Experience means jack if you aren’t open to learning something new from your experiences. Fair warning, learning by experience without distinguishing good from bad can lead you to very dark and dangerous places. Nowhere is this more true than in an aircraft cockpit. Let me explain. I’ve been flying fixed wing airplanes since I was …
Learning Radio Phrasing By Experience is Highly Risky Read More »
Experience means jack if you aren’t open to learning something new from your experiences. Fair warning, learning by experience without distinguishing good from bad can lead you to very dark and dangerous places. Nowhere is this more true than in an aircraft cockpit. Let me explain. I’ve been flying fixed wing airplanes since I was …
Experience on the Radio Can Be the Worst Teacher Read More »
Next Radar Contact Show, “Mistakes Happen”. We all make mistakes when transmitting on the radio, even pilots like me with decades of experience. Last night, flying from Nagoya, Japan to Honolulu, I got mentally out of synch with the person at the other end of the radio. I made several transmissions that had no connection …
Radar Contact #28 for 29 May 2013: Terminology Affects Phraseology Aloha! I’m back from vacation and ready to talk radio procedures with you again. This time, we are going to address some questions about radio work raised by the pilots who edited my newest book. They had questions. I had answers. You’ll get to hear …
There is so much information packed into this week’s edition of Radar Contact, I don’t know where to begin. We’ll be talking about radio calls from ATC that confuse even experienced pilots. I’ll cover those with you so you will know exactly what to do should ATC ever give you one of these clearances. There …
Cessna 9130D, traffic 12 o’clock and 5 miles, opposite direction, climbing through 5,000 unverified. I’ve been working on a new book for you. You’ll hear about that in this week’s show. Also in this show, what the clearance “Make closed traffic” means; and, for IFR pilots, why a clearance to fly a standard terminal arrival …
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from an Insider with ATCcommunication.com. Daniel wrote to me asking about a non-standard instruction given to him by a tower controller. The controller told him to fly “towards the numbers.” He couldn’t find that phrase anywhere in the Aeronautical Information Manual. It turns out, tower controllers …
Warning: The following audio content may not be suitable for all listeners. It involves life and death radio transmissions that some listeners might find disturbing. A Mayday radio call should be reserved for life threatening situations. These may include, but are not limited to: Loss, or imminent loss of aircraft control for any number of …
Super quick article today. I’m about to depart the layover hotel in San Juan for a long flight up to JFK. There are two ways to call for help on the aircraft radio: “Pan. Pan. Pan.” “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.”
Today, let’s say you’re flying along in flight and you have requested vectors to land at Podunk International Airport. Doesn’t matter whether you are flying instrument flight rules (IFR), or visual flight rules (VFR). You asked ATC to steer you towards the airport and that’s what the controller is doing. The controller says: “Whizbang Seven …
