Oshkosh B'fuckme

The Oshkosh Air Show is the one time of the year everybody and their dog gets into whatever cheap piece of flying machine they've bought, or slapped together in their garage. Their equipment is barely functional, their radios suck, and their knowledge of ATC and ATC phraseology is minimal.

And there are thousands of them that take to the sky and head for Oshkosh.

Most of them fly at or below eight thousand feet. Which really sucks in our Flint Sector where we own to the ground, but can't see anyone below twelve thousand feet.

So we have to dust off our brains and try to remember all those manual separation rules we have to use when we can't see the planes.

I was working the D-side, and GM was working the radar. Here's where the trouble started:

"Center, November one-five would like direct to skdfmas."

GM looks at me, I shrug, I have no idea what the pilot said.

"November one-five, unable."

"Center General Motors two-thirty-four requesting direct destination."

"General Motors two-thirty-four, cleared direct to your destination."

Time passes and we're waiting for November one-five to report ten south of Bad Axe. And waiting. And waiting.

GM finally says: "November one-five, say position."

"Ah, we're five miles east of the Saginaw VOR."

That puts him fifty miles WEST of where he's supposed to be. It also puts him in the center of the Saginaw approach control. We'd done no coordination with Saginaw. This is a big "Oh Shit" moment for us.

I jump on the line with Saginaw. "Saginaw approach, Flint on the twelve."

"Saginaw."

"You see a four-three-one-seven beacon code about five east of your VOR?"

"Yeah. We've been watching him since he entered our airspace."

"He's one of ours that got away from us. It's November seven-zero-one-five. Don't know where he's going, but suspect it's direct to his destination."

Saginaw laughs at me, tells me "Point-out approved" and says they'll let me know when he's radar with Minnie.

See, here's what we figured happened. Because November one-fives radio sucked he missed some of the transmissions. He did snatch up the "direct to your destination" clearance, even though it was for a different aircraft. We never heard him because everyone else on the frequency had a better radio and walked right over his transmissions.

Just something for you general aviation pilots to think about...