"Al" wrote in message
news:O3Gqb.98144$9E1.475182@attbi_s52...
Any pointer for a short trip IFR or VFR to IAD?

I did an IFR trip to IAD from Elizabeth City, NC, a while back with my
instructor and wife, in a 172SP. It was crystal clear VFR, but you'll need
to be talking to ATC anyway if you plan on going anywhere within 30nm of the
airport, so you may as well do it IFR if you can.

The approach for us was silky smooth... excellent controllers working there.
Once we got handed off to Dulles tower, all hell practically broke loose.
The guy working approaches and departures that day clearly did not know how
to handle us... we were on final for 01L when we got an instruction to make
left base for 30. That seemed a little abrupt, so my instructor immediately
radioed back to ask for clarification... that maneuver would have prolonged
our approach and kept us in the 01L approach path... it just didn't make any
sense. So the controller responded to fly a right downwind for 30. But I
wasn't convinced that he issued that instruction to us, so I asked to
repeat... didn't get a reply, so my instructor had me fly the downwind.
Eventually he came back and asked if we could make the approach to 12 from
where we were, we said we could, and I proceded to make a very tight
approach, complete with full side slip and some flaps to boot. Got down in a
hurry, landed, and scuttled on off to the side. Contacted ground, and felt a
lot more comfortable with the lady working that freq... she at least had an
idea about where we were and how to get us to the north end of the field to
Piedmont Hawthorne.

After dropping off my wife and getting a complimentary ride over to the
Subway sandwich shop on the field, we got back in the plane and prepared to
depart enroute back home to CDW. Ground again had the same lady working the
freq, but we got a bit turned around... we passed the taxiway she wanted us
to hold short on (short of 01L), so she just had us continue on south to the
next one (A4 or something like that). Switched over to tower, where the
controller who couldn't handle us coming in was also still on. And this
time, he was _definitely_ not pleased with us trying to leave during the
evening rush... Sunday around 8pm. It was dark, my instructor and I were
both ready to go, and after holding short for about 5 minutes as all the big
Boeing jets made their arrivals, my instructor proceded to make a simple
query: "Tower, this is Nxxxx, any word on the delay?" The reply we got was
nothing short of the most unprofessional, arrogant, a**holeish, and
downright insulting rant either of us have ever heard from anybody in the
system... controller or pilot. Something to the effect of how he was doing
us a _favor_ by allowing us to depart on the arrivals runway instead of
making us trudge all the hell the way over to 01R, the departure runway, to
takeoff behind big heavy jets leaving nasty wake vortices which would cause
us to "auger in" immediately after leaving terra firma ("auger in" were his
_exact_ words).

Fortunately it wasn't my instructor's boss in the plane, or I fear he
would've gotten out of the plane, run over to the tower and up the stairs,
and beaten this guy to a bloody pulp... _that's_ how ****ed off we were
after hearing this... my instructor simply clicked the mic. We waited for at
least another 10 minutes before getting cleared to depart, then as soon as
we were off and handed over to departure, my instructor asked for the phone
number to the tower. Next day, that guy's boss got his ass chewed out
royally, and a million apologies were handed out over the phone, saying that
that kind of conduct is not something they tolerate over there, nor how they
do business with smaller planes.

Needless to say, I will _never_ fly into IAD without at least another
trained set of eyes with me in the plane. That one controller clearly does
not belong up in the big leagues, with his attitude and inability to handle
us on the arrival. And I highly doubt I would've been able to handle the
situation on my own... the instructions we got coming in were confusing, and
confusion is something you do _not_ want to have when you've got a whole
line of big iron ready to run over your tiny little spam can on that nice
10,000 foot long, 150 foot wide runway.

--
jr