London Fis - How Do You Manage?
Having had the occasion to use London FIS recently, I cannot imagine how they manage to keep their cool when dealing with the stunningly appalling level of competence shown by many users of the frequency. It doesn't help that there are so few available frequencies, but the RTF discipline of all but a few users is beyond belief. For example, it took nearly a minute to get some thick idiot to understand what 'Squawk 1177 Mode Charlie' meant....
It was so bad on Saturday that we left he frequency and were able to get a RIS from East Midlands and climb into IMCinstead of battling it out with all the 'lunch at Le Touquet' brigade.
Could we not have a dedicated frequency for the Channel crossers - to allow the rest of us the access to a flight information service when needed? At the moment London FIS seems to be being used primarily as a reporting system for the South East Lunch Club!
But hats off to all the good folk at London FIS for keeping their tempers when dealing with so many total idiots!