I sympathise with the first poster. There are two regular voices on ABZ frequencies who use a stern, sarcastic tone. Some years ago I had a SATCO from another airport jump-seating for familiarisation who couldn't believe the confrontational tone he heard from an ABZ controller to another aircraft.
I have suffered sarcastic or stern rebuke for:
Maintaining a previously assigned and declared high speed (>250kts) by the previous sector, because as is so often usual the ABZ approach controller ignored or forgot about the speed assigned on check-in. Not worth arguing about on the R/T.
Exiting 16 at the far end at 10kts; the maximum a 55 ton aeroplane will cope with on an even damp runway. And though we try to keep it rolling, aeroplanes are not cars......we can't go hoofing round the corner like your Ranger Shoguns. We have to get the aeroplane down to a reasonable pace on the runway and then continue to the end. From the tower this looks painfully slow, but is often around 30kts. It's foolhardy for a pilot to use almost the whole distance and then decelerate harder approaching the stop-end.
Daring to check in on departure with the radar controller with a passing FL for a cleared FL and being immediately chastised for not giving a passing altitude (lesson learned but this is not the way to go about it).
Frankly in the 6 years I have been operating at Aberdeen I am sick to death of these pathetic bullies. I would hazard a guess they would not be so aggressive face to face. The old yawn about "don't you know we are the xxx busiest airport in the UK" no longer bears any impression on me as my experience of similar volumes at other airports doesn't come close to comparing with ABZ's hard-acts.
I'm happy to say 90% of the controllers at ABZ are no different to any other busy UK controller; calm and efficient. I must qualify this post by emphasising it's only two of the voices in my opinion that are guilty of shouting down pilots. It's not often I get wound up on Pprune but it's about time something was done about these characters.
And yes, when it happens again I'll contact the Watch Manager. And yes, pilots who ask why they are a certain number in sequence get on my t*ts too.
Limpopo.........I remember that controller yelling to pilots about the flight plan re-filing. Totally out of order. A simple "you'll have to contact your company" standard reply would have worked.
Last edited by Kiltie; 10th Feb 2009 at 12:42.