Being sandbagged

coloradobluesky

coloradobluesky

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Gone West
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coloradobluesky
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Has anyone ever been "sandbagged" by ATC? (refers the practice of putting sand bags in a new guys backpack on maneuvers). You know, its on purpose. I know I have!
 
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I've been given a 360 heading for spacing with a strong north wind aloft. Guess the controller figured he could deal with the other traffic and come back to find me not far from where he left me.
 
I got put into a hold once and the guy said "and you WILL fly the hold, but I don't care how you do it" and then cleared for the approach too, own navigation. I told him I was going to fly it upside down. He said that was OK with him.

There was this Class D airport that wouldn't answer on the freq that was printed on the VFR chart. Some place in Indiana. And their ATIS said to contact them on an 'approach' frequency (not sure what wording they used). I tried contacting the guy on the normal frequency. No answer. So I went over to the approach frequency. He gave me a squack code and then he vectored me and transferred me to a straight in. Then he wanted a 'pirep' on turbulence as I was coming in. It was like he wanted to complicate it tthings to the max. I think he was in training. Nobody else was around.
 
I've gotten to extend downwind and do 360s on downwind - all for spacing, but nothing that wasn't unexpected.
 
Yesterday ,I had filed to a local airport. Weather was not bad ,so I went to cancel IFR and go VFR. I was headed south,when I tried to cancel,I was told to wait while they worked on a clearance and to continue east. They then changed controllers. The new controller had no idea why I was heading east,and waiting for a VFR clearance.
 
There are controllers who have honed it into an art. Those are the ones who delight in giving a pilot a new heading and altitude, timed perfectly so that he has to roll out on the new heading, at the precise moment that he reaches the assigned altitude, resulting in a three-axis acceleration guaranteed to induce vertigo — while reaching for the radio to tune to the new freq he just assigned. I bet if he keyed the mike a little early we’d hear him say, “Hey, Fred, watch this!”


(Just kidding, guys … you know we love you! :) )
 
My particular annoyance was being spun VFR over the top of JYO at exactly the class B floor. This is 300' above JYO's pattern altitude. Yeah, nobody would bust the class B a little bit.

The last time they spun me because they were too obstinate to handle things right they told me just to "circle somewhee." About 15 minutes later they asked where I was and I told them I had been orbitting over the TRACON building.

RADAR CONTACT ...umm... OVER THE TRACON FLY HEADING 330.
 
Pilawt said:
There are controllers who have honed it into an art. Those are the ones who delight in giving a pilot a new heading and altitude, timed perfectly so that he has to roll out on the new heading, at the precise moment that he reaches the assigned altitude, resulting in a three-axis acceleration guaranteed to induce vertigo — while reaching for the radio to tune to the new freq he just assigned. I bet if he keyed the mike a little early we’d hear him say, “Hey, Fred, watch this!”
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SoCal Approach has great controllers, but they do seem to have a particular skill for issuing control- and navigation-juggling instructions.
 
It never happened to me, but being put into a hold and then hear on the ATIS that the ceilings went below minimums and you have to divert. Yuck!
 
jesse said:
I've gotten in before in a 172 when the airliners were having to divert.
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When it's really close, but legal on the ATIS, sometimes the tower controller is smart enough to not give an unfavorable RVR when you check in while still outside the marker.

Same thing with winds. Although occasionally a pilot will screw it all up:

Delta: "LaGuardia, Delta xxx visual 22."
LGA Twr: "Delta xxx, LaGuardia Tower, cleared to land 22."
Delta: "Cleared to land 22, Delta xxx. Wind check."
LGA Twr: "Wind 300 at 28 gust 35."
Delta: "Delta xxx going around."
LGA Twr: "Delta xxx, fly runway heading, climb and maintain 3000"
Unknown: "Dammit, Delta!"

:D
 
Kiddo's Driver said:
I got asked to fly S turns while on an instrument approach...
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Not saying I haven't flown my share of S turns on an approach, however I think my first response to this would be an ummm no, unable.

Then of course, I would have to fly an approach straight.
 
I often get the same clearance, and response. I take off VFR, pick up my iFR clearance in the air which is something like. Nxxx cleared to SIMMN via radar vectors climb and maintain 3,000 expect your final in 10 minutes.

Often I am handed off to Rockford approach before reaching SIMMN (occasioanlly on a vector that won't actually take me there). Where I have to explain my clearance ends at SIMMN which I may or may not ever reach. I try to do this before reaching the fix, as I don't think they would be happy if I did a few laps around the cornfields. I always get you should have been given a full clearance.... Yeah I know. Wait until I do something fun with my final altitude.
 
Reed, if someone at Chicago TRACON is clearing you to the SIMMN intersection when you're picking up a clearance in the air, they're not doing it right...we do have an agreement with RFD to deliver airplanes on a 270 heading though, so although you'll get a clearance via SIMMN, you won't usually actually end up overflying it.

If someone gives you a clearance limit like that again, send me or MarkZ a PM with the details and we can look into it.
 
Jmcmanna said:
Reed, if someone at Chicago TRACON is clearing you to the SIMMN intersection when you're picking up a clearance in the air, they're not doing it right...we do have an agreement with RFD to deliver airplanes on a 270 heading though, so although you'll get a clearance via SIMMN, you won't usually actually end up overflying it.

If someone gives you a clearance limit like that again, send me or MarkZ a PM with the details and we can look into it.
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I have gotten so used to this stuff, that I really don't worry about it. I have had similar conversations after being handed off to South Bend.

I kind of joke that the only reason I got my IR was so Chicago TRACON had to talk to me as I fly in and out of Chicago. 15 years of bad VFR experience has been a challenge to move past. One of the first things my CFI told me when I was working on my private years ago, was that Chicago Approach's radios don't receive VFR.

In the last couple of years, I have gotten to know some of the controllers there and I am very glad to see that there is an effort to change the culture. It is definitely beginning to show. Keep that going and old timers like me will disappear and the ones coming up won't have to overcome the same prejudices.
 
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They always want to send me to KELSI
(leading me to sing the Elvis Costello song...I don't want to go to Kelsi).

One time I'm bopping along IFR at 10,000:

27K: Is there any altitude I can request that will avoid me having to go to KELSI?
C90: Hold on, we'll check.
(pause).
C90: Nope.
27K: Ok, here's what we're going to do. Cancel IFR, climb up to 10,500, go direct Oshkosh and you can give me flight following.
C90: That will work.

For the next ten minutes I listen to them hold MDW departures at 9,000 until they cross in front of me (they did call the traffic). Then they start holding ORD departures at 9,000. Except they miss one. An MD80 climbs in front of me and then starts descending.

MD: Chicago, we just had a TCAS RA
C90: Oh yeah, there's a Navion up there.
27K: I had him in sight.

I've never understood why holding all their departures at 9000' until I pass is preferable to letting me shoot up the lakeshore at 4000 or 6000 which would have been well below all these guys.
 
flyingron said:
They always want to send me to KELSI
(leading me to sing the Elvis Costello song...I don't want to go to Kelsi).

One time I'm bopping along IFR at 10,000:

27K: Is there any altitude I can request that will avoid me having to go to KELSI?
C90: Hold on, we'll check.
(pause).
C90: Nope.
27K: Ok, here's what we're going to do. Cancel IFR, climb up to 10,500, go direct Oshkosh and you can give me flight following.
C90: That will work.

For the next ten minutes I listen to them hold MDW departures at 9,000 until they cross in front of me (they did call the traffic). Then they start holding ORD departures at 9,000. Except they miss one. An MD80 climbs in front of me and then starts descending.

MD: Chicago, we just had a TCAS RA
C90: Oh yeah, there's a Navion up there.
27K: I had him in sight.

I've never understood why holding all their departures at 9000' until I pass is preferable to letting me shoot up the lakeshore at 4000 or 6000 which would have been well below all these guys.
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Depends....if ORD landing to the west, airliners are crossing 3 miles east of the shoreline at 5000 and descending into three parallel runways. Anything inside the B up the shoreline is a conflict somewhere.

But....if ORD is landing to the east, the arrivals are restricted to 7000 and the departures are climbing to 5000, so 5500 or 6500 could potentially be a viable altitude (you WILL have airliners passing 500' below or above your airplane). 6000 is used for UGN/PWK traffic going southbound and MDW/GYY/LOT traffic going northbound.

Either way, there will be a restriction to departing traffic until they're past anyone moving up or down the shoreline, whether it is the default 5000 or working something else out and restricting the traffic beneath you. I would suggest to anyone on the board who flies around Chicago to call and come visit the TRACON and see for yourself.
 
If I recall it was a west operation. Never saw any arrivals but they certainly were calling departures to me and holding them at 9000 while I crossed at 10,5. I've certainly had arrivals called to me as they over take me when I'm outside the class B down around Gary.
 
Matthew said:
I've gotten to extend downwind and do 360s on downwind - all for spacing, but nothing that wasn't unexpected.
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I got a downwind 360 instruction on my first solo (this in a Class C), had never done one in the pattern. No biggie.
 
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I got held while I was on the IAF to an approach in KRAP. Why? An Eclipse Jet was 30 miles behind me in a Seneca, and approach thought he would blow by me. Our approach speeds were the same..... I ended up having to do 3 turns in the hold... at almost $300/hr I was unimpressed with Ellsworth approach.
 
Had a friend get put in the penalty box. He thought my callsign was his and started recovering back to base when the vector was given to me. It confused the ATC and instead of recovering both at the same time, he sent him back to his MOA sector and recovered two other planes before him.
 
A couple of weeks ago I filed for (and got) a direct routing to an airport on the other side of a Class B. This particular leg is something I do often so I was surprised I got it. I filed at the last second and didn't have time to get a typical routing. Even if I file a proper typical routing, many times when I'm about 100 nm out they will give me a rerouting to a different arrival so I was expecting them to do something like that. But they didn't. I was coming in at FL230 and as I got closer and was passed to the final center controller before the approach controller he says "If you're wanting direct I'm going to have to get you a lot lower". So I said fine no problem. I would want to start down soon anyway. So he told me to cross 60 miles short of my destination at 7000 feet. All good and still direct to my destination. This was about 8pm so maybe being a bit later I thought I was going to get lucky.

As soon as I got passed to the approach controller, he immediately turned me south almost at 90 degrees to my direction of flight and said he needed to turn me away from the big airport arrivals. I'm not sure why he didn't bring me right over it I was coming in from the west and landings were to the north. They usually do. He was busy and talking to a fair number of other planes. It was a beautiful clear evening and I had been watching the city lights get brighter and brighter and now they were disappearing as I was heading in the wrong direction outwards. A good number of minutes passed and I now exited the south boundary of the Bravo. So finally got a word in and told him I'm cancelling IFR... He then very sheepishly apologized for the delay, acknowledging I was cancelling but told me I could go direct to my destination across the Bravo and I was cleared into Bravo. :dunno: What was going through my head was that he had been punishing me for expecting a direct clearance across the class B :lol:
 
I was going into KAUS for runway 17L. Approach told me to turn right to heading 090. I asked if I could turn left, he said no, it was to avoid traffic. I complied, right up to the point where I found he was turning me into the traffic.

I made a hard left turn, telling approach what was happening, and my wife asked politely why we were so close to that WWII bomber in front of us. (She had her headset turned down and was reading).

I always remember that it is my life when I am up there, not their's.
 
Never been luck enough to have it happen to me but have heard it happen more than a few times. Most of them were enterprising pilots arguing with a busy tracon controller about stuff they should have kept quiet about and then the spin started.
 
Top This:

1. XC flight Fullerton CA to El Paso TX on FF
2. Approaching PHX from the west (090 heading), handoff to PHX controllers
3. PHX asks if I can turn heading 140 or direct Gila Bend due to arrival corridor conflicts. I confirm I can and am at 11500.
4. Five minutes later PHX comes on with "Tiger xxxxx, radar services terminated squawk VFR, Freq change approved."
5. I query what's up and he indicates I'm outside his "cover area" ... gee, you PUT me here with that vector.
6. They also won't handoff BACK to ABQ center or to Tuscon APP.
7. I decided to refuel in their area, called up for a new squawk and landed Casa Grande.

After getting airborne, I get FF via ABQ CTR and they indicate that controller had jobbed 5 or 6 other AC that morning.
 
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danhagan said:
Top This:

1. XC flight Fullerton CA to El Paso TX on FF
2. Approaching PHX from the west (090 heading), handoff to PHX controllers
3. PHX asks if I can turn heading 140 or direct Gila Bend due to arrival corridor conflicts. I confirm I can and am at 11500.
4. Five minutes later PHX comes on with "Tiger xxxxx, radar services terminated squawk VFR, Freq change approved."
5. I query what's up and he indicates I'm outside his "cover area" ... gee, you PUT me here with that vector.
6. They also won't handoff BACK to ABQ center or to Tuscon APP.
7. I decided to refuel in their area, called up for a new squawk and landed Casa Grande.

After getting airborne, I get FF via ABQ CTR and they indicate that controller had jobbed 5 or 6 other AC that morning.
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After getting cut loose like that, I would immediately make a left turn to the north, resume my previous flight path and **** with his corridor.
 
Can't top that but my limited experience with PHX approach suggests they can get a bit ornery. Maybe just too many balls to juggle.

A few years ago Greensboro KGSO kept me clear of the their quiet little Class C by simply not answering my call ups until they were ready. It happened twice but the 2nd time after changing radios I asked if anyone could hear me on the freq... they responded with a remain clear.
 
EdFred said:
After getting cut loose like that, I would immediately make a left turn to the north, resume my previous flight path and **** with his corridor.
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Agreed - that deserves a reach-around.
 
Bill Watson said:
Can't top that but my limited experience with PHX approach suggests they can get a bit ornery. Maybe just too many balls to juggle.

A few years ago Greensboro KGSO kept me clear of the their quiet little Class C by simply not answering my call ups until they were ready. It happened twice but the 2nd time after changing radios I asked if anyone could hear me on the freq... they responded with a remain clear.
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I have never been a big fan of the GSO controllers...except for when I was flying 121 ops. They would fall all over themselves to take care of me when I was using a 121 call sign. Land and get in my personal ride to go home and they were pricks. Never have liked that facility.
 
I've not had any particular difficulty getting VFR services out of GSO and I've been in and out of GSO and INT IFR a couple of times (I fly through GSO's airspace just about weekly going from my house near IAD to my other one north of CLT).

The only problem I had was they wouldn't do a popup IFR for me and sent me to flight circus (and it wasn't a push or anything just a bitchy controller). By the time I got it all done, I'd managed to work my way up through the scattered layer and was on top.

There used to be a lot of subterfuge where class C's wouldn't answer you until they finally got clarification that they were free to answer you and tell you to stay out of the airspace.
 
flyingron said:
I've not had any particular difficulty getting VFR services out of GSO and I've been in and out of GSO and INT IFR a couple of times (I fly through GSO's airspace just about weekly going from my house near IAD to my other one north of CLT).

The only problem I had was they wouldn't do a popup IFR for me and sent me to flight circus (and it wasn't a push or anything just a bitchy controller). By the time I got it all done, I'd managed to work my way up through the scattered layer and was on top.

There used to be a lot of subterfuge where class C's wouldn't answer you until they finally got clarification that they were free to answer you and tell you to stay out of the airspace.
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So how did that work if you are actually landing at the Class C?
 
They may do this all the time - I've only flown it once - but I flew into Galveston on the CLL.BLUBL3 arrival and after the last fix I figured they'd vector through the Class B on something approximating a routing across the SW portion of the metro area. Nope. As Eminem said I got sent "'round the outside" like two trailer park girls. :-/

I don't think it was personal and this was right about push time so NBD.

My home bravo, Denver, is pretty accommodating in my experience with the caveat that they do have to keep us away from their landing traffic.
 
EdFred said:
So how did that work if you are actually landing at the Class C?
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Same as landing in any other air space, you had to wait until they can work you in.

I've showed up at IAD in a push and had to wait 20 minutes. Back in the day, when I was based at IAD, they'd recognize the Navion and knew I'd not dick around getting to the runway and most times would bring me in obliquly and when there was a gap tell me to dive for the runway.
 
flyingron said:
Same as landing in any other air space, you had to wait until they can work you in.

I've showed up at IAD in a push and had to wait 20 minutes. Back in the day, when I was based at IAD, they'd recognize the Navion and knew I'd not dick around getting to the runway and most times would bring me in obliquly and when there was a gap tell me to dive for the runway.
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Yeah, but when is GSO ever *that* busy? Sounds like laziness.
 
Depends...what was the situation?
 
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