Do you get impatient or frustrated when communicating with non-pilots – including your non-pilot significant other? After flying, it takes time to transition back to using Ambiguous, Inaccurate and Inefficient Civilian Dialect (AiiCD© – pronounced Acid). Because, after each radio call, we pilots are conditioned to get or give a response. When conversing with non-aviation people, once we say something to them, we’re conditioned to expect a response – ANY response. Like tennis, racquetball or ping-pong, we’re waiting for them to hit the communication ball back to us. If not, after a five-second pause, it’s a delay of game penalty and we’re compelled by our stay-ahead-of-the-airplane patience level to exclaim in a patronizing voice: “Over?”
And for the sake of all things holy in the wide, wide world of aviation, hit the same ball back to me that I hit to you – respond to the question/subject in play. Then, if you must, you can expand with your creative, fluffy, fuzzy-wuzzy, AiiCD interpretation of what you “feel” should be said next. This will give me time to turn down the radio volume or to cover your voice with “bla-bla-bla.” Now, before you replace my bio pic with one of ventriloquist Jeff Dunham’s “Walter,” read on.
I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.
Rodney Dangerfield
We share radio frequencies with many of our brethren, and pilots learn to be nauseatingly accurate, specific and brief in the way in which we communicate. Nauseating to non-pilots, that is. And the techniques we use on the radio inevitably spill over into our non-flying lives, often making communication with non-pilots a painful volley. Sometimes, however, those around us become “contaminated” by our efficient, piloty-persona and imitate our techniques.
There is a story (allegedly true?) that exemplifies this point. To wit: A lady, when asked by her husband if she was secretly seeing the pilot down the road, replied to him, “Say again?” When her confused husband cautiously but sternly repeated the question about her rendezvous with the pilot-neighbor, the reply this time was a resounding, “Negative!” No linguistic CSI needed here. Many of the flight attendants I flew with had not fully adapted to our lingo – or me to theirs – and they sometimes used the “wrong” words. One FA said that she taught yogurt. “Really?” I asked. “Yogurt?” And attempting to place a pre-departure drink request using pilot efficiency is another example:
FA – What can I get you to drink, Captain?
Me – Coffee with one sugar and anything white, please.
FA – You mean cream?
Me – Sure, that’s fine.
FA – Well, that’s what white is.
Me – No, not always. Sometimes you give me white, non-dairy powdered creamer, sometimes it’s cream that’s white, sometimes it’s half-and-half; also white. Sometimes it’s 2 percent milk, sometimes whole milk, sometimes….
FA – OK, OK, OK! I get it! I should have been more specific.
Me – No, you didn’t need to be more specific. That’s why I was ambiguous and said anything white because any white option is fine
It would serve me right if she had added mayonnaise or salt to my coffee. Months later, the same FA and I chuckled at our next pre-departure exchange when she returned with my coffee – topped with four tiny white marshmallows. I think she put them in her crew bag and was waiting for the next time we flew together!
Where’s the Beef!
If you look upon ham and eggs with lust, you have already committed breakfast in your heart.
C.S. Lewis
Remember the Big Mac jingle, circa 1974: Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun? Well, I prefer breakfast – almost with lust. But when ordering at the fast-food chain that has sold billions and billions, why can’t I order my breakfast with the same unambiguous brevity and clarity in which we talk on the airplane radio? “A number one meal please; one sugar, one cream and an extra hashbrown.”
You see, the number one meal (by definition) is the sandwich, one hashbrown, and a regular size coffee. I figure when I order the “meal,” add the condiments for the coffee and modify the meal with an extra hashbrown – that’s pretty specific, unambiguous and should end the volley. A perfect return of the ball would be, “Thank you, that’s $7.28, please.” But no. They have to ask, “What size coffee do you want? How many creams? Did you say sugar?” Then, of course, once delivered, the extra hashbrown is not in the bag. When they see me staring into the bag, they ask, “Is everything okay?” My answer: Negative.
What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness
No conversation, however, more accurately exemplifies the disparity in conversational comfort level between pilots and non-pilots than the following. While between flights, a flight attendant and I were attempting to make small talk:
Me – Where do you live?
Her – I’m from New York, but my parents moved me back and forth from Phoenix.
Me – OK, but where do you live now?
Her – I said New York.
Me – No, you didn’t. You said you were from New York, not that you lived there.
Her – I lived in Phoenix.
Me – Nice. I lived in Glendale, out by Luke Air Force Base.
Her – Oh, I lived in Chandler by Williams Air Force Base.
Me – You said you lived in Phoenix.
Her – Same thing, you don’t listen very well, do you?
Me – I was thinking the exact same thing about you.
She was certain that she was making sense, and so was I.
Be Careful What You Say
A few years ago, I had a lady on my flight assigned to escort some property. It was loaded in the aft cargo compartment of my S-80, the one just below the right engine. She was in Coach, just to the left of that same engine, above the cargo compartment. Why she needed to be so near, yet so far, from the cargo was a conundrum. It wasn’t as if she could get out and rescue the cargo should the need arise. It wasn’t actually her property anyway, or even the property of her employer. It was U.S. government property. Her company had been hired to transport it with all due diligence, security, and scowling, Walter-like seriousness.
The look on her face was priceless when I, not seriously enough, asked if there were any special considerations for the cargo should I land somewhere unscheduled (divert). I asked jokingly, but I actually wanted to know because the weather was not that good. Apparently, the jovial tone of my interrogative statement was not appreciated. I had the opportunity to carry this type of cargo in the past, and next to transporting a dignitary or ex-president, the cargo gets serious attention, and landing at the “wrong” airport can be problematic. This time the cargo was $96 million U.S. dollars. My 31-year record for this type of cargo was just under one-half billion.
Rookies from Pros
Even when we deal with other professionals, most are not comfortable with the extreme accuracy and brevity in communication used by aviators. On the other hand, some pilots also slip up and use incorrect terminology and colloquial slang. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a pro in the flight levels answer ATC’s request for a ride report by telling them that they were IFR but smooth. Oh, really? How could you get above 18,000 without being IFR? Can you say IMC? I knew you could. And in answering the ATC request to say your airspeed, the response was “point seven-six.” No grasshopper, airspeed is three digits with no decimal point and it begins with one through six. Details like this distinguish rookies from pros.
And this one from ATC: Taxi to Runway 19 via Bravo, hold short of Delta-eight, plan to follow Southwest. Holding short, we waited. Finally, Southwest moved from out of the way of Delta-eight, but the controller hadn’t said follow Southwest or continue – they had only said plan to follow. I was on the landline; who else called? Did someone try to check-in? Although, you dare not miss a radio call from ATC. I once heard a controller say, “Pay attention up there; I’m busy down here!” Granted, the pandemic has affected all aspects of our society by causing employee shortages, but I think maybe he just didn’t get his extra hashbrown.
Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.
Sigmund Freud
Does cleared to Albuquerque mean the VOR, the airport or the fix? You don’t know unless you query ATC. Navigationally speaking, Albuquerque is three places: the airport itself entered into the GPS as KABQ. The second is the ABQ VOR, a physical station transmitting a radio signal – it’s on the ground but not on the airport. You need a VOR signal and a receiver to navigate to the VOR. The third is ABQ, the virtual fix, entered into the GPS as ABQ, also not on the field, but not on the ground either – it’s a phantom. When directly over a VOR at 60,000 feet, the DME reads 10 nm when we arrive at a GPS fix at any altitude the distance reads zero. If the VOR is the clearance fix, you need a radio signal and a receiver. If you are out of range, you cannot navigate to the VOR. Nowadays, the assumption is that if you filed with RNAV/GPS capability, you may navigate to any of the three Albuquerque fixes as long as you and ATC agree which one. Just remember the adage about what assumptions make out of you and me.
Pine Tar and Spit Balls
Since we are intelligent enough to learn and speak piloteze, surely, we have the linguistic legerdemain while out of the cockpit to understand the language of neighbors, friends, spouses and those delivering hashbrowns even if they use AiiCD (not really copyrighted, by the way). And if they return the conversation ball out of bounds, off the table or with a double vision, diptych-like spin, it’s best we get clarification lest we wander from our prescribed clearance, swing at a bad pitch or end up with marshmallows in our coffee. Happy Saint Patty’s Day, my friends.
Scheduling note: Don’t forget the Sun n Fun Aerospace Expo is next month April 5-10 in Lakeland, Florida.
Ahh now I know why my friends are frustrated…