"Refusing to Handle You"

"I intend to fly my clearance. What are yours?" Hmmph.

An odd thing to say after you've been told that's not an option.

Well, "Potomac is refusing to accept you, what are your intentions" is
also an odd thing to say. It's the equivalent of "get lost kid, you
bother me", which is exactly what Potomac is saying to the controller
who is (presumably) just relaying the message to the pilot. It makes
ATC's coordination problem into the pilot's problem to solve.

I would refuse to fly through thunderstorms to make them happy.

Why would they find happiness in your flight through a thunderstorm?

Because if the thunderstorm is outside of Potomac's airspace, Potomac
doesn't have to deal with you. "It's not my watch". Of course I don't
really believe airborne shredded aluminum makes anybody involved here
happy, my phrasing "make them happy" is metaphorical.

You'd be unable to do anything other than your previous clearance? How
could that be?

The only thing I have is my previous clearance.

I would expect the controllers to work with me to get an acceptable
reroute, not to dump the thing in my lap saying "you can't go here any
more". That is getting close to the controller saying "IFR cancelled,
squawk 1200" while I'm in the soup.

I have my previous clearance. I would fly that unless (and until) I got
something acceptable to both me and the controller. But the controller
saying "Potomac won't handle you, what are your intentions" is
inappropriately confrontational. If Potomac won't accept the clearance
that ATC has already given me, that's ATC's problem to solve, and they
should offer (or at least appear to be prepared to offer) some solutions.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message

inappropriately confrontational. If Potomac won't accept the clearance
that ATC has already given me, that's ATC's problem to solve, and they
should offer (or at least appear to be prepared to offer) some solutions.

Exactly correct.

--------------------
Richard Kaplan

www.flyimc.com

"Jose" wrote in message
m...

Well, "Potomac is refusing to accept you, what are your intentions" is
also an odd thing to say.


Why's that?



It's the equivalent of "get lost kid, you
bother me", which is exactly what Potomac is saying to the controller who
is (presumably) just relaying the message to the pilot. It makes ATC's
coordination problem into the pilot's problem to solve.


There's no coordination problem. The problem is the pilot has a route he
can't fly. ATC is going to change his route, the problem will be solved at
that time. ATC is just asking the pilot for his input. Isn't that better
than deciding for him?



The only thing I have is my previous clearance.


But you're going to get a new one. That's why the controller is asking for
your intentions. So that your new clearance can be as close as possible to
what you'd like to do. Would you want it any other way?



I would expect the controllers to work with me to get an acceptable
reroute, not to dump the thing in my lap saying "you can't go here any
more".


He's trying to do exactly that. That's why he said "say intentions."



I have my previous clearance. I would fly that unless (and until) I got
something acceptable to both me and the controller. But the controller
saying "Potomac won't handle you, what are your intentions" is
inappropriately confrontational.


Bull****. The guy seems to have been overly accommodating.



If Potomac won't accept the clearance
that ATC has already given me, that's ATC's problem to solve, and they
should offer (or at least appear to be prepared to offer) some solutions.


They're going to solve that problem by directing you away from Potomac
approach. Your choices are to either follow ATC instructions or continue
into Potomac approach contrary to ATC instructions and face the
consequences.

Well, "Potomac is refusing to accept you, what are your intentions" is
also an odd thing to say.
Why's that?

Because ATC is supposed to be helpful, and this is not. The pilot has
no idea what "Potomac" is (from a routing standpoint) or for how long
they will be refusing to honor the clearance the pilot =already= has.
Therefore the pilot has no basis from which to plan a new routing, or to
consider the altenratives. The only alternatives that are clear are to
turn around, hold, or land, but those are likely not the only
alternatives avaliable.

ATC however does know the pilot's destination and equipment, and
probably has a pretty good idea of what the weather and traffic ahead
is. Therefore ATC is in a good position to offer helpful alternatives.
They are refusing to do so.

Empirically, it's an odd thing to say because it is rarely said. That
by itself makes it odd.

The problem is the pilot has a route he
can't fly.

The pilot certainly can fly that route. ATC doesn't want him to.
Specifically Potomac doesn't want him to.

ATC is just asking the pilot for his input.

Meaningful input requires information that ATC has, that the pilot
doesn't, and that ATC is pointedly not giving the pilot.

But the controller
saying "Potomac won't handle you, what are your intentions" is
inappropriately confrontational.
Bull****. The guy seems to have been overly accommodating.


Perhaps we have different definitions of "accomodating".

Let's see if I can learn something, and turn this around. It's =you=
flying up the coast, say to Teterboro. You're directly on the other
side of Potomac Approach's airspace (whatever shape it happens to be at
that time). For argument's sake, you're at 5000 feet in a rental 172RG
with a moving map GPS, no radar, no spherics, and no weather imagery
available to you (except via descriptions on the radio). You have three
and a half hours of gas, and have a clearance through to your
destination, which takes you in between building TCU. There are cells
to your west and northwest somewhere, maybe forty miles off your route.
You're IMC.

"N423YL, Potomac is refusing to handle you. What are your intentions?"

How do you respond?

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote:

Let's see if I can learn something, and turn this around. It's =you=
flying up the coast, say to Teterboro. You're directly on the other
side of Potomac Approach's airspace (whatever shape it happens to be
at that time). For argument's sake, you're at 5000 feet in a rental
172RG with a moving map GPS, no radar, no spherics, and no weather
imagery available to you (except via descriptions on the radio). You
have three and a half hours of gas, and have a clearance through to
your destination, which takes you in between building TCU. There are
cells to your west and northwest somewhere, maybe forty miles off your
route. You're IMC.

"N423YL, Potomac is refusing to handle you. What are your
intentions?"

How do you respond?

Good question.

From my relaxed position in this comfy chair, my reply is "Well, I still
need to get to Teterboro and I don't have any weather gear on board,
what do you suggest?" If I was at 5,000, IMC and sweating about
imbedded thunderstorms, I might not be so quick with an apt reply.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Jose wrote:
Let's see if I can learn something, and turn this around. It's =you=
flying up the coast, say to Teterboro. You're directly on the other
side of Potomac Approach's airspace (whatever shape it happens to be at
that time). For argument's sake, you're at 5000 feet in a rental 172RG
with a moving map GPS, no radar, no spherics, and no weather imagery
available to you (except via descriptions on the radio). You have three
and a half hours of gas, and have a clearance through to your
destination, which takes you in between building TCU. There are cells
to your west and northwest somewhere, maybe forty miles off your route.
You're IMC.

"N423YL, Potomac is refusing to handle you. What are your intentions?"

How do you respond?

I'm not quite sure where you intended that I am in your scenario, but I'll
assume "the other side of Potomac" from Teterboro means I'm somewhere
around Gordonsville VOR.

Well, first I would ask myself what the heck I'm doing flying with no
weather imagery and embedded thunderstorms all around me. That's not my
idea of fun.

Second, I would realize that I no longer have clearance through to my
destination. Sure, we haven't yet dotted the I's and crossed the T's by
agreeing on a new clearance, but it's already been made clear to me that
the original plan just isn't happening any more.

I need to come up with an alternative plan. There's two basic choices;
land, or continue flying. Let's assume I decide I want to try to press on.
I need to fly around or over Potomac's airspace. So, I might start by
asking some questions:

"If I climbed up to 9000, would that help?"

Center comes back with, "Sorry, you'd need to get up to 13,000 to stay in
Center airspace on that route, can you make that?" (I'm making that up, but
it sounds plausable).

"Unable 13,000. Tell you what, can you give me direct Salisbury VOR for
now, and let me go off frequency for a while to talk to Flight Service?"

"N423YL, cleared to the Salisbury VOR via direct, maintain 5000, report
back on the frequency within 5 minutes".

At that point, I'd call up Flight Watch, figure out what the weather is
doing over there, and decide if I could continue or not. If things didn't
look good weather-wise in that direction, or I just decided the workload
was getting to high, I'd just pick a reasonable nearby airport and ask for
clearance to it. Once on the ground, I could take my time and make a new
plan.

A couple of weeks ago, I departed BWI for HPN with ****ty weather reported
at my destination, but forecast to clear up about by the time I got there.
Along the way, we got a re-route the long way around (i.e. New York was
refusing to work us). Called FSS, got a weather update, discovered things
still sucked at HPN (1/8 mile in heavy rain), got back to ATC and told them
I wanted to land at Allentown. Landed, bought some more fuel, met another
pilot who was ferrying a Pitts from New Jersey to California and spent an
hour swapping stories with him over lunch. By then, the weather had
cleared up a bit, and off we went.

"Unable 13,000. Tell you what, can you give me direct Salisbury VOR for
now, and let me go off frequency for a while to talk to Flight Service?"

"Unable Salsbury. I already told you Potomac is refusing to accept you."

(I'm making up the fact that Salsbury is served by Potomac approach -
you as a pilot have no good way to know what is and what isn't. In
fact, Salsbury may only be served by Potomac from 3000 to 7000, but you
are at 5000 and the controller is being as helpful and forthcoming now
as he was originally).

Now what?

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:
"Unable 13,000. Tell you what, can you give me direct Salisbury VOR for
now, and let me go off frequency for a while to talk to Flight Service?"

"Unable Salsbury. I already told you Potomac is refusing to accept you."

(I'm making up the fact that Salsbury is served by Potomac approach -
you as a pilot have no good way to know what is and what isn't. In
fact, Salsbury may only be served by Potomac from 3000 to 7000, but you
are at 5000 and the controller is being as helpful and forthcoming now
as he was originally).

Now what?

I'm not sure where this is going, but how about:

"What clearance can you give me which will get me around to the east
of Potomac's airspace?"

Maybe he'll say something like, "I need to keep you about 5 miles south of
Salisbury. Can you navigate direct to XXXXX and I'll try and get you
something better after that?"

Or maybe he'll say, "Unfortunately, I can't get you anywhere near
there. The best I can do in that direction is blah, blah. Can you do
that?"

You seem to be expecting that he's going to say, "Bzzzt, wrong answer,
try again". It doesn't work like that. It doesn't do either you or
the controller any good to waste time playing 20 questions. He's just
as interested in getting you where you're going as you are.

Why is this such a complicated concept? You know what you want to do
and you ask for it. If ATC is unable to give it to you, you decide
what you want to do instead and ask for that. "Say intentions" should
not be something pilots fear hearing. It's nothing more than a
jargony way of saying, "What can I do for you?" If you can't come up
with a useful answer to "say intentions", you have no business being
PIC.

I'm not sure where this is going, but how about:

"What clearance can you give me which will get me around to the east
of Potomac's airspace?"

Good enough.

...Or maybe he'll say, "Unfortunately, I can't get you anywhere near
there. The best I can do in that direction is blah, blah. Can you do
that?"

Well, he's at this point offering something. He could have been
offering something from the start, since he knows where I am and where
I'm heading. A more helpful original call would have been: "Potomac
can't take you right now. I can take you around twenty miles to the
East if you like, or to the northwest direct XXX. Which would you prefer?"

You seem to be expecting that he's going to say, "Bzzzt, wrong answer,
try again". It doesn't work like that.

No, it doesn't usually work like that. However, "you can't do that,
what are you going to do about it?" sure makes it seem like the
controller is playing that game.

"Say intentions" should
not be something pilots fear hearing.

It's not. But "we've revoked your clearance. Say intentions." is.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
.. .

"Unable Salsbury. I already told you Potomac is refusing to accept you."

(I'm making up the fact that Salsbury is served by Potomac approach - you
as a pilot have no good way to know what is and what isn't. In fact,
Salsbury may only be served by Potomac from 3000 to 7000, but you are at
5000 and the controller is being as helpful and forthcoming now as he was
originally).

Now what?


Let me add a touch of realism. Instead of, "Unable 13,000. Tell you what,
can you give me direct Salisbury VOR for now, and let me go off frequency
for a while to talk to Flight Service?" You say, "Unable 13,000. Tell you
what, can you give me a hold somewhere and let me go off frequency for a
while to talk to Flight Service?" The controller responds with a hold clear
of approach and the weather so you can chat with FSS. Controllers are eager
to help, but you have to tell them what you want. They can't read your
mind.