Narrative:

Thirty miles from airport at 8;000 ft; field elevation is 42 ft; I requested a descent and was refused. At 15 miles out; with field in sight; I again asked to descend and was cleared to 6;000 ft and told to enter the downwind for runway 25. At a point less than five miles from the airport I was cleared for a visual approach to runway 25; and cleared to land. I was immediately told to turn my base leg. I replied that I would have to extend my downwind in order to lose altitude; and received no response. I extended my downwind about four miles turned base and was in the process of turning about a six mile final when jax tower abruptly cancelled my landing clearance and instructed me to make a 180 degree turn to 070 degrees and descent and maintain 2;000 ft. Jax tower then cleared two airliners to land before turning me around and eventually re-clearing me to land. I landed without incident. I called the tower manager to discuss this and he seemed unconcerned. I have flown out of jax for many years and base my aircraft at jax. The new generation of controllers has absolutely no clue about the flight characteristics of light aircraft or that a non-pressurized aircraft cannot descend at 2;000 FPM. At the time I requested to descend there was no conflicting traffic; at least according to my tis system. The controllers at jax have a low workload and there was no excuse for their sloppy; potentially dangerous performance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An IFR PA28 arrival to JAX voiced concern regarding ATC's handling during a visual approach. The reporter claimed that the controller lacked awareness of aircraft performance capabilities.

Narrative: Thirty miles from airport at 8;000 FT; field elevation is 42 FT; I requested a descent and was refused. At 15 miles out; with field in sight; I again asked to descend and was cleared to 6;000 FT and told to enter the downwind for Runway 25. At a point less than five miles from the airport I was cleared for a visual approach to Runway 25; and cleared to land. I was immediately told to turn my base leg. I replied that I would have to extend my downwind in order to lose altitude; and received no response. I extended my downwind about four miles turned base and was in the process of turning about a six mile final when JAX Tower abruptly cancelled my landing clearance and instructed me to make a 180 degree turn to 070 degrees and descent and maintain 2;000 FT. JAX Tower then cleared two airliners to land before turning me around and eventually re-clearing me to land. I landed without incident. I called the Tower Manager to discuss this and he seemed unconcerned. I have flown out of JAX for many years and base my aircraft at JAX. The new generation of controllers has absolutely no clue about the flight characteristics of light aircraft or that a non-pressurized aircraft cannot descend at 2;000 FPM. At the time I requested to descend there was no conflicting traffic; at least according to my TIS system. The controllers at JAX have a low workload and there was no excuse for their sloppy; potentially dangerous performance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.