Ah, Mr Stewart, you bring back fond memories of Willy. I remember getting a kick up the backside because of you.
I was rostered one weekend as the Duty ATCO at WLM shortly after arriving off ATC course. The duty phone rang this day and it was Mr Stewart and he rang me to make a noise complaint. No problem, got lots of them at Willy but this one was different.
I took his details, stayed calm and professional until I asked what exactly was the problem, as no Hornets were flying that weekend. Mr Stewart wanted to make a noise complaint about the "bloody glider that keeps flying over my house". I was unable to speak again due to uncontrolled laughter and after a minute or two I hung up.
On Monday I was called into the Satco's office and informed that laughing and hanging up on genuine noise complaints was not the way to handle them. It was actually the noisy C180 taildragger he was complaining about. As I was new to the section, I thought the other ATCO's were taking the piss out of me.
Oh well, what can you do. Thanks for the memory Mr Stewart, your a champ. You shouldn't really complain unless they have red stars on their tails or perhaps you should have paid more attention to those big green signs that warn of the severe noise hazard within 16Km radius.
