Well now, let me see.
A cap of 80 movements an hour, and 4 positions open at any one time, and I’m being conservative. I make that 15 aircraft an hour per position. Now in a 15 minute window, which is about as long as it would have taken Dick to transit the airspace, any one controller would have been talking to the huge number of four aircraft.
Isn’t that really scary. Adding a VFR flight to that four, to make a grand total of 5 aircraft on frequency. My goodness that must be really scary. I wouldn’t want to do that job. Pushing Tin wasn’t as frightening. Better tell the Australian that you were up to your necks in crocodiles. You should have seen it – there was one over here, and, uh, another over here, and, wait a minute, did I tell you about the really fast one over here. And then out of the blue someone asked me for a clearance. Nobody ever asked me for one of those before. And VFR too. I wouldn’t have a clue about entering that into my system, without at least 2 hours notice. Then I’ll be gone home. How do I put that into TAAATS anyway? Use the keyboard! Don't think so, mate!
Anyway, 8500 VFR, I’d have to stop my departures at, what, 8500 less 1000, take away the number you first thought of, add one for mum, that’s 7000 feet. Never done that before. Qantas won’t like it, yeah, that’s a good excuse, blame Qantas. What about the arrivals, they’d have to stop at, let me see, take away the first number, yeah, that’s 10,000 feet. But the STAR says reach 8000 by – no that won’t work. The poor overworked RPT pilot will be confused and that would be unsafe. Guess that’s another excuse. Safety.
Hang on, maybe there’s a runway change coming. Let’s see, maybe a shift to 34 from 16, for noise sharing. Juggling all those airplanes and a VFR flight at the same time. Far too awkward.
Those Cessna’s are pretty noisy, and it might throw the noise stats out. Guess I could refuse a clearance on environmental grounds.
Wait a minute. Didn’t we fix that in ERSA. Yeah, clearance not available, that’ll fix it. Check your AIP you dumbo. Yeah, AIP and ERSA. Good thinking.
“Mr Smith this is, er, the Sydney Approach Service, er, sorry, make that Sydney Approach, er, uh, due to the tremendous workload at the moment, and the change of runways, and the enormous environmental, er, considerations here in Sydney, and, er, because the QNH thingymabob just went U/S, and, er, due to me being a slack-ar*ed bas***d, er, oh no, disregard the last. ERSA page 672, paragraph 67.2 line 6.72 requires that for flights under 10,000 feet you need to pass “GO”. Did you pass “GO”? Thought not. Clearance NOT available. Remain outside controlled airspace, call again passing “GO”.
There, that’ll do it, now, where was I.
4 down: two words, (4, 7): Just how energetic is the brown fox’s mate – and did he know his father? L - - - , - A - - - - R - .
As expected, the world’s laziest and most uncooperative controllers, Sydney TMA controllers, couldn’t handle one little VFR flight. Oh dear, they couldn’t manage to put a flight plan into TAAATS. Oh dear, they couldn’t even RADTAG the aircraft.
Guess Airservices Australia should take the word SERVICE out. We don’t do that here.
You blokes are pathetic. It's a wonder you're not issued with colostomy bags, because you couldn't separate the cheeks of your ar*e.
Put aside the fact that this was Dick Smith. Put aside the tripe about endangering his family. What possible reason could you lazy ba###rds have for refusing a clearance to anyone with that little traffic. Unbelievable. Never heard of radar separation? Seems like the rest of the civilized world has.
I hope Dick screws the hell out of Airservices, and I hope the traveling public see how patheticly the so-called cream of air traffic control has curdled. I hope Airservices gives you the biggest kick in the ar*e.
Even the Melbourne and Brissie TMA controllers can do better! Even a Tamworth controller, in a procedural tower, knows how to clear a VFR flight. God knows even a Launnie controller could do it, if he had control of the airspace! Time to lift your pathetic game.
Last edited by World's Worst; 8th Jul 2004 at 21:42.