I ain't a pilot but am I wrong to think that if the pilot say they doing checklist = he is not ready for take off? Aren't checklist completed before he gets to the runway in take off position? Also why is he taking a phone call while doing take off procedures?



Are pilots allowed to argue with controllers?

Dublin is notorious for complex taxi procedures and taxiway/runway structures. Sounds like the BA (Speedbird) cabin took some time getting ready, and that they reported ready («phone call» was really the cabin reporting ready to the pilots via the interphone, since the cockpit door is locked before pushback) just as the lady in DUB TWR started working herself up, and the BA pilots were just conpleting their line-up checklist, which is the final one before departure. It is, as the name implies, completed as you line up, and consists of very few items. In the A320 series that BA fly, and that I fly, it is typically something like:

Takeoff RWY - confirm
TCAS - TA/RA
Packs - off

Some airlines have «cabin report - received» on the line-up checklist as well, hence they are unable to complete it if ATC keeps nagging at them while they are actually lining up.

As for the second one at JFK, if the pilots say they are unable to fly certain speeds, ATC can’t magically make them. A 747, which is pretty heavy, maintaining 180 kts until 5 miles out is pretty unrealistic if it is to be slowed down to its final approach speed and fully configured at 1000 ft AGL, which is at about 3 miles. The general rule in most airlines calls for the aircraft to be fully stabilized at 1000 ft above field level. That is, gear down, flaps in landing configuration and speed at a maximum of approach ref plus 20 kts. In a heavily loaded 737 or A320 I would struggle to get configured by 1000 ft if I kept 180 kts until 5 miles, so I guess it’s not really doable in a 747.

We do try to comply with ATC instructions, but it’s not always possible, and in those cases the magic word is «unable,» at which point the good controllers are sorted from the not so good. A good one keeps his/her cool and sorts it out, a bad one starts huffing and puffing.
A good example of a situation where we just can’t easily comply with instructions would be if we’re descending at 250 kts, and ATC wants us to slow to 220 and increase rate of descent to reach our cleared altitude sooner. Now, we’re descending in idle thrust, so the only way to increase ROD is to speed up, but since we were asked to slow to 220, that reduces our ROD significantly for a while until we’re at 220, so at this point we tactfully inform ATC that they can have one or the other. We do have some tools at our disposal. Some like speedbrakes, but I tend to avoid using them, as they only give you an extra 2-300 fpm descent rate and cause some vibration in the aircraft. In the 737 you can use flaps 1 below 250 kts, which also hangs the slats out a notch and give you a much better rate of descent without the vibrations from the spoilers. But… «unable» works very well

Thank you semmern, I learn a lot from your detailed answer.

I seen some Air Traffic and Aircraft radio convo videos on YouTube where the Traffic controller are speaking very quick and their English is not very clear cause it's in another country.

How do you understand all that in one time? I was the pilot I would be saying repeat please! Speak slowly please! I don't understand what you just told me to do.

Also some of the controllers are mean and not polite. I see that a lot in videos of New York airport.

Air Traffic controller don't take classes in operation of aircraft and flight and related science before sitting in the control tower?

is it true if the ATC call you on the phone , its really bad ?

Actually the pilot is instructed to call the tower because a situation needs to be discussed. Most likely the pilot committed some infraction.

There is an ongoing struggle between controllers and pilots. Each feels they have the more “in charge” position. They can both be right or wrong depending.

They do, but energy management is very individual to aircraft type, and even load on that specific flight, so it is impossible to predict from the control center/tower. Some pilots like to hang everything out from a great distance, but that causes drag, noise and higher fuel burn. I like to wait as long as possible before extending the gear, for example, as that increases noise and drag by quite a bit. A good ballpark figure for speeds for mid-size planes is 180 kts to 6 miles and 160 to 4. Some airports that practice reduced separation on final, such as London Heathrow, have this as a requirement on the approach plate. If unable, you need to inform the controllers as soon as possible, and they will try to accomodate you.

Then you also have to meet the "stabilized" requirements.

I am content I only need to know to drive automobile. Piloting is just complicated. You would think the computers on it will fly the plane with no need for humans.

You’d be surprised how incredibly dumb the automated systems are on even the most advanced aircraft are.

Well, you have two highly trained expensive pilots sitting in the cockpit, why would you go high automation. I think even the collision avoidance system (TCAS) only tells the pilots to climb or dive to avoid a collision, it does not actively take control to do so (which they need to follow since the crash above Lake Constance), right?!
To go high/full automation only really makes sense, if you can actually replace one of the pilots with such a system. I remember such a discussion on this board a few years back.where one of "our" pilots said that he'd quit the day that his co-pilot was replaced by a computer. iirc the discussion was a bit different, to the point where I thought that he even got one point wrong, in the sense that he thought that he would still be the pilot flying and the computer the pilot monitoring - I think it would be the other way around.

Basically similar to the increased automation in cars - the computer more and more takes the control, while the driver is the safety monitor and "fail operational" fallback

As for the videos, in the first, if I'm not mistaken a flight books a 30mins(?) time slot in which he wants (and once booked needs) to make his departure. To me it sounds like they are late and going out of queue would completely wreck their schedule,, impossible to catch up, esp. on a fairly short trip from Dublin to London. Might be that that's why he is desparately hogging to his place in queue, at the cost of everybody else behind and some go-arounds for planes in the air.

As for the second, I think in a stream a real-life pilot once said that betwen pilot and Air Traffic Control, it's a cooperation, but in the end the ATC provides requests with the final decision on the pilot. It's not quite that black-and-white, like the pilot at hand could not just press on with his landing approach once the operator told him to go around - you know, the kind of landings I keep doing while simming - f* the virtual MSFS ATC; it needs good reasons to not comply with their request. As semmers said, the (real) pilot knows the capabilities and (as per youtube comments) in case of this video the safety regulations for the 747 of his carrier (=airline) to which he needs to adhere, and so he is right to reject the ATC request.

The Airbus 320 Neo and the A350 actually have the capability to fly TCAS resolution advisories automatically under some conditions. It turns out that almost 40% of RAs include the pilots flying the opposite way of the system command. This, to crack open another can of worms, says a lot about the current state of pilot training rather than the capabilities of systems, etc. One has to remember that commercial flight schools are out to make a profit, and some will push people through who maybe should have been told to find another career. I have worked for one of those schools myself for some years as an instructor, and it is not always easy to get the point across to the school management when you feel that one of your students isn’t quite up to it. For the school, of course, extra lessons mean $$$/£££/€€€, and are not always viewed as bad things.

True Semmern.
When I did my Falcon 20 training in Velizy Villacoublay early on I met a student from an arabian country that was on his 5th or 6th initial.
You would be scared if you heard the answers he gave during oral examinations.
I hope he still hasn`t made it.

Good money for the facilities though.

same goes for auto schools....but no one cares, because the schools make a profit and the state will make money with tickets....the difference is a acident on planes will kill a lot more people.

Well, on a per incident basis you mean. On aggregate a lot more people die in auto accidents than plane crashes every year.

you can be rescued on car acident panzer, in a plane all you can do is hope you have enough seconds for a full prayer.

Why would they put pilots that don't speak and understand English very well to fly international.

Should limit them to fly in China only until they can understand and speak English.

This is a deadly ticking time bomb.

Should they also limit US pilots who don't speak any foreign language (and sometimes only barely english) to domestic ?

FYI chinese IS an ICAO official language, and China (thankfully) doesn't make it mandatory to master for US pilots who fly into China.

JFK has great ATC....... only not every day, at every hour. It's the same for pilots, US or foreigner. There are plenty incidents in JFK involving US pilots vs US ATC, have fun investigating.

ATC doesn't know who cut in line?

These commercials will not fly today

I was on my way to London Heathrow some years ago when ATC had to basically clear the air inbound to the airport for a Chinese airliner just to get it on the ground, they didn’t understand much English at all. That said, people love to make fun of their Engrish when one of the worst places to fly in Europe is to Paris, because of the insistence of French airlines and ATC to communicate in French only. On a major international airport with flights from all over the world, this is incredibly distracting, and can potentially lead to some interesting situations, especially when coupled with a complicated taxiway system and large geographical size of CDG. I know that me and my colleagues talk about it as a threat in our briefings when flying there, and the situational awareness you get when you hear ATC communicating with everyone in English just isn’t there to the same extent when you don’t understand half of what is being said.
My fault for not speaking French, you say? Well, there are six official ICAO/UN languages, and it is a stretch to demand that every pilot speak all six