Daddy! What did you do?!!!

This does get me thinking-

I spend a lot of time around SFO Bravo, and have _never_ had a problem
getting Bravo clearance (hell, I've been cleared into bravo several
times without even asking, and for no real reason). I do the bayshore
freeway transition probably three or four times a week without so much
as a batted eyelash from ATC.

I've noticed that a lot of non-Bay-Area Pilots have a certain
"Airspace Phobia", that is, they will go _way_ out of their way to
avoid all controlled airspace, and essentially consider it/treat it as
though it was a TFR. For Example, I flew up to Portland a few
weekends ago, and decided to give a local friend an aerial tour of the
city. Before taking off, I got talking with a local pilot, who made
sure to 'warn' me "Watch out! its really tight in there between the
hills (With 1400 foot transmission towers) and the river!, you'll have
to go really slow and make a very tight turn to get back out of there
and avoid the controlled airspace!"

If you look at PDX on the seattle chart you can see what he's talking
about. Downtown is located on a little flat land between a river and
a hill with a string of 1500 foot broadcast towers, all under a 2300
foot Charlie floor. The space between the river (Charlie to the
floor) and the towers is a mile or two at MOST... frankly, reminds me
of the former east river corridor, low with no room to move.

I politely thanked him for his advice, took off, promptly called up
norcal, and asked for Class Charlie Clearance. It took all of 30
seconds, and I was given free reign to tour the city as I saw fit, at
a _safe_ altitude, no low slow turns, no stress from towers, just a
nice, easy flight. The whole 'be careful, go slow' advice seemed...
well, almost silly and misguided, if not dangerous. Why was calling
up approach and getting into two-way radio communication not the first/
only option?

Hearing your story does make me wonder though, I always just assumed
that my comfort in controlled airspace was merely a result of being
'brought up' (primary training) at a class Charlie field (OAK) under a
Bravo Shelf, and that the people who were skittish of controlled
airspace just lacked the practice/comfort with ATC. I wonder though
how much of that impression also comes from the fact that on the whole
I've always found the norcal guys to be so polite, friendly and
accommodating. Is that unusual? Are some Controlled airspaces more
intimidating than others?

I guess I'm just wondering if there is any regular and consistent
"personality" differences between Bravo Approach regions throughout
the country, and if my comfort in Bravo is partly because I'm used to
a particular control area that just happens to be very 'nice'?

On Aug 24, 4:50 pm, EridanMan wrote:


Hearing your story does make me wonder though, I always just assumed
that my comfort in controlled airspace was merely a result of being
'brought up' (primary training) at a class Charlie field (OAK) under a
Bravo Shelf, and that the people who were skittish of controlled
airspace just lacked the practice/comfort with ATC. I wonder though
how much of that impression also comes from the fact that on the whole
I've always found the norcal guys to be so polite, friendly and
accommodating. Is that unusual? Are some Controlled airspaces more
intimidating than others?


I don't think liveatc doesn't have it anymore, but you need to hear
DTW when they're reversing their runways g. (Extreme hyperbole
follows) It seems like they don't give a bravo clearance if there is a
wisp of a cloud in the area g

On Aug 24, 12:56 pm, Steve Schneider wrote:
One of the advantages of flying is that you can pack so much more into
your weekends. Last weekend was a typically busy one for us. We had

Steve,
I enjoyed reading both of your stories. Your last weekend was
certainly packed with a lot of actions with help from the FBO guy and
the cops ;-)

Hai Longworth

Well, next thing I know three Chandler police cars come tearing in from
the main gate with lights flashing and spotlights on -- pointed at us.
As the police jump out of their cars and yell "Who's the pilot?!", my 9
year old daughter's jaw drops and she yells, "Daddy! What did you
do?!!!"

Steve, you need to develop a lower profile. (And your daughter is
going to be warped for life, you know... ;-)

Dunno what's up with your cops -- must be the heat? They sound like
they need to enroll in some relaxation therapy -- maybe get a full-
body massage once in a while?

Thanks for sharing the story(s) -- it was a great read!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

john smith wrote in
:

On Aug 24, 4:50 pm, EridanMan wrote:
Are some Controlled airspaces more intimidating than others?

Each ATC facility is its own fifedom.
The manager of the facility sets the tone for how things in his world
will operate.


Another factor may be the percentage of controllers at the facility
who are also pilots. Years ago I took a tour of Bay Approach when it was
located at Oakland airport and they told me that Bay had the highest
percentage of controller/pilots in the system and that Oakland Center was
second. I don't what the numbers for this are today.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

john smith wrote in
:


On Aug 24, 4:50 pm, EridanMan wrote:

Are some Controlled airspaces more intimidating than others?

Each ATC facility is its own fifedom.
The manager of the facility sets the tone for how things in his world
will operate.


The bigger the facility the less the manager matters. Here in Billings,
a small facility by comparison, I have had at least 10 managers in my 14
years here. We haven't changed our attitude toward the traffic one iota
due to the manager. He's a paper pusher and memo writer. He does not
work traffic, no FAA manager does anymore. They are not allowed to by
FAA edict.



Another factor may be the percentage of controllers at the facility
who are also pilots.



That's huge.


Years ago I took a tour of Bay Approach when it was
located at Oakland airport and they told me that Bay had the highest
percentage of controller/pilots in the system and that Oakland Center was
second. I don't what the numbers for this are today.

I've never seen numbers for any facility. Here we have 19 controllers.
Five of us own airplanes and one flies a powered parachute. At
least half have PPL's. And four union members. About the perfect place
to work.

EridanMan wrote:
I guess I'm just wondering if there is any regular and consistent
"personality" differences between Bravo Approach regions throughout
the country, and if my comfort in Bravo is partly because I'm used to
a particular control area that just happens to be very 'nice'?

I haven't flown repeatedly in enough different class B to correlate
attitude to a particular location, but I have flown VFR in a light
single across the country and back twice and flown in or near class B
in at least Phoenix, Las Vegas, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh,
Philadelphia, and Memphis. On my initial call, I usually try to give
an approach controller an opportunity to call back when he has a break
in the action by saying something like "Approach, Grumman 12345, VFR
with request". I've had responses all the way from "Grumman 12345
squawk VFR, remain VFR, remain clear of class bravo airspace good day"
to the usual "Grumman 12345 say request" to "Grumman 12345 RADAR
contact 30 east of XYZ level 8500, XYZ altimeter 29.92, squawk 4567,
cleared into class bravo airspace, let me know when you want to
descend".

-R

On Aug 24, 3:02 pm, Marty Shapiro
wrote:

Another factor may be the percentage of controllers at the facility
who are also pilots. Years ago I took a tour of Bay Approach when it was
located at Oakland airport and they told me that Bay had the highest
percentage of controller/pilots in the system and that Oakland Center was
second. I don't what the numbers for this are today.

I was part of a group that toured Norcal TRACON (formerly Bay
Approach) last weekend. One of our hosts made the point that they'd
rather be talking to us than not. If they see a conflict developing,
it's much easier for them to call traffic to both planes and *know*
there are two sets of eyes working on the see and avoid, rather than
*hope* that the 1200 is paying attention.

I fly out of SQL and have never been denied a Bay Tour or the 101
transition through Class Bravo. Having learned to fly at an non-
towered airport, it was intimidating as hell the first few times I did
it, but is second nature by now.

"EridanMan" wrote:

I guess I'm just wondering if there is any regular and consistent
"personality" differences between Bravo Approach regions throughout
the country,

There is.

In my experience, Atlanta and Dallas are always hyper and very curt. Houston
can be high stress too, but will sometimes be laid back and helpful.

New Orleans is, well, N' Awlins.

--
Dan
T-182T at BFM

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:44:47 -0700, wrote in
.com:

On Aug 24, 2:11 pm, Larry Dighera wrote:
On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:20:43 -0700, wrote in
.com:

in Google the guote doesn't show up.

Martin Hotze will *give* you a real Usenet account on his server. Then
you won't have to be identified with the GoogleGroups spam-gateway.
It's your choice.

And where would this server be found?

Dean

Here's the article Martin Hotze posted:


Path: From: Martin Hotze
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.piloting
Subject: newsserver access
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 19:31:35 +0200
Organization: no org, just me
Lines: 51
Message-ID:
NNTP-Posting-Host: r-extern.office.hotze.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Trace: kirk.hotze.com 1176485525 5833 82.150.198.62 (13 Apr 2007
17:32:05 GMT)
X-Complaints-To:
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:32:05 +0000 (UTC)
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Windows/20070221)
Xref: wnmaster11 rec.aviation.piloting:525646
X-Received-Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2007 17:32:05 GMT
(bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net)

[This posting might sound as a commercial plug, but it isn't.]

Hi,

there was a discussion recently regarding access to newsservers and
problems with the one or the other provider. Now you have the
possibility to access usenet free of charge.

As you might know we are operating a usenet news server [1] with more
than 30 active feeds and we run cleanfeed for wiping out the garbage.
Currently we carry the following groups:
at.*
de.*
az.*
novell.*
oesterreich.*
rec.aviation.*

We are giving out *free* access to our text only news server (as a
service to the rec.aviation.* folks). If you want an account please
send
an email (this should be a working email address because I have to
reply
to you in order to send you the access information) to martin at hotze
dot com and please identify yourself with your name or screen name
(don't just reply to this post!). We reserve the right to deny service
to anyone, esp. to one [2].

please note:
- this is a free service, but as I use this server on my own I have
the
highest interest in a working service. :-)
- please adhere to at least the basics of netiquette (no spamming,
etc.)
- you won't receive any advertising nor will we sell your information
- you are free to suggest groups we should carry. We will collect this
information and might add these groups or hierarchies (text only
groups,
no binaries).

how will it work:
you will receive a username and a password, you configure your usenet
client to connect to "news.hotze.com" on port 119 (= standard port).
Enter the username and password and you are free to read and post
using
this newsserver.

hope this helps,

Martin


[1] see http://www.hotze.com/index.php?page=newsfeed-peering
[2] we aren't able to filter the one on our server, so you still have
to
use your local filter.
--
I am not a terrorist http://www.casualdisobedience.com/