TonyC
Quote:
Originally Posted by TonyC
Ahemmm... I said RWY 27, NOT 36 LEFT!?!?!?
Hey, if you're talking about your
inbound runway assignment... I had nothing to do with that!
Last night was quite a learning experience. We ran the inbound with ONE Tower Controller working RWY 27; ONE Tower Controller working the parallel runways; and me... the LONE Ground Controller for the entire airport. (We used two Ground Controllers for the outbound.)
I was able to hang in there with minimal prompting from my instructor for about an hour and a half on the inbound. It all came to an end with three aircraft on Alpha holding short of Charlie... two aircraft on Sierra holding short of Alpha... two aircraft eastbound on Alpha to hold short of Runway 27 at the approach end... one aircraft crossing runway 27 via Bravo and another right behind him on Yankee wanting to do the same thing via Yankee and Bravo. As a Mountain F27 flew across the approach end and past various taxiways, the Tower Controller told me to "Cross Runway 27 twice at the approach end, cross one at Sierra and cross one at Bravo, traffic on six mile final!"
Looking down at my pad of paper with columns of aircraft that had landed on specific runways and I was suddenly unable to interpret the heiroglyphics that were written on my pad. Someone checked in with me off of runway 36R, but it sounded like he was speaking in tongue. I looked out into the sea of lights and started thinking about my warm bed and a soft feather pillow. My instructor looked at me for a moment, but the blank stare gave it away: I had lost the picture!
A cheer went through the Tower as the surrender flag was raised. My brain was mush. The numbers made no sense at all. Where was east? Entry spots? What entry spots. What are all of those lights out there? They all chuckled and said that it would get better tomorrow night.
I think they did me a favor last night by
not having RWY 27 as an active runway for departures -- my trainer said that the runway crossings can get very intense during the outbound. I got hung-up on some of the "standard" phraseology at times. And judging the taxi speeds of you guys coming out of Spot 6 -vs- the taxi speed on Runway 27 bit me several times -- from the Tower, it looks like you are right at the Runway on Bravo, when in fact you are still a dog-leg or two from reaching the runway. It's also uphill, right?
Quote:
Sounded like you were having fun!
Hey, I was trying to have a good time and work it all out.
My trainer has been here at MEM for ten years or more, and on the midnight crew for most of his time here. He knows your flight number, destination, first filed fix on your flight plan, your approximate exit spot and which of you will request the long runway. And of course, he tried to force-feed me all of that information in one evening.
I'll be back up there tonight trying to do it again.
MEM_ATC