Page 22 - August21T

From the Flight Deck
by Kevin R. Dingman
Vernacular Disease
Sharing the radio with other pilots.
I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.
and experienced severe turbulence and plus-or-minus 2,000 feet altitude excursions. While shocking that he went there, the more astonishing part of the event? Yet another turbine-single guy checked in shortly after the report and center advised him of the previous guy’s angst. The second guy responded that it didn’t look too bad, and he would proceed straight ahead – through the same spot and at the same altitude as the first guy. After center made a stronger recommendation that he should deviate around the weather, the second guy acquiesced.
Please trust this airline guy when I say don’t fly within 15 to 20 miles of any cumulus with tops above 18,000, with nimbus after the cum-u-low or not – even the popcorn-like stuff from 10-25,000 can rattle teeth and spill your coffee. And don’t wait too long to ask for a deviation around the upwind side of said beasties lest you encounter something similar to the following.
Rookie
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
– Abraham Lincoln
You’ve been picking your way around the cumulus at FL260, and you’ve waited a bit too long to ask for a 20-degree deviation around the upwind side of a wide, towering cumulonimbus 50 miles on the nose. When you try to call center, a squeal comes over your headset from someone on the radio stepping on someone else. You release the PTT and hear:
“Sorry, I think I blocked somebody...good afternoon New York how ya doin’? This is Rookie Nine Oh Six checkin’ in. We’re with ya outa’ sixteen for two three oh, on a three ten heading and 260 knots assigned by the last guy, and we’re goin’ around some weather – request three six oh... and ah, we’re runnin’ a little late due to our inability to stop talking, so after we’re done deviating, any chance we could maybe to direct Chardon? Really appreciate it.”
After a short delay, you hear: “Rookie nine zero something calling New York, I was on the landline coordinating. Say again your request.”
Your finger is still resting on the PTT switch as your chin drops to your chest. Now you know for sure that you waited too long to request that 20-degree turn. Even if that other “rookie” guy uses proper radio discipline during his second call, you will now need 40 degrees to sufficiently avoid the bubbling beast in front of you. You pray that you have time to get in a word edgewise before making the turn on your own without clearance and making a mayday/emergency call to cover the deviation.
At the risk of sounding like Joan Rivers, can we talk – like pilots? Sometimes, apparently not. Along with talking-like-we-text, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that our normal, everyday language (colloquial) has permeated most aspects of society: business, politics, literature, music and the workplace; even our piloting workplace. Some abbreviations born of texting are already being used with the “free text” function of our ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System). It just doesn’t fit comfortably in my own aircraft-radio-workplace at the pointy end of an airliner. The beloved radio discipline I was taught in GA and the Air Force has become contaminated. It’s happening more and more and it’s not simply my hyperbole hypochondria. Many aviators seem to have contracted a vernacular disease.
Permit Me
There was a time when a restricted radio-telephone operator’s permit was mandatory for new U.S. pilots – like
– Rodney Dangerfield
Last month while flying my trusty Guppy-MAX at 38,000, I heard a guy flying a turbine single in the 20s report to center that he went through some tops
20 • TWIN & TURBINE / August 2021