Short Final

On a training flight between Terre Haute, Indiana and Indianapolis, Indiana, I heard the following exchange between Hulman (Terre Haute) Approach and a Cessna 172 requesting flight following: N12345:“Are you enjoying your Saturday?” Hulman Approach:“Negative. I’m at work.” John Sutherland

Phoenix approach asked a GA aircraft:“N1234, how far are you from your present position?” They were greeted with silence. Randy Richmond

We were flying into Birmingham, Alabama at about 2:00am on a Sunday morning. The sky was clear with great visibility. Birmingham has an ILS to runway 6, and the final approach fix is MCDEN. After checking in with Birmingham Approach, we were told to fly “direct to MCDEN for the McVisual approach.” John Young

While flying from Chicago to Bismarck, North Dakota on New Year’s Day, my co-pilot and I were monitoring 121.5 when someone asked if anybody had any New Year’s resolutions. Without skipping a beat, my co-pilot keyed the mic and responded:“Yeah, NOT talking on Guard!” To which someone else responded:“Yeah, me too.” Jim Burns

This occurred on a flight from Cincinnati to Roanoke, Virginia around 2005, give or take a couple years; I’m too lazy to look up the actual date in my logbook but remember that flight distinctly. I was the pilot monitoring, and John, the captain, was the pilot flying. We were approaching from the west, heading […]

Last November, I transported 40 endangered sea turtles (stranded on Cape Cod) from the Boston area to a turtle rescue center center in Georgia. I put “transporting endangered sea turtles” in the comments section of my IFR flight plan and had two interesting exchanges on the trip. — Providence Approach (PVD):“69 Tango, how’s your cargo […]

While landing a Beech Sierra at Sioux City Gateway Airport (KSUX) one blustery summer day (winds 32, gusting to 40, more or less straight down the runway), I chose to use full flaps in an attempt to achieve the minimum possible landing roll — just for practice. Well the gusts got the best of me. […]

Fort Wayne Approach:“NXXX, switch to tower on 119.1.” NXXX:“Switching to tower on 119.1.” NXXX:“Fort Wayne tower, this is NXXX with you.” Fort Wayne Approach:“NXXX, you are still on the approach frequency.” NXXX:“I was just practicing.” Robb Rosebrook

Way back in 1957, when I was an air traffic control trainee at RNZAF station Ohakea, I heard a Bristol freighter report:“We have just passed the Comet.” … then, a few seconds later, add:“The Comet was going the other way.” (The humor relates to the lumbering Bristol compared to the sleek inbound RAF Comet.) Murray […]

While threading my way through thunderstorms coming on shore from a rig in the Gulf of Mexico, I heard New Orleans ATC say, “Tell your boss I like his movies.” After a short pause, I recognized the voice of Harrison Ford: “Thanks, and I like your radar vectors.” Jim Borger