@JW411: yes, most airframes have a "dent" in Vmo at 8000ft. Certification rules say: birds only up to 8.000ft. BUT, there the ATCO is right, when he tells me to keep high speed and that is above what I can OR want to fly I tell him, pronto. Any pilot/crew not doing so has either a proficiency or attitude prob.
"I understand that you (pilots in general) have to follow SOP's, but so do controllers. And yes there are a lot of pilots who do keep the speed up untill advised even if their SOPs state otherwise. But there are also a lot of controllers who will go out of their way to get you airborne at CTOT -5. But this is not anything that can be expected, or demanded."
How may times you think I was at the hold, say, number 3 at the exact slot time and wasnīt being allowed to takeoff? So we canīt demand/expect nothing at all, but then, we are allowed to pay for that? Is that what you are saying?
Years ago, when all this slot s.h.i.t.e. was introduced, I had a meeting with the german agency (DFS) Since I was apparently the only GA/Airtaxi person ever to contact and protest against that stuff, I received the big treatment: coffee, biscuits and roughly 8 guys from various paarts of the DFS, airspace planners, actual atcos, head of press department, you name it.
THEY told me: look, we know there is way to many things that can and do get wrong in dispatch/ground handling, we always will use the -5/+10 in your favour and thats why WE fought the +/-2 minutes Eurocontrol had in mind.
Now, as a coorperate airplane (and sometimes air taxi) pilot I do suffer from the fact, that our pax are not caged at a gate for 20-30 minutes and passed onto the airplane when more or less convinient. We sometimes wait hours for fuel, because the airlines take preceedence at the bowsers.
The stress level on flights with regulations is way higher than on flights without (many of us donīt have a backoffice, I certainly donīt, which means: deal with all the stuff)
The makers of restrictions have it easy: they just place it into system, period. Deal with it, you little s.h.i.t.t.y. pilot I could not care less about your problems etcetc. (e.g.taxi times on big airports change a lot, wether it takes that time to taxi out or not seems not to feed into the system at all) [yes Iīm being cynical...]
So the situation is bad enough already, with all the sympathy I have for the gentlemen of the spanish or french or what ever air traffic control company they are from, for their work conflicts [surely there are things to fight for, the spanish work schedules look....tiring to say the least], but being the anvil in their struggle is NOT a nice feeling. I canīt do anything about it.
Let the King wait 3 hours, the prime minister or state guests.
That would change things quickly. But you havenīt got the guts to do that, have you? THEY could strike back, but low life foreigners? Let them suffer!!!
[I wouldnīt do that either with your wages and pensions to be lost - seriously! I just wanīt you to understand that we canīt change it for you]
Being the person responsible to clear the bills from eurocontrol I do know exactly what we pay for something that I often would not describe as service.
Iīve got no spain/france trips for the next 5 weeks!!! There surely is a god somewhere...
