"Refusing to Handle You"

Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
john smith wrote:


Oops!
I guess I got my code squawks backwards.
Should have typed 7700 for one-minute, then 7600 for the remainder of
the flight.


If you want to squawk "Lost Comm", just set 7600 and leave it there.

The "7700 for one minute, then 7600" procedure predates me, but I
understand that a long time ago (like 15 or 20 years), that was how it was
done. No longer the case.

....and I suppose I should stop flying triangular patterns as well.
Never could remember if it was clockwise for no receiver or the ohter
way..

"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

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news:1121723929.5ddf87f013f013628130b3f220dcc8c5@t eranews...

Convective activity


Was there something in the OP that implied convective activity on all but
the HGR..MRB..EMI..THV route?



Vector planes around. Put some planes in a holding pattern.


What gives you operational priority over them?



Vector me
around. Put me in a holding pattern until room becomes available. Take
you pick.


Okay. Then say that when the controller asks your intentions. He can
certainly find a path clear of approach and the weather. Don't waste time
telling him "unable reroute" right after he tells you a reroute is in your
near future.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news:1121724013.a978ad36df82d0f25296e0ee95ad9be6@t eranews...

I never said that. I said a pilot is under no obligation to accept any
change to his clearance which the pilot feels is unsafe.


So "unable reroute due to weather" means "unable any reroute that puts me
into weather"?

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
news:1121724161.992cd53544baad482b9de4d39a1591dc@t eranews...

That could well be the case... in which case pilots starting to say
"Unable" and causing controllers to go to their supervisors seeking
solutions may well be the solution to this issue.


The "higher levels of bureaucracy" referred to are probably outside the FAA.



Certainly "The next
sector will not accept you -- state intention" is blatantly unacceptable
ATC service.


It happens. It isn't all that unusual in high density airspace.



Let ATC propose the solution to me.


Then when asked for your intentions don't respond with something completely
unworkable.



Let the controller sit
on the ground with his supervisor and figure out the solution -- don't
leave it up to me while I am flying with a valid clearance on a route I
planned around thunderstorms.


Right. Put ATC in charge of your flight.

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.

A Lieberman wrote:
On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 01:59:10 GMT, Steven P. McNicoll wrote:


"A Lieberman" wrote in message
. ..

Putting me into a heading that weather may compromise my safety. I am
basing this on Mikes original post.


Denying you your desired route does not require you to fly into any weather.


If the weather was behind you like Mike described, and you can't proceed
forward, that in my opinion would be an emergency. He couldn't go further
on, and had to retrace his steps which would put have put him into bad
weather. His words we


So now, here I am, in the air with two small kids
on board, and being turned back towards what was, a while back at
least, some nasty weather.


I am making a lot of assumptions, since Mike was the one there and I was
not, so I don't know any other alternatives he had.

Again, if the weather was behind him and he couldn't proceed further on,
being turned back into nasty weather (his words, not mine) can be
considered an emergency.

Allen

I agree. The controller took the chance that he might have to explain his
actions later. The pilot can take the chance that he might have to explain
HIS actions later (declaring the emergency). Both explainations can be
delivered in a nice dry building.

Scott Moore wrote:
I agree. The controller took the chance that he might have to explain his
actions later. The pilot can take the chance that he might have to explain
HIS actions later (declaring the emergency). Both explainations can be
delivered in a nice dry building.

The pilot was already holding at the IAF for an approach to an airport
he could have landed at. I would love to hear the explanation of how
that turns into an emergency which forces him to proceed to his
original destination along a route he had been told was no longer
available to him.

Damned inconvenient and annoying, yes. But damned inconvenient and
annoying does not an emergency make.