AUS_ATC

This should generate some discussion!

- What has been your BEST and WORST experience while operating within the United States ATC environment?

- Has ATC ever saved your ass?

- Has ATC ever tried to kill you?

- Which airports consistently provide excellent ATC service? What is good about it?

- Which airports consistently provide terrible ATC service? What is terrible about it?

- Have you ever contacted an ATC facility to express your THANKS or ANGST with the service that you have received?

MEM_ATC

ryane946

Worst experience: Being cleared to land #1 on runway 29L, turning base to final (seeing another aircraft on final, probably for 29R (Runways are REAL CLOSE!), and then realizing that he was also cleared to land on 29L.
The bad part was that HE called the tower and told them he needed to do a 360, not the tower noticing it.

Other bad ones include being in the runup area, with the runway free to depart, yet being unable to contact the tower for like 6 minutes because of all the radio traffic (lady talked slow and used lots of words).

Another one was being cleared off the runway, told to taxi down alpha and turn off, and that traffic would wait for me (On tower freq). As I turned onto alpha, I was closing head on with a fast moving Global Express (That things like an RJ, and I was in a 172). He was showing no signs of slowing down and he was on ground. He rolled up to the tip of my turnoff and stopped seconds before we would have come nose to nose.

Best experience is every other day I go flying. ATC is a pretty amazing system and to this day it still amazes me. ATC deals with lots of aircraft and does a great job at keeping them perfectly separated and yet filling in the voids, keeping traffic moving, and keeping runways hot.

FlyerJosh

Best example of ATC saving my ass (Actually not ATC, but FSS over the cellphone and via a landline to ATC):

Flying a flight- night, IFR (800/1sm) in a single engine Piper. Total electrical failure shortly after departure from an airport under class b, and the plane couldn't climb out of the soup. Filed to an airport in mountainous terrain. Short story is that I ended up calling FSS and getting a patch through/relay to the controller who helped to find a suitable alternate. Saved my butt that night.

Best controllers: ORD hands down. Any of them- tower, ground, or approach.

Worst controllers: IAD ground. Too much micromanagement and a total cluster most of the time.

Most laid back: Clyde in the IAD ramp tower (MWAA).

Best dressed: Can't remember his name, but the controller that wore flip flops, and the bright purple hawaiian shirt with mustard stains at the tower that I flight instructed at.

ERJ135

Well here is an example of how it important it is to effectivly communicate from an ATC and student standpoint. A student, not mine, was doing his first solo and the dep rwy was 16. In order to get to 16 he needed to cross 16 from the tower side. So his instructions were to
"taxi to 16 hold short 16".
He had interpeted that to mean that he was to cross 16 and hold short on the other side prior to takeoff which you normally do. Instead the controller had meant for him to hold position on the ramp then taxi to 16. Needless to say his first solo ended there. See where you get out of the plane to let them go solo is fairly close to the hold short so he just crossed over thinking they meant for him to hold in the normal spot after the runup. To make a long story short the student wrote to AOPA about this incident and something got changed so when a similar situation occurs they just say hold your position.

Best experience.. Going into BOS on angel flights the controllers are awesome.

fly1077

ATC has saved my ass several times. I've also saved my own ass, by looking both ways before crossing the runway (Mama taught me well!). BOS has some of the best controllers around, although if they're busy, they don't tolerate stupidity all that well. And I wish they're be faster to open up the gate hold frequency - clearance gets really congested sometimes. SJU is one of the worst. Once, the local controller didn't even know which runway I was holding short of - cleared me for takeoff from the wrong one, I said I was holding short of the other one, never responded until he told me to contact departure.... someone wasn't paying any attention, since I was still on the ground, holding short of the other runway.