ATC Shenanigans

[scooter]

Enjoy

[Ifor]

Brilliant. More please if poss

[eatthis]

that last 1 cracked me up but they were all funny 

[lancer]

I've read these ones before, but they're always a delight to read again and always draw a chuckle or three

[PR19_Kit]

Tower :- Cessna 132Charlie, you have conflicting traffic, altitude unknown, passing right to left directly over the railroad track.

Cessna 132Charlie :- Roger that, we have the traffic in sight. It's a train............

[Weaver]

<callsign> : Centre, request clearance to flight level four-zero, over.

<centre> (dripping with sarcasm) : Well, Sir, if you can get your crate up to forty thousand feet, you're welcome to try, Sir...., over.

<callsign> : Centre, we are a US Air Force SR-71 Blackbird, requesting permission to descend to flight level four-zero, over...

[kerick]

Cessna pilot who asked Center for a read-out of his ground speed. Center replied: "November Charlie 175, I'm showing you at ninety knots on the ground."

Twin Beech pilot asking for his ground speed.
Center replied: "I have you at one hundred and twenty-five knots of ground speed."

F-18 pilot: "Center, Dusty 52 ground speed check."
Center replied: "Dusty 52, Center, we have you at 620 on the ground."

SR-71 crew: "Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?"
Center replied: "Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground."

Full story here; http://www.econrates.com/reality/schul.html

[kitbasher]

Ah, SR-71s. I worked those years ago at the London Centre. And flights of tooled up Buffs crosing airways en-route to rearrange parts of Iraq.

On a couple of occasions I was the radar team leader at Brize Norton for Fairford RIATs (I think I still hold the record for no diversions on the main Friday arrivals day) when inbound Red 10 imperiously informed  colleague that 'he was expected', to which said colleague replied 'so are the 16 ahead of you'. Red 10 went a bit quiet then.

The most chilling thing I recall was when I was Brize Director working an inbound Hercules. First contact always required confirmation of numbers on board. Reply was 'thirty, six souls'.  The aircraft was repatriating bodies from the first Gulf War; the 'six souls' were the crew.  Needless to say the Albert was handled with care.

[PR19_Kit]

My No. 2 daughter, her who's 'The RAF's Best etc etc', was Director in the Tower at Odiham one year at the time of the build-up for Farnborough and it was a tad chaotic. Odiham handles a lot of the F'boro traffic as it's only a short distance away and tends to act as 'overspill' for some of the GA stuff that would normally go to F'boro and she was already handling a lot of Odiham's Chinooks who were trundling around Hampshire at low altitude.

The GA stuff was nicely all slotted into parking spaces on the ramp, and the Wokkas were still trundling around when F'boro tower called up and said there were two heavies inbound to F'boro and they were about to change runways to 06, where the approach is almost directly overhead Odiham. Anita's response was to look heavenwards with a glance of resignation and call 'All aircraft local area Odiham maintain current position', which may not be in the 'RAF's Handbook of Standard Air Traffic Calls' but achieved the desired object of keeping the Wokka's out of the way of the inbound heavies!

It would only work at a station where they only had helicopter traffic of course, but her SATCO nodded sagely and commented that it was probably the best solution under the circumstances. 

[kitbasher]

A certain ex-Boscombe Down SATCO in the late 1990s asked the RAF's ATC HQ collective brains what the overdue action requirements for airships were (there was an airship at Boscombe at the time).  He had a solution of course, just wanted to taunt his lords and masters.

And no, marking off the days on a calendar wasn't suggested.  Well, not officially!