scale diagram foldout in their book.
O'hare is a model of signage and lighting. It is easy to wonder
where you are at MKE Milwaukee Mitchell in some places. It is
designed for cockpits higher up in the air than ours. O'Hare was
easy to keep track of, they have the concrete markings, the
lights/signs.
Listening to the tower and ground controllers at O'Hare, they were
quite accommodating to everyone. Quite willing to use pilots
suggestions on better routings for their wheel loadings and wing
spans, moving airplanes around to minimize delay, but not penalizing
aircraft that were having problems which were holding them up.
Impromtu circle and land clearances, good traffic call-outs, even
when taxiing.
Leave the knives and the keys in the airplane when going
to O'Hare, they screen everything at signature. Also take ID
in so you can get back out. Nice line guys, $45 or so landing and
handling fee. Free cookies and coffee/chcoolate/espresso.
).
)
