Say Again?

It’s time for us to have a heart-to-heart talk again, folks. Time is short. This is the last summer we’re going to have before the really big retirement wave of controllers start. That would be in January of 2006 if you want my opinion. It’s already started, of course. It isn’t going to hit all […]

If you’ll remember, last month I left you hanging over the Snowbird VOR, in the clouds, with no radio communication. This month’s task is to get back on the ground. Let’s review.Here’s the flight plan we filed: N12345C172/A110 kts.Dep. KHKY (Hickory, N.C.) 6,000 feetHKY..BZM.V20.SUG.V185.SOT.V136.VXV..TYSArr. KTYS (Knoxville, Tenn.) And here is a low-altitude en route chart […]

I‘ve been threatening to write this article for a while now and it’s as good a time as any. If you want to start an argument among pilots you only have to ask one little question: “Yeah, but what happens if you go NORDO?” If you read any aviation forums on the Internet, you know […]

If you’ve ever been to the South, you might have heard the expression, “It’s fixin’ to come up a bad cloud.” It’s just our quaint way of saying that storm clouds are brewing. If you’ve ever flown in the South, you know when we say, “A bad cloud,” we mean bad. Big, bad thunderstorms are […]

Seeing as I’m supposed to be on vacation this week, I thought I’d write about a subject that I enjoy: vectoring. I guess that doesn’t make you (the pilot) feel all warm and fuzzy inside, does it? Knowing that controllers enjoy vectoring you all over the sky for spacing when you just want to go […]

Cessna one two three four five, what’s your on-course heading?” How many times have you heard that little piece of phraseology lately? If you’ve flown out of a place where the controllers routinely assign you “Runway heading” (and who doesn’t), I bet you’ve heard it a lot. So what does the phraseology mean?Right now, dozens […]

I spend an awful lot of time trying to explain how the system is supposed to work. Those explanations are often at odds with what people have experienced first-hand. This leaves a lot of people confused. It just leaves me frustrated.But no matter how conscientious we are, things can and do go wrong. As a […]

As I sit on an airliner hissing through the night sky — as someone involved in aviation — I’m struck by all the lies we tell each other. I’m traveling with my family, accompanying my wife to her parent’s home. As always seems to be the case, when you need to make haste, airplanes seem […]

I once had a supervisor accuse me of “just looking for trouble.” I want you to pause and let that sink in for just a second. I know I did. An air traffic controller — a safety rep no less — looking for trouble. “Uh, yeah, I guess you’re right about that, boss. I am […]

As I was casting about for something to write about this month I came across the Air Traffic Bulletin at the FAA’s Web site. The FAA issues these bulletins on a regular basis and controllers are supposed to read them (the hard copy versions) during our normal duties. Most of us do (sooner or later) […]