system
Tongue and brain mysterious in work ways.
Tongue and brain mysterious in work ways.
It’s always a delight to start my day reading one of your articles. These sentences brought back painful memories: “Before making your move onto the dance floor–think. Just like high school, are you really as cool as you think you are?” I was not…
I love your writing, so I have bought one of your books! 
…and you wouldn’t arrive at the scene for at least 30 minutes. FUNNY! The funny thing is that what maybe made you crash (being behind the airplane) could end up saving you as… tail. If only…
I remember in flight training on my first night flight where I was cleared to land runway 9R at PBI (before the runway had changed to 10R). On a very long final, I aligned the airplane for the runway and my instructor pushed the right side of the yoke down to move us over to the right, just a little. I was “thinking” maybe he wants to see if I can recover being off the intended path. So, I “recover” and line up the that beautiful runway with all those pretty lights. He again, without saying a word, moves the airplane to the right. Now I’m “thinking”, “Dude, I just demonstrated to you that I can get back on track here” and went ahead and lined up to the runway again, almost proud of myself and “correcting” my instructor’s attempt at turning my airplane into a sewing machine that is stitching a zig-zag pattern into the night sky. My instructor then states, “You were cleared niner-right, yes?”. “Yeah!, I respond” realizing now that I need to figure out why he would ask such a silly question when I am clearly heading for the runway. He moved the airplane to the right again! It was at this point that I realized I probably need to do more of this step 3 (huh, think) of the communication mantra as Paul the author here described. I was CLEARLY doing step one! I was looking at and lining up for the runway in front of me! A long 10,001 ft runway that was totally mesmerizing. Step 3 revealed no solutions so I skipped right to part 4 (talk, and thankfully so). “Why do you keep doing that?” I asked. “He cleared you niner-right” he says. “I know that”, I said. “Then why do you keep aligning yourself to niner-left” he asked. Step 3 all of a sudden sprung into action but amazingly, it still revealed no answer! “What niner-left?” as I demanded an answer and right now as we were, at this stage of our game, getting preeeeety close to our hail mary. “There niner-right” he points. After a brief discussion he convinced me that that little “blip on the right” that he had pointed to was actually a runway (over 3000 feet worth). “I’ll never be able to get this plane in there” I argued! “Trust me” he said, and sure enough. Step 1 is the easy one but I think there can be a huge gap between step 2 and 3! And step 4 is one that sometimes should be practiced more often…
Loss of the brain—mouth connection is certainly embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as loss of the brain—pilot connection. Even though he had probably never heard of Socrates, one of my favorite old flight instructors frequently employed the Socratic method in the airplane as a way to prompt a desired response. On one particular flight I couldn’t seem to get past the mental IMC I was suffering to get where he wanted me to go. It was a windy day, perfect for learning about ground reference maneuvers, but nothing was making sense. I was getting pushed out of the outside of the downwind turn requiring “heroic” bank angles (my CFI’s description) or pushed over my ground point on the upwind side. Imagine the following in a slow, droll, southern accent:
CFI: “Look out the front; what’s your eyes tellin’ you?”
ME: “The wind is pushing us to the left?”
CFI: [Pause while waiting for me to get it.]
ME: [Not getting it.]
CFI: “What’s your bank angle tellin’ you?”
ME: “It’s at 20 degrees.”
CFI: [Pause while waiting for me to get it.]
ME: [Not getting it.]
CFI: “What’s your BRAIN tellin’ you?”
Apparently, my brain wasn’t speaking to me at that moment.
Two ATC stories from my career at Chicago Center;
1-A flustered trainee referred to Canadian Bravo Oscar Tango as Bosco, Osco Tango.
2-The controller could not understand what the pilot of FMxxx was saying (French Military). Then he thought of the Fannie Mae candy company and began calling the French military flight “Fudge Packer”. “Zees Ees zee French meel-ee-taree!!!” was the reply the controller got.
When position reporting over HF was the order of the day in oceanic and remote airspace, not wasting the achievement of having raised a radio operator on HF by talking before thinking or even first rehearsing before talking was a lesson a person would never want to learn twice. In the most extreme cases it could make the difference between getting a higher altitude for fuel savings or not. Then transitioning back to one’s native VHF airspace was sometimes such a relief that relief was palpable and guess what - sloppiness crept in.
Last (but I’m sure not least) I loved the little “TM “ superscript on AvAutoLand. Great writing! Keep it up! Between you and Bertorelli, AVWeb is my first go-to email when it shows up!
AvAutoCorrect? That’s the LAST thing we need! Given the way the current algorithms from the “best and brightest” in Silicon Valley currently butcher text messages, I have no doubt they would turn a pilot’s reply of “contact Approach” into “Cancel IFR”.
Your article resonated with me to bring back earlier days when I found that the yoke mike button had a dual function. Besides lighting the “T” on my radio; I found that it also effectively disconnected the cord between my brain and mouth.
As a youngster, I was extremely shy. Not surprisingly, this carried over to radio work when I began flying. Hence, my love for uncontrolled fields; and especially those with self serve gas.
Like all else in life, we must learn to accept our individual deficiencies and find workarounds. In order to minimize the stuttering and often dead air mess that sometimes came out on my mouth; I devised a training aid, which I pasted to the top of my panel to help keep me on track.
I is merely a generic reminder of basically what I SHOULD say when first contacting the tower when approaching Class D airspace. The sticker reads:
"______ TOWER, CESSNA 12345 INBOUND
OVER (location) with XXXX (atis) [or]
X MILES (direction) OF FIELD with XXXX (atis)
Thankfully, I no longer need my ‘crutch’. But, just like an old faithful friend, it is still there and I don’t have the heart to remove it.
Jerry King