Narrative:

I understand that safety third is sometimes part of our occupation; however clearing us legally as opposed to safely was grossly misused in this scenario. I see these situations frequently and believe it is primarily due to a generation of ATC who have not been freely allowed access to the cockpit operations in real-time; as they were prior to the events of 9-11. Why are helicopters and airliners in the same space and altitude? This is ridiculous and I have had many TA alerts on approach and a couple of RA alerts due to this conflict. ATC often asks for things that will obviously effect the stability of an approach. I sincerely believe that there is a bit of disconnect between ATC and pilots; each not knowing just what the other is required and/or able to do. Ride alongs would be nice again; and not what is currently in place. Something more along the lines of ATC having the access to jumpseat in our cockpits on their time off. I feel that some administrators made the decision to 'tie their hands' and only allow structured jumpseating and only during paid shifts because they didn't like the idea of controllers having access to run off to the beach on their time off. I would love for them to run off to the beach. I don't care where they jumpseat to or why; I care that they observe and pass along what they see to their peers. The more access; the better understanding for both sides. The ATC/pilot relationship was much more in sync when they had that freedom.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A320 Captain reported being issued a visual approach while ATC left them unreasonably high.

Narrative: I understand that safety third is sometimes part of our occupation; however clearing us legally as opposed to safely was grossly misused in this scenario. I see these situations frequently and believe it is primarily due to a generation of ATC who have not been freely allowed access to the cockpit operations in real-time; as they were prior to the events of 9-11. Why are helicopters and airliners in the same space and altitude? This is ridiculous and I have had many TA alerts on approach and a couple of RA alerts due to this conflict. ATC often asks for things that will obviously effect the stability of an approach. I sincerely believe that there is a bit of disconnect between ATC and pilots; each not knowing just what the other is required and/or able to do. Ride alongs would be nice again; and not what is currently in place. Something more along the lines of ATC having the access to jumpseat in our cockpits on their time off. I feel that some administrators made the decision to 'tie their hands' and only allow structured jumpseating and only during paid shifts because they didn't like the idea of controllers having access to run off to the beach on their time off. I would love for them to run off to the beach. I don't care where they jumpseat to or why; I care that they observe and pass along what they see to their peers. The more access; the better understanding for both sides. The ATC/pilot relationship was much more in sync when they had that freedom.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.