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Originally Posted by meritflyer  Sorry. I fly my T182 at FL180-200 sometimes. I file for 170 KTAS.
There are other birds in the sky other than airliners. Those damn jet jocks.  |
Those altitudes are just so bad to fly at from the perspective of ATC. Sectors are broken up into altitude stratum's... generally in a center you'll have FL230 and below, FL240 through somewhere in the 30's, say FL340. Then FL350 and above. FL350 and above is cruising, FL240 - FL340 is cruising and some transition to the higher sectors, and FL230 and below is transition, climbing or descending in and out of the higher FL's and some low level (12000 and below) enroute traffic. The problem is cruising at FL180 - FL230 puts you at the top of that transition sector, not a good place to be for us (ATC). Not only is an A/C flying there... it is flying S L O W ... that A/C just becomes the ultimate fly in the ointment. We have to do a lot of vectoring to get A/C around the slower A/C ... vectoring the slower A/C doesn't work, it's to S L O W ... LOL. A high number of OE's happen to ATC when a high slow A/C is in the sector... it disrupts the flow.
BUT ... that's the nature of the job. It USED to be why we were paid the big bucks...