PilotEdge Forums

If you fly on the network a lot, you may have encountered a time where ATC didn't respond to you immediately. What you may not be aware of is that typically, PilotEdge controllers are working multiple frequencies. So, while you are only transmitting/receiving on one frequency, multiple frequencies are merging together and being routed into the controller's ear. This is something that is fairly common in the real world as well and requires a controller to be able to listen to several pilots at once.

Just the other night, one of our controllers encountered some high traffic levels and happened to have 5 pilots call all within about 5-10 seconds of each other. The controller, while unable to respond to everyone simultaneously due to human constraints, was able to listen to everyone who called and within about 30-45 seconds responded to each pilot individually in a strategic order.

Have a listen to the short recording below and keep in mind for your next flight that our controllers may be busy with another aircraft if you don't get an immediate response. As a disclaimer however, if you don't hear anything within 15-20 seconds, I would still recommend trying to call again.
Enjoy!

Saturday, July 27th - 2100 Radar Recording

That recording sounds completely maddening! I don't know how you controllers are able to process multiple calls like that. I'd need to rewind and play each transmission back to figure out what anyone was saying.

This was an unfortunate coincidence of a time where we only had one controller online (becoming less frequent, thankfully), and a relatively large number of pilots.

The next version of the pilot client is likely to include a feature which allows you to hear all the planes a controller is working, not just the ones on the current freq. That will help with a lot of the blocks.

Keith...please remember to take a look at the offsets!