Page 31 - August18T

Cool Your Jets
It grinds me when I call ground: “so and so ground, this is so and so, taxi from Signature with information Delta.” “Roger, so and so. Taxi to Runway 35 intersection Romeo two, via Bravo, Foxtrot and Golf. Cleared to cross 22 on Bravo – information Delta is current, advise when you have Delta.” Major Tom to ground control, didn’t I just tell you that I have Delta!
And it’s getting more and more common to hear a controller admonish a pilot or crew by saying, “Alright guys, you need to listen up. This is the third call and I’m busy here.” But when ATC fails to respond to us: “I have multiple frequencies here” or “Sorry, I was on the land line” or “Sorry, I was offline.” Pilots missing one or two calls directed at their call sign is a daily occurrence and having been one of the non-responsive pilots myself, I know that the reasons for missing a call are numerous and not neces- sarily nefarious. They can include: distractions from passengers or cabin crew, avionics volumes, radio selection, oxygen mask mismanagement, frequency errors or momentarily forgetting your call sign – just to name a few. But how about this for a punch in the gut. Having heard a similar call sign and thinking that perhaps they had missed a call, a pilot asked ATC if they had tried to call them. From the pilot: “Center, did you call 1324 Foxtrot?” ATC’s response: “Negative. We’ll use your call sign if we’re trying to call you, two four Foxtrot.” Ouch.
wants to talk to you.” We switched back to ground only to have him tell us that he hadn’t sent us to tower yet. Next he said, “Okay. Now you can go to tower.” Really?
Maintain an Even Strain
Courtesy is as much a mark of a
gentleman as courage.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Having survived a number of abnormal inflight situations, most of us realize that another one is likely within the next 50 or 60 logbook pages. The severity of an issue can range from a blown fuse to a blown motor, but it’s a statistical eventuality in all flavors of aircraft and experience levels that stuff happens. Most of the time we are able to dodge or deal with obstacles like a slalom skier as we manage aviation and life frustrations. But daily interactions with bad drivers, millennial store clerks and robo-help lines can sometimes screw us into the ceiling and that’s not a good mental state for aviating. Thomas Jefferson said, “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”
It is easy to say or do something you’ll regret later. Instead take a breather, identify possible solutions and use hu•mor to release tension. Most of all, be courteous. We certainly don’t want the monitoring magic in our airplane to witness a rant and post it to the world. And unless you really need another horse, house, spouse, dog, cat or cow, don’t allow the face-slap with a glove thing to cascade into our utopian world of airplanes. T&T
Perhaps the bottom line is this: controllers have a busy job just
like us and we are mostly unaware of the moment-to-moment
distractions, phone calls, handoffs, weather advisories and
decision-making that they endure. Both sides of the radio conver- Kevin Dingman can be reached at dinger10d@gmail.com. sation need to pay close attention, put away the red bullfighting
capes and cool their jets.
Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way
Once we fumble and fight our way off the ramp and out to the runway, it seems that the grocery store checkout line, fast food line, oil change line or bank drive through line “bad choice” axiom has followed us to the airport. No matter the line we are in, there always seems to be an idiot or two (or three or four or five) in front of us. The line for takeoff moves just fine until we are number two and then the number one plane is suddenly not answering the radio. There is no way to get around them to another taxiway or runway intersection. Come on man, this is costing me $10/minute just sitting here waiting. I’m going to miss “Last Man Standing” if we don’t get a move on.
Sometimes a pilot will discover an aircraft systems issue and
need to hop out of line and go back to the gate or FBO; that is 4/C Ad expected. But forgetting (or one of the other many reasons we
miss a radio call) to switch to tower and then still not recog-
nizing it when the folks in front of you are taking off without
a clearance (because you are not on tower frequency to hear
the clearance) is a rookie faux pas. Fortunately, tower has seen
this happen a million times so they will dispatch a truffle hog Sixth Page
to root through all the frequencies until the missing plane is 4/C
sniffed out and directed to tower frequency. “Tower, we’re up www.rtcpilot.com/twinturbine your frequency now. Did we miss anything?” Of course you did
– where’s my sword.
And here’s one from our side of the radio-rage coin. It was oh-dark-thirty in Denver and we were the only airplane on any frequency. Approaching the hold short line, we switched to tower and checked in ready for takeoff. Tower said, “Ground
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August 2018 TWIN & TURBINE • 29