Originally Posted by
oggers
Nonetheless mike you didn't answer the question 'did he need to be that slow that far out?' because you don't know either. And if he didn't, her plan would've worked. All she did was ask "ok but I need more than 160 from now so when are you going to slow to 160?". To my mind a completely reasonable question when he was still at 12 dme.
I don't fly the 747 for a living, so I can't answer that question.
Where I work, 160 or greater from 11DME to 5 would be perfectly acceptable. Whether he needed to be that slow or not at that range, is not for me to judge. He could have been a little faster perhaps, but he was still perfectly within the parameters for me as an ATCO to work with.
And yes, it was a reasonable question, and the pilot's answer wasn't satisfactory, but there is ways to deal with that. "you still haven't answered my question, so whenever you get round to that, that'd be great" isn't the best way to handle that in my opinion.
I would have said "Roger, confirm your best speed to 5 DME" - and adjusted the plan accordingly. End of story and end of drama. We speak to hundreds of pilots a day. If I should take a strop every time an answer is incomplete or unsatisfactory we might as well just shut the airport down.
The way I understand it (and I could be wrong, as I don't work in ATC int he USA) the Norshuttle behind was on heading 280 and maintain 2000 - not a clearance for the approach, which means she was just tightening their pattern. Would have been sufficient to leave them on their previous heading for 10 or 20 seconds more to make up for the lack of anticipated speed from the 747. It really isn't that difficult!!