ATC has a bad hair day at KSAV

Lots of controllers at KSAV (Savannah, GA) are really good, but training goes on here, too, and sometimes it’s obvious. Not sure what was going on today…

The first hint that ATC was having a bad hair day was when I called in for taxi and was told to stand by — unusual. Then when I did get to talk to ground, I was told to hold position. Hmm. In recent times, sometimes one overworked controller has worked clearance, ground, tower and approach frequencies, but hey, no problem, I can be patient, and I figured that was what was going on.

I never saw any conflicting taxi traffic and after a while, I got taxi clearance. When I got to the runway, I was surprised to hear a different voice working tower frequency. Before I could call in, a Musketeer on the other side of the runway called in for takeoff. I called in with the magic words “in sequence,” meaning, yeah, I know I’ll have to wait, and the tower replied, “roger.” Sometimes I hear roger instead of hold short, sometimes I call in holding short and am told to hold short, sometimes I’m behind a local flight school pilot who is slowly, slowly doing his runup in the middle of the taxiway, blocking access to the runway for everybody else.

Along the way, somebody had asked the ground controller if he was working all the frequencies but he replied that he was working ground and clearance (not unusual) and helping out a little, too. Another hint.

With ADS-B, I could see the traffic in the vicinity, and although traffic was at most moderate, the tower controller was not one of those highly proficient, get everybody sequenced controllers. For instance, the crossing runway was not being used. And since I’d requested pattern work, I knew that I wasn’t going to be top priority.

After a while, it was obvious that nothing was going to happen anytime soon. I called tower and told the controller than I could go back to hangar if that would help. The tower replied with, “Copy.” What did that mean?

Realizing that it was not going to be a good day for flying with ATC struggling, cumulus clouds a-building and showers starting to develop in the distance, I called ground to taxi back to the hangar. “Roger, make a left or right 360, your choice, taxi to parking via Bravo.” With a perfectly normal voice, no sarcasm, I said that I’d make a 180 and taxi to parking.

“Copy.” “Make a 360.” Showers starting to pop in the distance. A safe decision to call it a day and put the plane back in the hangar.

One ATC issue these days seems to be that staffing is based only on traffic, and often the result is overworked controllers (there have been times at KSAV when one controller was working clearance, ground, tower and approach frequencies), cross-frequency interference and struggling ATC service, as today. I don’t know how dangerous things might get occasionally, but that is a real possibility. Time to put on your big boy pants and pay attention.

Operating the airplane for purposes of flight. 0.3 hours. No takeoff or landing but still loggable as flight time.

That sucks. I had similarly poor service quality last week in the SLC area in which I filed a ASRS report for. Suggest you do the same, especially if you care for change.

As a controller, I can tell you nobody is training right now due to COVID. Staffing levels are minimum to keep social distancing maximized. Controllers are working 5-6 frequencies when they typically are working only one.

After 20 hours of flying around the country last week, I could tell where the service lapses were. I want to get back to normal as much as the next guy. Give it another shot on a different day of the week.

I'm glad I fly out of a country airport.

Sorry. I'm sure next time you'll be the only airplane in the sky and won't have to sit your turn like everyone else.

Controllers, just like pilots, are human too so we just have to deal with it. It's just part of aviation life.

Ed_Wischmeyer said:

Operating the airplane for purposes of flight. 0.3 hours. No takeoff or landing but still loggable as flight time.

Click to expand...

I have 0.7 in my logbook for a similar event. When a student pilot, I decided to go flying after work on the day before Thanksgiving ... everyone was leaving early from work, so why not? All those early leavers seemed to go straight to the airport. Runup areas and taxiways were jammed; lots of incoming traffic, too. I sat for 30 mins "in sequence" before I asked the tower for help to get out of line and taxi back to the tiedown. No bad hair day with these guys; super competent and helpful -- and taught me an important lesson about when NOT to go flying!

workload

I'm a controller at zma and what pilots sometimes do not understand is there is more to being a controller than keying the mike. Just like there is more to being a pilot than flying the plane. Perhaps the controller was dealing with an issue offline, lots of phone calls and hidden coordination behind the scenes. You did the right thing, I'm sure the controller feels bad for not providing the best possible service. Not now, but I usually encourage pilots to visit your nearby facility preferably a center to see what really happens...

Patience

I fly almost every day and deal with ATC every flight on IFR flight plans. I am in and out of JAX enter and SAV approach numerous times each week.
They are super busy and almost always the poor controller is working several freq's. We just have to listen up and be patient, and vigilant. Those guys and gals are just flat overworked right now for a bunch of reasons we just can't see from the cockpit.
You made a great call and you deserve respect for doing so.
Be safe and it's still beats working..

Wonderful flights this morning

There are too many things to do in the early morning: go for a walk before it gets hot, do the writing and safety research that I woke up thinking about, or go flying. This morning, flying won, with the hope that the 700 scattered layer wouldn't develop like it so often does. It didn't.

I always get nervous when I look in the tanks and see only a half inch of gas, even though the dipstick says 8 gallons or so. I headed off to a nearby airport, not really expecting the air at 1600 feet to be 88 degrees when the surface temperature was 73... The gas receipt proved that there was at least 8 gallons on each side when I left.

I hand flew coming back, and I have become a "child of the magenta," meaning that I can't hand fly worth a hoot. My button pushing skills are pretty good, and that's a right handy skill to have, but not the only skill I want.

This morning, there were three controllers on duty and I had the pattern mostly to myself. Sweet! About half the time there was another plane taking off or landing, but never a factor. Also, the air was free of the perpetual up- and down-drafts, so i was able to practice things like power off landings that otherwise are a lesson in futility.

Today's emphasis was 60 knots on final approach to a precision landing. Sort of. It's easy enough to drag it in at 60, but that's cheating. I'm still polishing my "technique" with the recent addition of the constant speed prop, and even with that extra drag, the RV-9A doesn't slow down all that quickly. I was consistently high, and needed to fly a bigger pattern to let the plane slow down on final. I did get the stall warning horn on earlier in the flare than on any earlier flights as I worked to get my skills back to where I think they should be -- which is to say, dang near perfect.

One procedure that doesn't help is that I climb at 100 knots, both for engine cooling and to keep the deck angle under control, then slow to 80 knots on downwind. 80 knots feels good, but I also want to make 70 knots feel good. Back in the C172 days, I could fly the whole pattern at 80 mph till final, no problem.

Practice, practice, practice. Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.