Yes, NL becomes SR but usually they don't land on this lane because NL is very close to their docks so they like to use it for only departures. Even in high crosswind and tailwinds they prefer to take NL for departures....taxiing in water perhaps is not the easiest of things to do. It takes a lot of time for them to taxi to SL and SR is almost never used for departures because there is no taxi lane for SR and they have to backtrack on SR. And there is no point in taxiing to NR if wind favours a northbound departure. Thus NR is almost all the time used for landings and NL for departures. It's forbidden by procedure to use NL for landings because the final approach path runs over docked aircraft and terminal buildings of the seaplane operators.

And yeah, there is one more lane, West/Eastbound - a crossing lane. Depending on the wind these lanes are used for dep. and landings.

Our main RWY is 36/18 and almost through out the year we have a crosswind. No choice, it's on an island and that's how the island is.

I hope that gives a glimpse of our aerodrome.

Thanks.

12 DME arc
 

EXV127 (Expo 127) is a frequent cargo plane to the Maldives from VCBI. Usually it's an AN12 flown by Russian pilots. The following happened a few years ago before we got radar, during a moderately busy hour, in the afternoon.

Pilot: Male Tower this is EXV127 with you, from Control.

TWR: EXV127, Male Tower good afternoon, report position.

Pilot: We are 11 miles on the 12 DME arc, crossing radial 130, EXV127.

TWR: :confused:

What's wrong with that? He's in limits. As for your previous, I thought you'd posted because he'd had a comm failure yet was still talking to you, not because of his runway request. I'm a bit confused...:confused:

Oops my bad. I didn't know that...actually never thought about that. Our AIP doesn't say anything about the arc tolerance limits. But since you said so I thought about it and it makes perfect sense because there is a tolerance limit in everything. I just read an Australian AIP and it says you got to be within plus or minus 2 miles but our AIP is silent about that. Thanks HPbleed because of you I have learnt something...I would just digest the fact that I made a fool of myself in the process :D Can I delete that :O?

As for the comm failure thing...yes I posted it because he reported a comm failure over the radio, RWY request was not important there. Later I gave a little information about our aerodrome to give an idea of the place to gizmocat, because he asked a question.

A/G: "Golf Victor Bravo turn left right now"

:confused:

New one for me

Controller "ABC123 request wind and ride report"

ABC123 (female voice) "Wind XXX/XXX, intimate (intermittent?) light to moderate turbulence"

When I was training in Maastricht, another mate of mine was working a position next to me....

Pilots had already all the time been requesting different levels than what they filed.

suddenly pilots comes in, was flying something like 330.

Pilot: "Maastricht, XYZ123 request higher"
mate: "Roger, XYZ123, What level would you like"
Pilot: "Euhm.... well any Level would do, just just would like to get anything higher if possible, XYZ123"

we all look at each other, immediatly thinking the same thing....

mate: "XYZ123, climb FL550"
everybody starts laughing like hell, other pilots also show their respect for this one on freq.

Pilot comes back also laughing out loud: "well euhm, thank you :), but euhm maybe we'll only start climbing FL370 for now if that's fine as well "

Sometimes the funniest things can be so obvious and sooo simple :D

Heard an aircraft this afternoon:

"XYZ Hold Shorting Runway 18"

Mixing ends.
 

Hi Lasiorhinus.

Hi have no problem understanding his "mixing" of the
ends of his words. B-)

I often rent a Cessna 172, in CYHU airport.
It's call sing is C-GSEN.

And we know that: once the communication is established,
we use only the last 3 letters/numbers/digits. . .

So, OBVIOUSLY, I DID make THE mistake, once:
"St-Hubert tower, here is SIERRO ECHA november. . ." B-)

Blue skies.

Probably the best one for me so far-after giving a helicopter the new weather information a dash 8 calls up "Link XXX request taxi and we copy information.... errrm..... ummmm.... what letter comes after I???" Ya gotta wonder sometimes :ugh:

Was on first solo excursion out of the zone at Liverpool.

Poodling down the Mersey, ATC said "call Seaforth outbound"

I replied " Wilco will call seabound outforth" (un-intentional)

Everyone else on frequency laughed.....

New poster, hope this works, bear with me.

35 year US enroute ATCS, 13 years in Chicago, then 22 years in Jacksonville. I have read the entire thread, lots of good stuff, but lots of old and stale ones.
I was not exactly 'by the book' on phraseology and such PC stuff, so I seemed to get involved in strange things, many of my own doing. Most of my stuff will be lengthy, but it WILL be new to you. I'll give you one now, then titles for you to select from....I'll post the story when the pain subsides...you see, I'm not a typist, I'm a 'hunt'n pecker, so when my pecker gets too much of a workout, it gets sore & can't reach the keyboard.

Story One....The Rabbit Died

This one was actually passed to us at Chicago by Oshkosh tower the day it happened, the guys there were squealing about it for weeks.
A married female GA instructor had just departed and informed the tower she thought they had hit a bunny on RWY27. Ramp rats checked, deceased bunny. Tower guy knew the gal's hubby, called him up and told him his wife had confided to him "The Rabbit Died".
Well, the guy gets all excited, rushes out and buys her flowers and gets to the airport to meet her after her lesson. She hops out, he hugs her & hands her the flowers, there is a long conversation, he starts laughing, she storms over to the tower.
The tower guys bought her a bottle of champagne to soothe her feathers.
For the young readers who don't understand the technology involved with dead bunnies, ask yer mum.

Okay, here's a short list of possible stories to choose from.....

I kiss Arnie Palmers putter

Southwest is going down

New color radar

Tiger pilot gets his peepee kissed

The UFO (not a funny story, real UFO)

Airways quiz of the hour

Flaming Butts

Airshows at FL370

Lethal Linda's F-16

Carrot on a Stick

Step right up and makes yer choice, the bar is open and smoking lamp lit

How can we not opt for the UFO story? :P

Phil

....that or maybe Airshows at FL370

Controller answers phone and responding the Pilots query asks ground:

Supervisor: "Do you have a plan for ANG400 to Moro?"

Ground : "No, but I have one for Today........oh !!!!" :O

ANG400 -Air Nugini 400
Moro - AYMR

Back when we still phoned estimates between units the Papa Alpha Oscar November Echo or Papa Alpha Tango Whisky Oscar often had people writing out strips; usually the penny dropped after the second or third one.

First Request Granted
 

6-24-78, Radar-visual in Wisconsin

Here is the UFO story.

I'll do the Airshow at FL370 later today.

wonnski wrote
 

:}:}:} That's pretty funny in itself

(In our part of the world your 'pecker' is one of the many names given to a males anatomy)

As I mentioned, PC stuff sometimes slips past me, unintentionally of course.

Airshows at FL370
 

An A/C dealer in Tampa was giving demo flights on a Global Express, usually north out of Tampa, up over to JAX to Columbia, SC, West to Tallahassee, back to Tampa.
On one of his flights, I had a flight of 4 F-15's head-on with him, 2,000' below. I loved letting the military show off, so I asked the Express if he had a camera in cockpit...he did. I told him I'd give him a look at something cool, which side did he want it on...he said port.
So I called traffic to Eagles at 12 o'clock & 60 miles...he called a lock. I told him the guy wanted them to smile down his port side for photo..he said "we'll give him a show".
I kept the Express advised of the traffic, then when they had passed he said "Damn, I didn't know they could even do that", I asked what it was, he said better I didn't know, but to thank the Eagles for him, which I did.
About a week later, another demo flight, but it went badly. Lost radios just North of JAX, much confusion resulted between sectors and military controllers in a Warning Area, ended up with 2 F-16's at about a mile & zero feet vertical from the Express.
When the Express got near Tallahassee, he came up on my freq, said he'd had a bus failure, comm was not reliable, asked for lower & next freq if he lost me.
I then told him he had missed another picture opportunity & how it happened.
He said "Well, these airshows are one hell of a lot of fun, but if it's ok with you we'll just be spectators from now on."

Lon, at PATCRU We used the [old] designators, ie, two letters ...hence
BA "Speedbird" Lima Lima Sierra
TW [Trans World] Alpha Tango
PA [Clipper] November Tango Sierra
Best one was at RAF Buchan in the early '60s USN strike force Callsign FUKC01-08. Fortunately they read out the Phonetics....:ok:

The fFrench used a similar c/s for their tankers. FUKCD was one IIRC

Very young, female FO at Sopley was having real difficulties with it as he repeatedly flew out of the towline and getting in everybody's way. To compound things one of the top brass was visiting He bent over her shoulder and asked the poor girl, "What's the matter my dear?" to which she threw off her headset, tried to stand up, turn around and salut all at the same time and blurted out, "It's F:mad:d Sir!"

Funnier if you were there

Somewhere on the South Coast, an intrepid Nr Fairy is tootling back to the field while a Coastguard AgustaWestland AB139 flies a practice ILS . . .

XXX Tower: AugstWasteland . . . AugustWestern . . . (eventually, after three or so goes, gets it right) AgustaWestland AB139 long finals for 26, report southern boundary

NrF: Wilco, and looking for the big red and white thing long finals

XXX Tower: <giggles>


Well, it made me laugh at the time.

Students: Need We Say More?!
 

D&D: Approach, we've got an emergencey squawk showing 0.5miles north of you. Says he's lost. Any ideas?
App: Nope, not one of mine. What's the a/c reg?
D&D: A-BC.
App: Ah, he should be with me. It's a student pilot.
D&D: What freq? I'll send him back to you.
App: A-BC this is approach.
A-BC: Approach, A-BC... I think I'm lost.
(Tower controller in background: Tell him to look f****** down!)
App: A-BC, got you visual overhead the airfield.
A-BC: Oh yeah, there you are!
:ugh:

On a trip in a PA28 with a student to Cambridge. One aircraft, a Robin DR400,joining ahead of us, via the overhead,

TWR: G-XX Report Overhead
Robin: Roger

Literally 3-4 minutes of silence on the frequency

Robin: G-XX Late Downwind
TWR: G-XX, roger, Report final
TWR: G-XX

Aircraft on short final, TWR give a litte hint

TWR: G-XX Runway 05 Cleared to Land the wind 090/10
Robin: Thankyou for the information

My student to me: "Im really not that bad on the Radio am i?"


Made us laugh, but how some of them keep a license dear knows

Heard just recently in the UK

US airliner - Hey, looks like the whole of the UK is covered in snow! Where did it all come from?

Some wag replied - The sky.

Stony silence ensued

10/10 for that one :ok:

Suzeman

Heard recently in Moscow.

Moscow App "Air France 123, please listen out, I have had to call you several times to get a response from you. It is very busy here and you are not helping. Next time, listen out"

Air France 123 "err Moscow, waz zat for us?"

Priceless.
And it was very very busy!

Back to their old ways Reddo.
Back when, Air Frog could get to cruising level out of Copenhagen and only call again when wanting descent into de Gaulle. Straight through some of Europe's busiest airspace.http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o...icons/wank.gif. They were probably 90% of our Radio Failure reports. Letters to the company didn't help and it got so bad that the Mil. stoppped intercepting them unless there was already something in the air, when a really close formation, i.e. read the Crew Chief's name, seemed to help for a couple of weeks.
I hear some KLM pilots are getting as bad as well (must be the fusion) igh level ito AMS from the North the normal clearance is to descend to FL260 to be level 55nm (IIRC) before ARTIP, often with the restriction to reduce to 260IAS when within range. KLM pilots sometimes tended to treat both these as simple guidelines which met with a further instruction from a now retired controller, "The number is 260. Descend to it, reduce to it, or turn to it." A series of vectors round the North Sea to the rear of the inbound flow, and a subsequent change in the EOB time of some 20 minutes left the captain with some explaining to do to the company.

That must've been a while ago, speedrestrictions since then went up to 280-300kts and during the oilprice-peak back again to 260-280kts.

55NM before ARTIP is still used, but it is also still as incorrect as before. Should be FL260 at the boundary (wich would be somewhere in the region of 65NM before ARTIP) :}

But you're comment about KLM pilots in particular is missing the point a bit, you can say that about almost all pilots at their homebase. Brussels Airlines into EBBR almost always need encouraging to make the descent. Ryanair into EHEH has yet to make the standard level at HELEN for the first time.

But usually the hint of an extra orbit helps them to drop like a brick...:ok:

Overheard just today:

"AirBerlin xxnn, Hurgada Tower: d'you have a slot?"
"HRG TWR, ABxxnn: None that I know of, go ahead, ready to copy."
"I do not know, my systems are down, call your company and advise slot time for start up."

Actually not that funny at all. Egypt's IT infrastructure brutalized today, a man working his job on a busy morning with his tools taken shows he won't stop delivering. :ok:

SEX001
 

Selectair in Stansted, was allocated the call sign SEX.

Lady Captain was always encouraged to make call SEX 1 checking in.

Company went down, don't know about her.

or the lady ATC at Biggin Hill, who could turn us on at 10 miles if it helped.

Funny isnt cheeky. Right?
 

Had this one just last week, a transatlantic Virgin came over to us (Shannon high level) and made one of the most common (and harmless) mistakes we hear all the time

VIR123: London...uhhhh....I mean Shannon, Virgin123 FL360 direct DOGAL

Me: Speedbird...uhhh... I mean Virgin123 Good Morning, Identified



In fairness, he did laugh :)

It ws. I retired in 2005.

Met Office Topcliffe, many moons ago, phone rings;

"Met Topcliife"

"Met Watton here"

"Did you say Wyton"

"No its Watton here"

"Its sh1tty here too but we don't ring you to complain about it!"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm reading that and thinking of P. Sellars and H. Secombe.

VERY similar vintage, c. 1964.

:sad:
70 pages later and i want more.
This thread has kept me entertained for days and resulted in some strange looks from some co-workers.
Keep up the good work and some time soon i'll be up in the air supplying you guys with more material :)

Matt

From an airfield quite far from you (… thank god?)

Company passing on taxiways, one coming and one going.
Flight1: Hey Matt, long-haul today?
Flight2: Yup, won't be back til Thursday!
Flight1: So your wife's free then?
Unknown: Sorry mate, I got dibs.

--

Flight1: Uuuh, TWR, there's a cat sitting on the road leading down your way from TWY Y.
TWR: Oh yeah… Errr… It's our new towercat! Yes… CharlieAlphaTango. Don't worry, he's trained to stay 50m from the taxiway unless instructed otherwise.

--

TWR: Flight1, confirm you got hit by a laser turning for final?
Flight1: Negative, we never really got directly hit. But it looked like it tried. Poor lad must have a lousy aim.

Not ATC per se...

As a pax flying into Toronto, the pilot announced our arrival would be delayed twenty minutes due to traffic flow problems at the airport.

So, does the pilot circle around some boring crop field?

Nope. We spent twenty minutes circling directly over Niagara Falls. :ok: :ok:

I was in a window seat looking straight down at the Falls the whole while, pulling my head back occasionally to let others get a good view.

Do pilots notice when all passengers crowd to one side to look out the windows?

A pilot at a drop zone asked me to hold his dog while he took off to take a load of jumpers up to skydive because, "He likes to chase tires."
:eek: :eek: :ugh: