Short Final: Final Frontier

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • A flight instructor, after a long and repetitive day of student flights, humorously responded to ATC's casual "Same as last time?" query.
  • He used a Star Trek-themed monologue to describe his flight's "mission" to the local practice area.
  • Air Traffic Control played along, granting clearance and concluding with a playful "may the Force be with you."
See a mistake? Contact us.

During one very long day when I was a full time instructor, I ended up with five students in a row all early in the PPL syllabus so I did all the radio calls at our busy, towered airport. On flight five, I called clearance with my call sign and got a casual “Same as last time, Dave?” reply.

“Absolutely not,” I said and continued with: “Flight training, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Cessna 152 GABC on its one-hour mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before: local practice area West!”

The solemn reply, “Cessna GABC squawk 1234. Fly the XXX departure. Contact ground on 121.9 and may the Force be with you.”

David Gagliardi

Sign-up for newsletters & special offers!

Get the latest stories & special offers delivered directly to your inbox

SUBSCRIBE

Please support AVweb.

It looks like you’re using an ad blocker. Ads keep AVweb free and fund our reporting.
Please whitelist AVweb or continue with ads enabled.