It was a sodden, April Saturday afternoon in the Pilot's Lounge at the virtual airport. The first unseasonably warm days of spring had brought out the tulips, hyacinths and optimistic pilots in droves. Frustratingly, on this weekend the weather had reverted to the precipitation that has been reputed to bring flowers in the subsequent month. When some geek quoted the hackneyed phrase, Old Hack -- with wide-eyed innocence -- inquired, "What do we need Mayflowers for? They just bring Pilgrims."It was not a good start to the afternoon. After the groans, silence reigned for nearly a minute.When the conversation restarted, it ranged from the upcoming Space Shuttle mission and our collective desire to be aboard, to the power and volume of the shuttle engines at takeoff and then to airport noise. That led to comments about consideration for others and some remarks about the jerk who had made the spectacularly loud arrival in a Cessna 185 the prior weekend. He'd shoved the prop forward as he entered the downwind leg and went screaming around a very wide, low pattern at 2,700 rpm. His actions triggered over a dozen angry phone calls to the airport, destroying the old record, which we'd hoped would never be equaled. Some complaints were from people who lived more than two miles away. It was one of the very first warm evenings of the year and a lot of folks were on their decks. The 185 pilot managed to give our little airport a black eye that is going to take some time to overcome.One of the student pilots who has been diligently working on his private rating and has become a regular in the Lounge interjected, "I keep hearing you guys talk about noise and things a pilot should or shouldn't do when it comes to pattern operations, talking on the radio and other stuff. When I look in the books I've got for the things you talk about, I can't find any mention of lot of it. Is there some sort of unwritten code of etiquette for pilots that I don't know about?"I thought Pete, one of our more macho regulars, was going to hurt himself trying not to laugh. "Etiquette? Are you nuts? We aren't dealing with china tea cups and doilies; etiquette doesn't have nothin' to do with flyin' airplanes."Old Hack glared at Pete and then spoke in a surprisingly reasonable manner, given that he's often our resident sourpuss. "Think about the real definition of etiquette," he began. "I'm old enough to remember what it means, before TV and comedians made fun of it and got people to think that it was only for wimps. Etiquette is what we do to minimize the friction between people when we interact."When you walked in here, Pete, you sat down and listened to see what folks were talking about before you spoke up. You complied with the etiquette we follow here in the Lounge, even though no one ever talks about it in those terms. I've watched you. You practice some of the best aviation etiquette of anyone around here. Now calm down, I wasn't insulting you. For example, when you pull your airplane out of the hangar, you always turn it 90 degrees before you start it. How come?"Pete said, "Of course I do. That way I don't blow dirt into my hangar or my neighbors."Hack, smiled, "Hey, no matter how you slice it, that's etiquette; and no one here would ever accuse you of being a wimp. Those who know you would never confuse courtesy with weakness"Pete laughed and said, "Hmm, I never looked at it from that angle. OK, but I ain't raising my pinkie when I use the tow bar on the nosewheel."With that everyone started coming up with what he or she felt was appropriate behavior around aircraft. I took notes because I thought there were some pretty good ideas, and I tried to sort them out by stages of a flight. Interestingly, some were things that can be found in the Aeronautical Information Manual, but a lot were the sorts of ideas that might just help us reduce the number of complaints from the anti-airport crowd and reduce stress among pilots, and maybe even controllers.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/features/the-pilots-lounge-87-etiquette-isnt-just-raising-our-pinkies