ATC's dont reply to text pilot

[Thomas Ecker 1476027]

Hello there,

 

I have got some issues in the last couple of days. I fly text only and my remark is ATC's put these pilots to the back of the queue when need to give direction on while I am on route. It happens in Russia and to be clear there was no event or heavy traffic around the airport.

 

For example this happened me not once: I am on approach and have given FL to descend from CTR but after that dont get further descend even if I am asking 3 times and at FAF still for example on FL070. Get no response for 5 or 6 minutes and dont get hand over to approach. And when I get handed over to Approach who is ringig me 3 times but did not get clearance from the CTR to switch channel I get tell off what am I doing but this is clearly not my fault isnt it? I just try to follow the rules and I dont want to do for what I did not get clearance to do. I understand it can be busy sometimes for ATC but on approach this kills the whole joy just to worry about you will get the directions on time and makes me frustrated.

 

I am writing this because it started to happen in daily manner.

 

Am I doing something wrong?

[Andreas Fuchs]

Currently we are experiencing unprecedented amounts of traffic and not everyone is up to speed. I just finished a 4 hour session in Germany and I was sinking and drowning at least 2 or 3 times during this session. I probably missed some text messages as well! And one poor pilot got vectored through localizer 3 times, because I allowed myself to get distracted by other traffic...

[Torben Andersen]

No, I don't think you're doing anything wrong. And naturally ATC should also handle text pilots in a timely manner.

But one needs to understand, that in a high traffic load situation, dealing with text pilots can be a slow and comebersome task for many controllers, depending on the setup of their alias files in the radar client.

In a not so densely situation one would not expect this to be an issue. But another thing is also at large here: LANGUAGE.

Proficiency in English also differs depending on wether it is the spoken or the written language. Many people, who have English as a second (or even third) language are more confident in using the spoken word rather than the written. Let's face it - the written word differs immencely from the spoken one and the sound of the letters, well - try to explain how to pronounce the word "enough" (and this is by far not the most difficult of examples).

In Russia there is even another thing to remember - the Cyrillic alphabet! A keyboard, which might not have Latin letters on it (or the location of the individual letters on the keyboard is not in your everyday memory ), is not the easiest one to use for writing a message to you in English. Being a Dane myself I'm used to 3 letters, which you won't find easily on your English keyboard: æ, ø, å.

 

This is ment as a possible explanation - not an excuse. VATSIM controllers should communicate with you in English (and/or the local lingo), but can be a challenge for us non-native-English speakers.

 

That is why I urge all users of VATSIM to communicate on voice (if you're not having a speach dissability or unable to raise the funding for a headset). It's usually faster and you can also as controller better get a feeling for the pilot's capabilities and correct mistakes. But on VATSIM text pilots are very welcome and we'll try to accomodate you, just as voice pilots. But it can be a challenge sometimes.

[Michael Kuhne]

Sometimes text pilots are forgotten, if the screen is not kept up to date by deleting the text messages in the main window for example. And if it's busy I tend not to detect new text messages, as they are not that prominent compared to the aural inputs from the pilots. But that isn't an excuse, as a proper scanning should make you awar of a pilot being way to high at the FAF and the ATC instructions should still be given in due time.

I'm using EuroScope by the way.

 

Language shouldn't be a factor, as with EuroScope any instruction for a text pilot is alredy entered as text and can be sent without manually having to write an instruction. If your vACC has a good Alias-file, if this required at all for the basic commands.

[Thomas Ecker 1476027]

Than you for the answers.

In these situations mostly there were no more than 10 planes under the CTR. I always check the traffic on simware, so I would not say it was that busy.
Okay, then I have to live with this situation, just I feel a bit akward to ask one thing more as I think it makes the ATC frustrated and I dont want any argue with anyone.

[Andreas Fuchs]

 

The solution: use voice whenever circumstances permit.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

Just now, Thomas Ecker 1476027 said:

Than you for the answers.

In these situations mostly there were no more than 10 planes under the CTR.

You might be surprised how busy ten planes can make a frequency, if they put their minds to it.

[Trevor Hannant]

 

Don't think you'll get any different solutions here to your thread at VATSIM UK tbh...

https://community.vatsim.uk/topic/36656 ... xt-pilots/

What you haven't said here, but only there after a direct question, is that you have a problem with voice not coming through to you due to some technical issue. Perhaps it would be a better tack to request some assistance in resolving that issue so that you can take better advantage of the tools available to you? So, for starters:

- what sim are you using (and version number)?
- what pilot client are you connecting to the network with (and version number)?
- in your audio settings, what have you selected for the input/output devices?

Can you provide a screenshot of your audio settings in your pilot client? As this forum doesn't allow attachments, you'll need to upload this to a photo/file sharing site then provide a link to it via the 'Insert Image' button above...

[Frank Grivel]

Your problem isn't unique to being text only; my past few flights I've been "forgotten" by various controllers because of workload and I fly voice. The amount of pilots the past few weeks has exploded and controllers at busy airports and in busy FIRs have a massive workload. Add to that constant stepping on each other, inexperienced pilots struggling to keep up, and inability to split FIRs consistently because of controller availability and it can be quite a chaos. 

 

That being said, as a controller (even with a decent alias file), if I have 20 aircraft all needing instructions and moving around, I'm talking more or less non stop already and text pilots unfortunately are lower on my priority list (especially if they're not moving on the ground). 

 

Controllers much prefer voice pilots for efficiency and speed. As others have stated, if you have the ability to use voice and it's a question of "voice jitters," I'd suggest trying voice at least. I understand that there are reasons that preclude some pilots from using voice and I do my best to accommodate, but unless I can get a decent speech to text plugin for my scope the speed at which I can help you is going to remain an issue for the foreseeable future. 

 

In other words: I understand that it's frustrating, but bear with us and we'll do the best we can.