Sorry to hijack your thread BOAC, but as there are Gatwick Approach controllers reading and responding to it, I’ve just got to say my piece here.
First of all, a huge thumbs up to all the ATCOs in the UK. My experience is limited to Europe and I know it’s much easier working in your native language but the professionalism here is generally fantastic. I reckon we are all spoiled rotten by the controllers in UK airspace and it probably clouds our judgement when forming opinions of others countries’ ATC services.
And now for the rant. There’s one chap on Gatwick Approach who continually gives conditional instructions that require remembering in about 2 minutes time. The trouble is he often then speaks to you twice (or more) in the interval with further instructions! Which manual did he get this from?
As an example… Whilst flying S/L @ FL70 downwind…
“ABC123, Descend to altitude 4000 feet, QNH 1013: On passing 5000 feet reduce speed 180 knots”.
He’ll then call you back on two occasions with heading changes. Why on earth not just give you the speed reduction with the second of these heading changes which will more or less coincide with when he wants the speed reduction anyway? Expecting us to remember unnecessary stuff like this is just plain stupid at this stage in the approach. Another favourite of his is…
”ABC123, Turn left heading 300 degrees and report localiser established 26L. From 8 to 4 miles fly at 160 knots”.
Now I’m not suggesting I have any difficulty with remembering this as it’s the standard deal anyway at my home airport. But what about the folks from Russia or Korea or even Europe who come to LGW rarely and have less fluency in English? It is pointless to give the condition at this stage, the controller knows he’s going to speak to you again before you get to 8 miles as his intercept heading has you established on the localiser at 9.5 and he’s asked you to call him back then!!!!!
This chap’s obviously deluding himself somewhere that he’s saving R/T workload by giving several instructions at once, which would be fine (in theory) if he didn’t keep spoiling it by speaking to you again (and again) between issuing the conditional clearance and your having to action it. I wouldn’t have a problem with it if there were no further communication until after the condition applied but basically it’s seems like he’s just got into this habit (which probably works well in en-route sectors with less heading/speed changes etc.) and he can’t seem to let it go when its use is inappropriate.
I’ve never said anything to him on the R/T as I feel it would be too unprofessional, but I did once phone up the watch controller at LATCC immediately after shutdown to complain. He knew exactly who I was talking about and agreed to have a word with him. Things got better for about a year, but he’s going back to his old habits now. IT MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL EVERY TIME IT HAPPENS.
If any of you know this chap, please have a friendly word in his shell like…. Thanks.
Rant over. Blood pressure normal.
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Feeling gulity now so edited to contribute to the original thread...
FL70 for 25 and then 10 at clean starting to slow up around 12-14 miles works for me too. I can see why it's easier to plan and make sudden changes when you have the aircraft separated nicely in azimuth on your screen. In my experience you keep us at FL70 longer on 08R than 26L, is this my imagination?
[This message has been edited by beaver eager (edited 03 June 2001).]