Flew two Boston to JFK flights tonight. First flight was flown with the Boeing 747-400 and was uneventful. The second flight, on the other hand, was quite interesting. What was normally supposed to be a 30-minute flight ended up lasting over two HOURS with five attempts at landing. The first attempt I didn't like, so I went around. Second attempt, when I was on base, the controller realized he had me too close to a Korean Air Boeing 747-400, so he had me fly on base for a bit longer, then make a 130-degree turn to go on final. That didn't work out too well, as he had me too high up, so I went around again. The third time, he had me turn on final too soon, and as I was coming in, I decided I wasn't making it. The transmission? "Air Kevin 124 heavy....yeah, this ain't happening...." So went around again. As I was on my fourth approach, I was cleared for the visual approach. On the final approach, I was about to ask the controller for my landing clearance. The problem? The pilot of United 197 was taking bloody forever to read back his clearance for his flight from JFK to PHILADELPHIA. I tried slowing my jet as much as I could, but to no avail. Once I hit decision height, I went around once again. When United 197 FINALLY finished his readback, I told the controller I was going around once again. I was at about 1,800 when that happened after climbing from 200, so goes to show you how long this guy took. When I was finally given my landing clearance on the fifth approach, I read back my clearance, telling him "Cleared to land runway three one right, hopefully we actually make it this time, Air Kevin 124 heavy." I eventually made it down the fifth time....although seeing the amount of fuel I still had on board that Boeing 767-300ER, I probably could have gone around at least sixteen times....not that I was planning on it.

Lol well done Kevin, sounds like fun.

Yikes! Five times must be a new record. Adorable patience has been proven. ^_^ I'd say it's a win in every regard. Forcing a landing would have been bad.

 

If it had been me with the readback, you would have seen some more. :blush: And if it had been me with the landing, maybe with the Concorde, my fuel would have been gone way sooner. Makes me think.

I hope you weren't busting for the toilet lol.

 

Makes you appreciate the benefits of having a Tower controller when they're there, instead of someone that has to share the load. Clearances can take some time, thankfully I've been on the ground mostly when waiting to get a word in during clearances.

 

That also makes me think I should be careful planning my extra and hold fuel. Normally I only have enough fuel for maybe 3 go arounds max.

Yikes! Five times must be a new record. Adorable patience has been proven. ^_^ I'd say it's a win in every regard. Forcing a landing would have been bad.

Yeah, admittedly, I put in a lot of fuel, not realizing that for a 767, I didn't need nearly as much fuel as I actually did. I pretty much had enough fuel to do another eleven go-arounds if I really needed to....not that I was planning on it.

I hope you weren't busting for the toilet lol.

Fortunately I wasn't.

Makes you appreciate the benefits of having a Tower controller when they're there, instead of someone that has to share the load. Clearances can take some time, thankfully I've been on the ground mostly when waiting to get a word in during clearances.

Yeah, well, this pilot really had no idea what he was doing. When he initially asked for clearance, New York Center put him on standby, and the pilot got impatient. Then when he finally got his clearance, he took forever trying to read it back, pretty much not having much of a clue what he was doing. It didn't get any better when I finally landed. We all got switched over to New York Approach, and when I tuned in, he pretty much wasn't following instructions. From what I heard, he pushed 300 knots and nearly ran into the guy that departed before him. He blamed it on the autopilot, with the controller telling him he didn't need the autopilot and he had the exact same problem the previous day. Needless to say the supervisor got called in. What happened there, I have no idea. Suffice it to say, New York Approach held a guy on the runway while he was dealing with the United pilot, and when I called in asking if I could turn onto KK, he got confused and started to tell me I could turn there, but he'd have me hold by the runway while he was dealing with the non-compliant aircraft. Well....that's nice, but I was an arrival.

That also makes me think I should be careful planning my extra and hold fuel. Normally I only have enough fuel for maybe 3 go arounds max.

Yeah, normally, I don't carry that much fuel, either, but in this case, I put in more fuel than I actually needed, not realizing the 767 didn't need that much fuel for that flight. Figures I'd based that fuel load off of what I would need for a 747 with the same engines....

 

After I'd finally landed, New York Center, prior to switching me over to New York Approach, told me that if I hadn't been issued a landing clearance at a certain point, I should have asked for it. Well....I tried to, but United took so long with reading back his clearance that short of jumping on the frequency while he was reading back, I couldn't.

Well, today was certainly an interesting one as well. This time was a Boston to LaGuardia flight in a Boeing 737-800. Departure was rather uneventful aside from the fact that I got set up for a cruise altitude that was literally half the altitude of what I wanted. Oh, well. As I approached VALRE on the HAARP 2 arrival, I was put in a hold at VALRE at 11,000 feet doing 210 knots. A couple minutes later, after a shift change, the new controller let me continue my approach to LaGuardia. After switching over to final controller, I was cleared for the ILS for runway 22. There were two problems. The final controller had set me up too high (which incidentally was the second time tonight he did that, the first time having occurred on the previous flight from Dulles to LaGuardia in my Boeing 757-200) and as I tried getting down, I was hit by windshear. I ended up going around tried telling the controller I was doing so. First radio call, nothing happened. After about twenty seconds, I made a second radio call. Nothing happened. Another twenty seconds. I made a third radio call. Nothing happened. After only eleven seconds, I made a fourth radio call and eventually got switched over back to final controller. After a few turns here and there, I was on my second approach to 22, but as I turned on final, I was heading straight towards another 737, WestJet 1236. Final controller ended up having him do a 360 as I made my approach.

 

Second approach wasn't much better. I hit windshear once again, and on the second go-around, I decided I was going to divert to JFK because I was starting to run low on fuel. Tower controller switched me over to final controller, and when I contacted final controller again, I informed him that I was diverting to JFK and running low on fuel. He ended up switching me over to departure controller, but on initial contact, departure controller told me I was on the wrong frequency. I told him the approach controller had told me to contact him and that I was running low on fuel and diverting to Kennedy. At that point, he instructed me to make a right turn, and he'd bring me back to LaGuardia. NO!!!! That's NOT what I said I was going to do. I had to reiterate what my intentions were, wasting time in the process since I was running low on fuel. I was not too thrilled at that point. So he had me make a left turn and contact the Kennedy approach controller. When I initially contacted the approach controller, a couple planes started contacting him around the same time, and the controller ended up giving them instructions. Must have been about two minutes or so before he finally got to me, and I was not amused. He gave me a set of instructions, which got cut off, and when I asked him to repeat himself, he started giving other aircraft instructions instead. Seriously? Eventually, he turned me on final for 31 left, and when I got closer to the runway, I realized I was much too high....again. What is it with controllers setting me up too high.

 

I had absolutely no time to execute a go-around because I would have ran out of fuel if I did that, so I ended up making a 360 to get my altitude down. I finally made it down with only 1,000 pounds of fuel to spare. Not good at all, considering I'd already burned 3,000 pounds of my reserve fuel.

 

As for the earlier 757 flight from Washington to LaGuardia? Only thing unusual was that I'd exited the runway far earlier than anybody had expected, so I ended up cutting somebody off. Not that we were ever in any danger of colliding since he was a good 500 feet or so away from me.

Man I never have these kind of adventures, most times I end up on Unicom when the controller logs off after I'm about ready for takeoff. Or worse I have to fly offline due to distractions...

I need to fly in the US I think to experience some of this fun, you should be happy it's certainly not getting boring hey

Man I never have these kind of adventures, most times I end up on Unicom when the controller logs off after I'm about ready for takeoff. Or worse I have to fly offline due to distractions...

I need to fly in the US I think to experience some of this fun, you should be happy it's certainly not getting boring hey

What you need to do is go on the VATSIM website to see when they have events scheduled. Last night, they had an event at LaGuardia, so there was plenty of traffic there along with traffic at JFK. I guess they stationed controllers elsewhere as they probably figured most people would fly shorter flights since I saw a bunch of people at Boston heading to LaGuardia as well.

Yeah I can see some events there now, I'll need to keep an eye on that and get more organised instead of just checking vatspy. I guess vatspy is kind of a bit behind because if people are already flying i've missed the start

Sydney has a "panic stations" event coming up in a couple of weeks Dan, give that a go!

Usually what I do is I'll plan an inbound flight, so I arrive around the beginning of the event. So if the event starts 7:00 PM, I might start getting set up around 6:30 PM and get the plane rolling, so by the time I get to my destination, it'll be a little bit past 7:00 PM. The first event I participated in on VATSIM in December took place at O'Hare, what happened was I took off from Minneapolis on to O'Hare, flew back to Minneapolis, then back to O'Hare again before heading over to New York.

Sounds like good ideas