Flight Training - May 2014 - 26

AROUND THE PATCH

By Jill W. Tallman

MY FRIEND 'MIKE FRIGHT'

HE COMES WITH ME ON EVERY FLIGHT

P

ilots who sound like Joe Cool on the radio have my undying
admiration. Their delivery sounds so effortless-and likely it is,
for them. But my allegiance lies with the pilots who sometimes
stumble on a call or during an exchange with air traffic control.

When I learned to fly, Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK) in Maryland was
nontowered-but still busy, with a very
active flight school and lots of transient
traffic. On a nice day, the common traffic
advisory frequency would be buzzing with
calls. Between the student pilots, the occasional friendly exchanges between local
pilots, and nonstandard calls from pilots
passing through, our chunk of airspace
seemed like a safe zone for the occasional
flub on the microphone.
That worked to my advantage, because
it took me awhile to get the hang of
talking while flying. I could've benefited
greatly from the tutorial we published
in the March 2014 issue of Flight Training
("Walk the Talk"). The last call to fall into
place was "Tampico Five-Five-ThreeSeven-Two is on the 45 to the downwind
to Runway 23." It came out in several
different versions before I finally wrote it
out on a sticky note that I would read, like
a script, while flying. I flew some more;
I practiced with Comm1 Radio Simula-

26 /

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

tor. Eventually I no longer felt as though
I were about to recite the Gettysburg
Address at a school assembly each time I
pressed the push-to-talk switch.
Whenever I had to talk to ATC,
however, the stammers returned with
a vengeance. This, in spite of the fact
that the controllers were always professional. Nobody ever called me out on poor
technique, but they didn't have to. I was
my own worst critic. I hated the way I
sounded; I hated the fact that my palms
would start to perspire each time I had to
talk to them. After I got my certificate, I
found myself avoiding controlled airspace as much as possible. I would plan
cross-country flights with routes that
zig-zagged to remain clear of Class B and
C airspace. (I could easily overfly Class D,
and the call to let the tower know I was
in the neighborhood wasn't a problem.)
Even earning an instrument rating didn't
help much.
Who knows how long I might've gone
on like that? Likely forever, if it weren't

for the fact that in 2012, our busy airport
got a control tower. (Insert sad trombone
sound here.) Now I had to deal with my
radio communications issues-or move
my airplane elsewhere.
I felt like a student again, which isn't
a bad thing. Weeks before the tower
opened, AOPA's Air Safety Institute held
a seminar for local pilots about the new
order of business, and I was there. I wrote
down the new call I would have to make
to ground control before taxiing and
practiced it daily. I reviewed the taxiway
designations, which now and forever
would be a vital part of our dialogue with
the tower.
When the day arrived when I would
contact our new ATC colleagues for the
first time, I felt prepared-if not entirely
comfortable-and my first transmission
to the ground controller was coherent.
So were subsequent exchanges with the
tower. It got a little easier with each passing week. Finally, flying back to Maryland
from Wisconsin this past summer, I realized I'd turned a corner when, skirting
some bad weather, I called up AkronCanton Approach to transit the Class C
airspace rather than try to go miles out
of my way to avoid controlled airspace
entirely.
In hindsight, it's ridiculous that I let
a sense of discomfort dictate the terms
of my flying-and that it took an airspace
change and the arrival of a tower to make
me deal with it. Yet I know of other pilots
who do the same thing. A distaste of the
radio, uncertainty with crosswinds, fear
of an unknown airport: They allow these
issues to rob them of the full enjoyment of
flying. Please don't go down that airway.
No matter what might be troubling you,
find a flight instructor or a knowledgeable
pilot friend with an empty right seat, and
tackle it. I promise you it'll be worth it.
 
Email Technical Editor Jill Tallman at jill.tallman@
aopa.org; Twitter: jtallman1959.
http://FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG
Flight Training - May 2014

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