PilotEdge Forums

I am flying almost daily on PE, nowadays mostly in ZLA, and usually in the morning - which is afternoon in Europe.
Quite often I observe the controller being kind of annoyed when pilots are stepping on each other, but from a pilot point of view, I do not know how to avoid it to a 100%. Often, I do not hear any transmissions on the frequency, so I go ahead with my IFR clearance request, and then comes the controller response like "guys...again three people at the same time". I understand of course that it very difficult for the controller to handle multiple incoming calls, and would love to help, but how can I avoid this situation? Of course I know that I need to wait when an IFR clearance is ongoing, to let the pilot do the read back, but what when the "line" is apparently free?

Thanks, Thomas

The controller is saying "three at once" not necessarily to imply that people did something wrong (often it is unavoidable, same in real life, if 3 people are initiating a cold call at the same time...such as 3 ppl calling at once for taxi at JFK when the ground freq is clear). The controller might be saying that simply to let people know that he/she may not have been able to pick up exactly who was calling. It's also a sign to anyone else who was thinking of calling to wait until the 3 other aircraft get addressed, etc.

There isn't much you can do other than what you're doing already by the sounds of things. Solider on.