Fri May 13, 2022 12:29 pm
#1911334
Talkdownman wrote:
> chevvron wrote:
> > NATS trained ATCO Cadets were trsined to PPL standard at one time.
>
> There is a world of difference being an ATCO once trained to PPL standard, and a
> widely experienced ATCO with a full flight instructor rating and multi-thousand
> flight hours.
True, but there's also a world of difference between a controller who doesn't know how to fly, and one who knows where the main bits are in the cockpit and enough to describe the basics of how to fly an aeroplane.
Now having said that, I'm going to strike a discordant note. I listened to the RT, and wasn't at all impressed with the controller. He spent a lot of time worrying about radio frequencies and the transponder, in my opinion even *suggesting* that a non-pilot handling should try and change frequency could end in disaster. Continuously using the aeroplane's callsign instead of, say, asking and using the handling pax's name did not strike me as helpful. He really should have shunted all other traffic onto another frequency. Similarly, in a noisy cockpit environment, with handling pax probably utterly saturated, starting to try and make use of a cellphone didn't strike me as faintly helpful - if he had 2-way on the ground with an instructor, he should have had that instructor getting to a radio on the frequency in use PDQ (and maybe that eventually happened).
He could also, for example have done a quick "all stations" broadcast to see if there was an instructor on frequency anywhere.
As seen by me, there was a lot of luck involved here, hindered, not helped by rather poor handling of the situation by the controller.
G
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.