Fun with ATC
Slowly working my way through my PPL training, I am bemused by the chaotic ATC situation. Yesterday there were at least 3 separate causes for concern in one hour and we also heard another aircraft reporting an incident I dont know what happened there.
For example. Rwy 07 and 14 cross each other and both are in constant use. The circuit is right-handed. From 07 it is necessary to start to turn to the right crosswind leg which is more-or-less parallel to 14 as soon as we are over the end of 07, otherwise we are flying over dense housing with zero options in the event of an engine failure and eventually airspace problems. We did a touch and go on 07, were climbing out and had turned to 120 when ATC warn us of a Dash-8 taking-off on 14 and departing straight ahead. I assume they also warned the Dash about us as they cleared it for departure, but I missed that call the chatter is absolutely constant. So there we are at about 500 AGL and climbing flat out, watching a Dash 8 below and behind, maybe 500m to our right, beginning to climb on a parallel course. We need to turn right onto the downwind leg across the Dash; we cannot extend the crosswind leg because of more airspace restrictions. I had expected them to climb way faster than our little 172, so was expecting to turn behind and beneath them. But they stayed very low and in the end we turned onto downwind straight over the top of them but with a good vertical separation. Maybe that is how VFR is meant to work? But our eventual action over or under - seemed very arbitrary as we were getting squeezed between a climbing Dash-8 to the right and closed and busy airspace ahead and to the left. Why would the tower not have waited 1 minute or even less to allow us to cross the end of 14 on our downwind before releasing the Dash?
There were other incidents - eg on the downwind we had an aircraft behind us that we never saw, who believed they were ahead of us they had a bizarre radio exchange with tower asking them if they 'see the Skyhawk ahead and them replying no, we are behind a 172. Eventually ATC gave-up trying to work out who was who (of course we were both squawking VFR) and turned the following aircraft onto base. That could have been dangerous given that they had little idea where they were relative to us.
And a few minutes later on the same circuit, a Dornier 228 suddenly appeared at exactly the same altitude maybe 200m off our port wing. Really? WTF? Throw in a bunch of large birds that like to hang around in the area, and it all seems pretty hairy to me.
I appreciate that the tower has lots of other stuff happening and I do not envy them their difficult and complex job. But I think it is only a matter of time before we have a nasty incident here. Or is this typical of busy airspace? What are your thoughts?