Talloway
Great sensible post.
Starting very soon all aircraft will be treated like most aircraft in other TMA's around the country and everyone will be routeing to the hold. Being facetious if a pilot wishes to stay high then he can enter the hold to descend at his leisure and will then know the exact distance from touchdown as he exits to keep up his CDA.
The level restriction at TARTAN is only negotiable with the controller on approach at the time. It only takes one 'tool in the box' coming over high in a stream who cannot get his height off to cause us major problems due lack of airspace to the east on rwy24 and PF's airspace to the west on 06. If you can guarantee that everyone can descend like a stone then we can do away with the restriction. We have not just made this up for fun, but were experiencing problems with aircraft passing TARTAN well above min stack and above 250kts running out of controlled airspace so we needed the restriction.
Also believe it or not we do know something about wind and weather at the airfields and its effects on aircraft. What would be good is more interaction between us and the crews. However, time off is important and most of us cannot be released for FAM flights during our working hours and the way NSL is going I certainly am not giving it any effort or time on my days off. We used to have an annual pilot/controller forum I think at the Hilton which was useful, maybe this needs setting up again. Maybe not the attitude but it was a good p**s up as well!