Ornery controllers?

I had a guy at St Lou Approach that snapped at me because we weren't on the same page. Other than that most controllers are great.
 
Had a tower controller yell at me on my private checkride that she had told me to turn crosswind and that I was causing trouble in her pattern. Luckily, the DPE looked at me and just said “she told you to continue upwind.”

Had another guy in Houston give me a punishment vector because I refused to level off after he turned toward another plane at the same altitude. Someone else came on the radio and said disregard right before I keyed up to say cancel flight following.

I just have to keep reminding myself some people are a-holes and some have other things going on that would put anyone in a bad mood. I try not to transmit my frustration on the radio and just hope someone gives me the grace I hope I give those guys next time I screw up.
 
Shepherd said:
Had a controller at a class "D" 3 years back who could not comprehend I couldn't ident because I didn't have a transponder, and I didn't have lights I could blink, because I didn't have an electrical system.
Even the concept of a battery powered handheld radio was beyond their capability to understand. After the third "Please ident" and my polite negative response, the Supervisor came on and apologized for the "new kid".
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Similar experience here, went to a Class D with an inop transponder and the controller kept complaining she couldn't find our transponder reply and got all bent out of shape. What's funny is we previously also went to a Class C, not knowing it was inop, and they had us turn to such-and-such a heading for identification via primary radar, and they let us right in like it was normal.
 
I had a controller get exasperated with me because I didn't understand what he was asking me...to this day, I don't know what he was asking me, even though I could clearly hear him! I've asked a few of my pilot friends, and they too don't know what he meant, so I'll ask here (maybe someone can explain).
I was departing an airport near DTW (detroit metro) and contacted the tower at YIP Willow Run to request I fly through their delta airspace. The tower controller responded, "Do you want to fly over our delta, or under? I asked, "Say again?" and again he said (this time more slowly), "Do you want to fly over our delta, or under?" I told him I didn't understand what he was asking, and after a long sigh, he just angrily cleared me through the delta...how the heck do you fly UNDER a delta??? And "over" would put me in DTW bravo airspace, which seemed weird when I was requesting to fly THROUGH the delta. Anyone (maybe someone local) know what the heck he was trying to say?
 
This may be an OWT but it's funny ...

There is a story about a British pilot of a jetliner who was having trouble finding a particular gate at Frankfurt airport. The Air Traffic Controller got frustrated and said "Ach! Haven't you been to Frankfurt before??" And the British captain said: "Twice, actually. But it was dark both times and we didn't land."
 
Tantalum said:
You'll have someone in the LAX VFR corridor (the busiest airspace in the world)
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Wait, the corridor is the busiest airspace in the world? I used to fly it quite often going to and from SNA in the Bonanza and don't remember it being all that busy. Granted that was a decade ago though....
 
I had one DTW controller that wanted to keep me parked at 7000 when I was starting to pick up un-forecasted ice. I asked for higher or lower, due to icing, his choice. He said he was unable. I said, well you can give me a different altitude now, or in a few minutes I can use the E word and I'll be using whatever altitude I end up at. "Climb and maintain 9000." I broke out on top and all was well.
 
kayoh190 said:
Wait, the corridor is the busiest airspace in the world? I used to fly it quite often going to and from SNA in the Bonanza and don't remember it being all that busy. Granted that was a decade ago though....
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Not the corridor. Infact, the special flight rules area is sometimes downright dead, I think many of the school scared their students away from using it. But the dude who came to one of our club meetings (just before pandemic, when we had quarterly banquets) was from Socal Tracon.. he had a bar graph up of the top 20 busiest airspaces in the world by number of plane movements and the LAX area was at the top, by like a factor of two. New York, Chicago, were up there too.. he had some cool stats up there. Surprising to see how far down the list other "busy" areas were like London, Atlanta, Frankfurt.. but the GA footprint is also much smaller there (for Europe at least)
 
I went into Conroe, Texas about two years ago and had to deal with the most rude and sarcastic controller I ever dealt with. It’s hard to imagine him being there long term. He was really CAUSTIC!
 
Student pilot here, so not a huge exposure yet, but I remember on my first day my CFI heard the voice on Ground and mumbled that "Mr. Grumpy" was working that day. To this day I've never had an issue with Mr. Grumpy. In fact, I called up the tower on a slower night to as a few student-type questions and Mr. Grumpy answered and was absolutely delightful. If I ever hear him on the radio, I'll usually go "G'morning ________" and he's always been friendly and helpful. In turn, I've always done whatever I can to make his life easier as well. Short approach / no delay / extend my downwind / 360, no problem. As long as I'm not busting to use the bathroom, I'm building hours and am happy.
 
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