Originally Posted by
HIFLYR
This!!! IF it was important to their plan for me to exit in a certain taxiway they should have asked earlier during the approach.
Right! He made the correct decision imo. Some towers, especially MCO try it often, even when traffic is light. For many of them it's " when they feel like blurting it out", not about communication.
If you happen to mis understand their instructions and then screw up, there is no grace for being tower's boy. Oh ,there might be some mention in the NTSB report critical of the tower procedures, blah, blah, blah. But it's all on you. Even if you read back the wrong instruction and they don't correct you, then make an error, you are still at fault. That ruling was made about 20 years ago.
I'm all for working with ATC when I can, but my flying priorities haven't needed to change in 40 years. Aviate-Navigate-communicate.
So the tactful way to handle it is to call tower after clearing and "say again those instructions, not sure I got em right"!
There is an ATC memo about this floating around on the United iPad from about a month ago. I can't find it.