Originally Posted by
Chilli Monster
Part of the job of ATC is expedition. Now - what saves more time overall? A C152 (for example) orbiting for 2 minutes, or a B737 going around back into the radar pattern for 10 minutes? It's a no-brainer! ...
... ATC is, purely and simply, a numbers game. An hour is a finite period of time - 60 minutes.
I understand the expedition point and agree totally that the sequence might not be strict first come first serve.
It must just be some recent bad luck on my part. For example, I am lined up at an intersection (VFR and reasonable VMC) checks ready to go on an intersection departure and a 767 pushes but is still waiting for his airways clearance. I sit, watch him go past, backtrack down the runway, line up, sit and wait for his clearance and go - about 8 minutes. Of course now I need to wait, then backtrack because of his wake. I am obviously not an ATCO (you can tell by the dim questions
) but this seems like a priority call not an efficiency call. Hence my assumption of being Z (note my machine climbs out at around 110 knots the airport was class G )