lionel wrote:
Another, this time recurring, TWR at my homebase always calls you with a “reminder” of your taxi clearance as soon as you stop after vacating the runway for your after landing checklist. Which on a somewhat more complex airplane, I’d rather not multitask with the taxi.
My examiner would flunk me if I tried to clean up before having stopped after having vacated the runway.
lionel wrote:
I also had an example of that a few months ago. I got my descent clearance not a moment too soon, along with a request of an ETE to a reporting point (which is also basically the point one should be at/close to circuit height, about 4nmi from the ARP). I decided to first establish my descent and I’d think about the ETE then. ATC insisted to get the ETE, I answered something along the lines of “busy, estimate later”; in hindsight “busy, call you back with estimate” would have been better.
Suggest you use just “standby”. It is a catch all for I am busy will come back to you later.
JasonC wrote:
Suggest you use just “standby”. It is a catch all for I am busy will come back to you later.
Second that. I wouldn’t worry about providing reasons for why I’m busy. “Standby” is standard phraseology and is the best way to put the other side to silence, as no response is expected.
ATC themselves do it all the time… Although they sometimes seem to prefer “I call you”.
Peter wrote:
“Nobody” flies using visual nav
I was contributing to a TRUCE conference organised by a medium sized airport, which was attended by ATCOs from maybe half a dozen other medium sized airports. Be thinking Birmingham-sized, though I am not sure whether Birmingham was an actual attendee.
Although my talk was supposed to be about my Scilly Isles accident, and the CRM background, they soon latched onto the fact that I was very experienced GA pilot who had flown all over Europe and the world and they were full of questions to help their understanding (which is exactly what TRUCE is all about, and the conference chair/moderator decided to throw away the agenda and let the wide ranging discussion run its course.)
The one question that left me baffled and saddened came from one ATCO but was clearly also troubling many others. “I don’t understand why so many VFR flightplans contain airways waypoints? I mean, how do they even know they are there from VFR navigation?”
I am not knocking this ATCO for asking the question, nor the others for agreeing that it was a good question. If they don’t know, they should ask, and I was able to tell them.
But it shows a woeful disconnect between the worlds of Class D controllers and of VFR pilots.
But I think that there is also a disconnect between @Peter’s understanding of the world and reality. Maybe “nobody” among PLU flies without GPS, but you would be surprised how many pilots either don’t carry it or don’t know how to use it, especially at the wooden/Rotax/Volkswagen end of the market.
So, what with controller ignorance and the ignorance of some of our more downmarket friends, I think that “nobody” is a big overstatement.
That’s why I put “nobody” in quotes, and a smiley after it 
It is hard to do more…
There is another huge disconnect: between those who fly from A to B (where A-B is not a trivial distance like 30nm, i.e. you can almost see the destination from circuit height) and those who don’t. Obviously both kinds of flying are enjoyable, and the latter type costs a lot less money, but the latter type doesn’t require any kind of “navigation”.
The above is obviously an over-simplification because there is a whole spectrum of mission profiles, and I see plenty of guys, in their 60s and 70s, around with maps and rulers and slide rules (usually they wear yellow jackets in the restaurant) but I am sure you get the idea… The pilots who get into trouble with ATC like the OP are hardly going to be the locals.
Probably one issue is that an ATC license no longer requires a PPL, like it used to decades ago (in the UK).
Another is that GPS is still not really in the PPL syllabus. Where I hang out, it’s like it was in 2000 when I did mine.
So VRPs will carry on, for ever. And pilots “going places” will need to get themselves a GPS which shows them. The current Garmins all do, fortunately, and I think all the tablet products do too. This is all a part of the “WW1 VFR world” which will always exist because it represents the lowest item on the flying school price list and represents the regulatory/political quid pro quo in aviation regulation (GA could not exist if ATC could not deny a CAS clearance, and be able to do so without giving a reason).
However the huge overriding thing in this thread is ATC telling a pilot to come back and land.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
However the obligation to file a FP when more than 50NM over water exists.
Never heard of that one. However, I know that you have to file flightplan if you cross territorial borders, and that is 12 NM from the shoreline as agreed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. After 12 NM it is international waters and pirates can roam free (not really).
E.g. flying within Sweden a flightplan is not required. However, flying from mainland Sweden to Gotland requires a flight plan, due to flying over international waters, despite the fact that no other country resides in the between.
I was told recently that it is not required to file a plan between Dresden and Straubing, despite crossing the Czech border, twice.
Timothy wrote:
I was told recently that it is not required to file a plan between Dresden and Straubing, despite crossing the Czech border, twice.
Czech Republic and Germany (and a few more countries) have a special agreement.
Well here in Oz they certainly have hammered it down:
The pilot in command of an aircraft must comply with air
traffic control instructions.
Penalty: 50 penalty units, strict liability
Even:
The pilot in command of an aircraft must not allow the aircraft
to … leave a control area; if the movement or operation is not in accordance with an air traffic control clearance
