Please don't shout!
My recent (and first) visit to a smallish regional airport, on a very quiet Saturday afternoon:
“ABC APPROACH, G-SXTY, REQUEST JOINING INSTRUCTIONS”
“G-SXTY, ABC APPROACH”
Now, bearing in mind I’m a fairly nervous 35-hour student who is used to (and was thus expecting) “G-SXTY PASS YOUR MESSAGE”, I (probably incorrectly) re-transmitted:
“ABC APPROACH, G-SXTY, REQUEST JOINING INSTRUCTIONS”
This was met with a very brusque:
“G-SXTY, WHO ARE YOU?”
Slightly startled, but taking this to be a snappier version of “PASS YOUR MESSAGE”, I gave him position, heading, altitude, etc & repeated the request. Back came the response [in best patronising schoolteacher voice]:
“NOW, I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ASK THESE QUESTIONS SHOULD I, YOU SHOULD BE TELLING ME”, followed by the rest of his message.
Re-reading CAP413, he was probably correct; as soon as communication was established I should have given him my details, but . . . That little exchange flustered me for the next few minutes, to the point where I was more bothered about communicating than aviating. Not particularly good, and worse had I been solo. If I was bumbling my way through Heathrow Director’s frequency, I could understand his irritation, but from initial contact to handover to the tower, we were the only aircraft on the frequency.
I’ve visited towers before, listened to clumsier R/T than even I can manage, and marvelled at how controllers keep their cool with some of us. But please, if you’re tempted to give us some ‘additional briefing’, have a think about the effect it could have on a low-hours student.
Any advice on how I could better phrase my message gratefully appreciated!