I wonder if Military ATC's get crossover civilian experience at high density airports. I hear that Australian military ATC's are well respected overseas.
I flew in to YPDN 2 weeks ago as GA on a flight from Kunnunurra - the handling was fine except my flight notification got lost somewhere in between my lodging and the tower,and the poor ATC had enter it manually in between handling the other traffic. He apologised and stated the problem was at their end. Fortunately I made my call quite early ( which for light aircraft means about 50 NM) and there was plenty of time for him to manually re-enter the plan.
Interestingly , despite it being a radar environment, he wanted a manual ETA.
Nonetheless I have found Darwin tower very helpful on the several occasions i have contacted them about arrival and departure matters. Similarly with Williamtown, who were exemplary in allowing me to put down there once at very short notice in severely deteriorating weather.
Perhaps at YWLM the controllers be given a significantly greater radius to increase the lead time for their sequencing of higher speed military aircraft - but I'm no expert....
Last edited by Mimpe; 3rd Nov 2013 at 02:15.