MEASURING THE IQ OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ATC
Decided to plan a flight out of KABE Lehigh Valley Intl in Pennsylvania today that ended up exposing some of the limits of the artificial intelligence ATC at controlled airports. (I usually fly out of uncontrolled GA only airports.)
The map indicated wind 062 degrees at 11 knots, so I chose GA parking at hangar 10, close to rwy 6 to give the shortest taxi.
I fired up my LongEZ and tuned ATIS only to hear “ILS rwy 6, landings and departures rwy 31”. Indeed there was no “Select Runway” like at an uncontrolled field, so when I requested taxi they cleared me to “… hold short rwy 31, contact tower when ready”. ATC panel became totally useless with no way to cancel the clearance. (I had a suspicion that if I requested IFR departure they would have given me rwy 6 and perhaps I could have cancelled IFR in flight.)
I taxi’d as cleared and when at the hold for rwy 31, my AI ATC switched to tower freq. and I was cleared for take off on 31.
Once up, I turned east as planned but then decided to cut it short and requested full stop landing. I was told told to turn left for landing runway 6. I was feeling good as I joined downwind for rwy 6, but was then told “follow the traffic to land runway 6”
I looked left and saw heavy metal on final to rwy 6. Guess the ATC doesn’t enforce separation behind the big boys. I extended my downwind a bit just in case the turbulence might be modeled in MSFS, and then proceeded to land without incident. (I didn’t want to be one of those spinning airplanes I’ve seen.)
