I flew my Bonanza into Cleveland Hopkins International Airport years ago to visit someone, and was not fully prepared for the departure. The midday arrival at KCLE was relatively calm, but I wasn’t prepared for the late afternoon/early evening regional jet rush hour. As I started to taxi, ground control was issuing instructions faster than an auctioneer with a hot date after work.
What a wonderful story. Brings back good memories when I was learning to fly. It was back in the day, early 1970s, on a solo cross countries in the mighty C-150. The tower controller said, “Check wheels down, cleared to land”. Uh oh… what does he mean? I leaned over to the right side and saw my right gear was still part of the aircraft as was the left. But what about my nose wheel? I told him my left and right wheels are still attached to my plane… I went from age 17 to 71 in a nano second. I asked him for a low fly by to verify the nose wheel was still attached to the aircraft. He said don’t worry… it’s our standard phraseology for retired Air Force Tower Controllers. He did say… “All of your gears are down and locked and you are fit to hit, cleared to land.” Ahhh the good old days.