Happy Holidays

Hey everyone, a late Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you. Hanging out in the crash pad this evening after completing day 4 of 5 of reserve for this span. After the first half of December was fairly slow as far as flying goes for me, the last week and a half have been very very busy. This stretch of days on started on Christmas Eve. For day 1 i proffered and was awarded a day trip with 4 legs that ended at 3:50. This was going to work out great because i was planning on driving up to my hometown where my parents still live to spend Christmas Eve night/Christmas morning with the family. Great plan but as i have found out, every time i make a good plan it gets blown apart, same thing happened this time.

After flying the first turn to Wichita Falls, crew scheduling informed me that they had extended my assignment. I now had to overnight in College Station, fly 6 legs on Christmas day, overnight in Killeen Christmas night, and fly 3 more legs on the 26th. This was a pretty hard pill to swallow. Coming into this job i knew id likely have to work my share of holidays but this one hurt since it was so last minute. However shortly after informing my family of the news they called back and told me they were packing up and were going to come stay the night in College Station with me so that we could still celebrate as a family. My entire family always has been amazing like this. Very blessed to have such a close family that cares so much for one another. We all got to College Station about 6:30 and ended up having a nice fun family Christmas Eve. My mom even brought a christmas tree for the hotel room.

Unfortunately i had a pretty early 7:00AM departure so i had to get up and head out for my 6 leg day Christmas morning. The weather all 3 days of this trip was pretty yucky. Pretty much everywhere we went had IFR conditions. The weather combined with the early start and 6 legs left us exhausted by the time we got to Killeen Christmas night. Our hotel didn't have a van driver and the normal back up taxi service wasn't operating. We ended up having to wait at the airport for about an hour before we could find a ride to the hotel. Once we got there the hunt for food began. I tried calling about every pizza place in town because i was way to tired to walk down to the only open restaurant which was applebee's. All the pizza places were closed. The captain and i (with permission from the hotel staff) ended up just raiding the breakfast kitchen in the hotel. Wasn't much but it got the job done.

Next day we just had 3 legs and were done by around noon. After finishing up i drove up to my hometown and got to spend the afternoon/evening with the family. However i got hosed over again by crew scheduling and ended up getting stuck with the 5:30AM airport standby today. That means i had to leave my house at about 2:30AM to get to the airport in time. After getting to the airport i was able to get a couple hours more of sleep in before i got called about 7:45AM to fly 4 legs. Finished this afternoon at about 4 o'clock. Tomorrow i will finally get to sleep in for the first time in about 4-5 days. All i have is a simple turn at 1PM then hopefully i'll be done. Its my last day on before my days off so i wont get any overnights. During this 5 day stretch i will have flown 5/6/3/4/2 legs. Most definitely enough to wear me clean out.

Well my pizza is here now so im going to go enjoy my dinner then probably hit the hay early. We were supposed to get an update today on the situation with the parking of my plane but no word came. Maybe next time i'll have more info. Adios!

Sinking Ship

Heard a funny yet depressing joke about the company i work for the other day. "Whats the difference between the Titanic and the comapany i work for for?... The Titanic had a band playing". Im sure most of you have seen the news stories the past couple days on changes at my company. Some of what the media is reporting is true however some is not true, at least not yet. Lets start off by talking about facts first. Then well get into the rumors.

First off on December 13 the new hire class that had started on December 5 were told to go home. The 20 members of this class are officially on furlough status and are the first official causalities of the AMR bankruptcy for my company. The next day, a "WARN" letter was sent to all ATR pilots that are based in DFW, yes this includes me unfortunately, it also includes all the captains in base as well. If you do some searching im sure you can find the letter because i know media sites have all ready posted it. To paraphrase it, it said that within 60 days there would be "employment reductions/displacements" affecting the 59 first officers and the 60 captains in DFW. The reason for this letter is because the company plans on returning the 12ATR's that operate in DFW back to the leasing companies and close down the DFW base. This is said to occur on or near Feb 13th, however a later letter from our ceo stated that this could occur as early as late January. As per our contract the company would first have to displace then furlough by seniority order.

Let me take a second and explain what a "displacement" is for the non airline folk reading this. I'll use myself as an example since i will be a part of this. When they close my base here in DFW, i will have the option to transfer to any base/any aircraft that my seniority number will hold. I plan on choosing Chicago CRJ which my seniority number can hold. I will transfer to Chicago, the person in Chicago that has a lower seniority number then me will then get "displaced" This cycle will happen likely hundred of times until it gets down to the last people whos seniority number isn't high enough to fit in any base. (presumably the newest people at the company) they will then be the ones that are actually furloughed.

The above are about the only facts we have as of now. Now lets talk about some of the nasty rumors that are floating around. Perhaps the worst one and unfortunately one of the more plausible ones is the company furloughing "out of seniority order". Obviously the above mentioned process of displacements costs the company a lot of money in retraining people to fly different types of airplanes. Spending more money is not what a company in CH11 bankruptcy wants to do. A lot of people believe that the company will ask the bankruptcy judge to ignore our contract and allow the company to furlough the DFW ATR pilots instead of allowing them to displace. This would save the company money but would be a HUGE injustice to the 119 pilots that would lose their jobs. Now for people like myself who are fairly junior at the company (i have about 500 below me on the list) this would stink, but we may end up getting furloughed later this year regardless. The people that would be getting just shafted are the captains who have been with the company for a minimum of 7 years. It would be completely unfair for them to lose their jobs while new guys hired this year were allowed to keep their jobs. The company is insisting so far that the contract will be followed but one can only wonder.... money vs morals what normally wins out in today's business world?

Sadly the above paragraph will certainly not be the only cuts coming. It has been widely spoken that the company wants to adventurly park the remainder of the ATR's (MIA, SJU bases) as well as get rid of our smaller regional jets the ERJ135/140. If the company does indeed get rid of all 3 of these aircraft types without adding new aircraft, were looking at a loss of around 120 planes. Thats a little over a third of the entire fleet. This would most likely mean up to 1200 pilots being jobless. There are numerous scenarios with how this could play out, sadly non of them paint a bright future for my company or its employees.

This has been.. how should i put it.. disheartening few days as all of this news has broken in my days off. Its an unnerving feeling  being directly in the middle of the first round of cuts. Must say that it was very refreshing to get back in the cockpit to start a 4 day trip this evening. The weather was perfect and the landing was smooth. Really helped to clear my mind of all the doom and gloom that has developed these last 3 days. It reminded me that i still love this job and there's nothing else like it. Just have to leave it up to the man up stairs to see how the early stages of my career will play out. Thankfully there are some other airlines that are currently hiring that i can use as a backup plan if it becomes necessary. I knew this industry was volatile but i honestly didn't expect to feel its bite so soon.

Cloudy Sky

Hey everyone, writing this one from the crash pad tonight. Luckily this is the first time i've spent the night here in a couple weeks and only the 4th time since the start of November. It's been a lot nicer getting to fly more and having more over nights. I'll take a comfy hotel bed over my lame bunk bed here any night.

Woke up to beautiful weather in Shreveport yesterday. We had an afternoon departure so i took advantage of that and slept in till about 11:30, i was going to get up and go for a run but that bed was way to comfy. Brought my log book with me on that overnight so that i could start getting it updated just in case i need to apply for any jobs in the near future. Quick note on all that, im sure most of you have heard the parent company of my airline filled for CH11 bankruptcy a few days ago. It's really to early to know whats going to happen other than rumors flying around the internet and cockpits. Right now all the info we've gotten from management hasn't painted a pretty picture but well all have to wait and see. I have about 500 other pilots below me on the seniority list right now which is a pretty good number unless they decide to make big time cuts. I'll keep everyone updated as i hear new information. Anyway after working on the log book for a while i showered and got ready, we had a 1:15PM hotel van and 2:05 departure time. As i was getting ready i checked the latest Dallas weather on my phone and to my surprise the weather was really bad. They were reporting 1/2 mile visibility and 300ft ceilings.  The good thing is the reported weather was better than what we needed to shoot an ILS which is normally 1/2 mile and 200ft ceilings.

It was the Captains leg since i had flown us to Shreveport the night before. We took off in beautiful clear sunny sky's and headed for Dallas. Wasn't long before you could see the cloud bank that was covering most of Texas and Oklahoma. I was pretty excited about the weather since this would be the lowest visibility and ceilings that i have flown in since being in the airlines. We got vectored around for the ILS approach to runway 17L at DFW. The weather was as advertised, submerged into the cloud deck at about 4,000ft and didn't come out till about 250ft above the ground. Its an incredible feeling to see absolutely nothing outside the wind shield then all of a sudden there's a bright lit up runway right in front of you. (here is a taste of what im talking about  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNDImUfSN8Q  " After landing we were giving a taxi route that isn't used much at DFW, takes you aroud the perimeter of the south side of the airport. The reason this was significant to me is we taxied on a specific taxiway that the old "founders plaza" was located on. As a teenager i had spent hours at that observation area watching planes taxi past in front of me. Was kinda a neat moment for me although i wished the observation area was still there(its been moved to the north side of the airport) so that i could have waived at the plane watchers as many pilots did to me years ago.

After we got to the gate i called crew scheduling and was able to get released at 3:15PM. This is what i was hoping for so that i could catch a flight home to Oklahoma for the night. Went over to the departure gate of the 5PM flight and got my boarding pass for the jump seat. Only about 10 minutes before the cut off time i see a pilot from American walk up to the counter, i knew i was screwed since they have priority for the jump seat on American flights. Yup as i expected they called my name and i have to go hand back my boarding pass, flight was oversold so there was no chance of getting a seat in the back. Had to wait till the next flight at 7PM, luckily no other jump seaters showed up for that flight and i got home to the house about 9PM. I was due back in Dallas today at around noon but its worth it to me to get home any chance i get even its only for 12 hours. I decided to drive down this morning instead of catching a flight, main reason was the fact it was supposed to rain all day in Dallas and i didn't want to have to walk to my crash pad from where the bus drops me off.

They ended up calling me in to sit airport standby at 2:30 till 10:30 tonight. Ended up being an ok day, i updated some of my manual with a new revision that came out then took a nice 2 hour nap. As i was walking to go get dinner in the terminal i got a call for a last second turn to Wichita Falls Texas. Turn was pretty non eventful, flew through a lot of rain coming and going but the clouds weren't to low. Tomorrow im on call starting at 8AM but im hoping to get released sometime in the early afternoon so that i can drive home and enjoy my single day off given to me on Monday. The way the schedules transitioned this month i had more then 6 days on straight so they have to give you a day off somewhere in between to break it up.

Thanks for reading, i know this was a pretty long entry but i figure i've been skimping on you guys the last couple of months. Hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time...

Preflight Duties

Hey everyone, i brought my laptop with me again on this trip so i figured id post a quick blog. Im currently at our overnight hotel in Shreveport LA. Today's my first day out of  4 on. Commuted down to DFW on the 1:35PM flight then did a turn to Wichita Falls TX then came to the overnight here in Shreveport.

A while ago i said i would post about my routine leading up to a flight so here it goes. I normally show up at our departure gate about 40 minutes before scheduled departure time. This is a fair amount earlier then a lot of other First Officers at my company, but most of the time im just sitting around somewhere in the airport and i would rather sit around in the plane and get things done without having to rush through stuff. Once i get down to the plane i get my bags put away then head outside to do the pre flight inspection. The exterior pre flight really isn't much different then doing a pre flight on a Cessna or Piper (small trainers) its just on  a larger scale. The main object is to detect any obvious damage or missing parts. This normally doesn't take anymore than 3-5minutes. Once back inside i'll head back up to the cockpit and get my stuff situated, including pulling out my chart books hooking up my headset etc. Next i'll go about performing the tests that are required inside, most flights this is only a couple test buttons, however if its the "first flight of the day" for that aircraft the list is far more extensive and takes several minutes to work through, these are commonly called the "origination checks". Next its my job to set up the ACARS on the aircraft, this is an onboard computer that keeps track of the flight and allows us to communicate by text with our dispatch and operations. At most of the larger airports we can also pick up our IFR clearance and print out the weather through this system. I normally get all this finished by about 20 minutes before departure. This is normally about the time our Captains show up with the release/flight plan. I'll then thumb through the paperwork making sure everything matches up and looks normal. After that my duties are done until departure time, i'll usually kill the time by browsing the internet on my phone or shooting the bull with the Captain. Things get much busier right at departure time, multiple things start happening all at once and it takes some time getting used to. After, or sometimes during, our  before start checklists the flight attendant will call us and give us the headcount for our weight and balance, then the ramp agents will hand us the load sheet with the number and types of bags in each department. Its my job to calculate the actual weights in each compartment. Then i have to check the weights i calculated and the headcount i received against the "closeout" sheet we received through ACARS from operations. All of those things happen and have to be accomplished in about a 2 minute window. Its not bad once you get used to it but for new FO's its certainly a bit overwhelming. Once all of that is checked were ready to go. Doing this a few times a day isn't bad but on the days where we have to do 6 legs in one day it can really wear ya out by the end of the day.

Thanks for reading and i still hope to update this blog more often, but i haven't been carrying my laptop with me much anymore since it adds an extra 12 pounds to my bag and also adds an extra hassle while going through airport security, regardless i'll try my best.

Im Back

Hey everyone, after being away from the blog for a long time im back and intend to get back to regular posting. Part of the reason for not writing in so long is the fact that things got really slow in September, i only flew about 8 hours all month so really didn't have to much to write about. Since my last post i have now transferred bases and i am now based at DFW (Dallas Ft. Worth). For those that know me you know that i am now much closer to my home in Oklahoma. I know can jump on a flight and be to work in 45min instead of having to get on two different flights for about 5 and a half hours to get to Miami. The shorter commute allows me to "commute" the day of and gets me home the last day almost guaranteed. This means at least an extra night at home each time im off. The other nice thing is the fact that i can make it home just about any night i want if i start missing my own bed to much. This month i have been on S3 which if you remember is the "airport ready reserve" from 130PM to 930PM, however next month will be my first month holding a RAP line, which mean i will be able to get open trips the day before. Even though i've been on ready reserve this month i have flown a lot more than in Miami, im currently at about 25 hours for the month which while still far below what line holders fly its better than the 8-10 hours a month i've been averaging.

Besides having a much shorter commute i am also liking Dallas for several other reasons. The first is the fact that its sorta my "home" airport. Growing up as a kid it was always the airport my family would use whenever we traveled by air. I also visited it rather frequently to watch planes and take photos with my friend who was also an aviation nerd like myself. Since i've spent so much time here growing up i know the airport very well and the surrounding area. Also since i've spent almost my entire life growing up in Oklahoma/TX area i feel much more at home with the culture here, anyone who has spent time in Miami will know what im talking about here. I would say the only negative of my transfer would be our destinations, in Miami i flew to a lot of the Caribbean, out of DFW we fly to Lawton, Wichita Falls, Killeen, Waco, Long View, Tyler, San Angelo, College Station, Shreveport, Monroe, Ft Smith, and Joplin... Needless to say not the most interesting destinations in the world.

Looking forward to writing again and have several topics i'll be covering in the next few days so be looking for new posts.

Blytheville

                Hey everyone, I just commuted into MIA and im sleeping in the crew room since I have to be on ready reserve duty at 6AM. I normally do this when I commute in to start a period on because I actually get more sleep this way. The flight I normally take lands in MIA at 10:45PM. If I went to my crashpad I would have to wait for the hotel van then walk to the crashpad, probably wouldn’t get there till around midnight. My wake up time would be 4:20AM to get dressed and catch the shuttle back to the airport, so I think it makes more sense to stay here the first night. It’s not all that bad; we have a quiet room we can go in that has a couple of recliners. I can go to sleep when I want and all I have to do is get up at 5:30 and sign in on the computer and come right back and go back to sleep and wait for any phone calls.

                Before I get some sleep tonight I figured it would be a good chance to catch everyone up a little bit on a recent trip I had last week. I was on my normal S1 reserve duty and got the call about 7AM that I would be taking an empty plane to our heavy maintenance base in Blytheville Arkansas, about 70 miles north of Memphis. In our slow turboprop this is about a 3 and a half hour flight. We were then supposed to get driven to Memphis to catch a flight back to Miami that afternoon. Well as usual things don’t go as planned. The Captain and I left the gate pretty much on time but as we were taxing to the runway we got a fault on one of our anti-icing systems. After failing to get it to reset the Captain and I decided we didn’t want to take it until it got looked at since there were forecasted icing conditions along our route of flight. We notify maintenance and taxi back to where we started. 4 hours later we headed out, maintenance said they may or may not have fixed it, they changed a part they thought would fix it but not 100 percent sure. Even if it did fault again we had new routing that would allow us to avoid the icing conditions. Also in a worst case scenario we could just fly lower then we normally do and be in temperatures warm enough. Well sure enough same problem occurs as we taxi out but with our new routing and the option of flying lower we go with it.

                Turns out to be a non eventful flight however because we left so late we were going to miss out flight home and have to spend the night in Blytheville then take the flight to Miami the next day. This was my first trip to Blytheville, the airport is nearly abandoned, there was grassing growing out of the taxiways and pretty much the only group of buildings on the field is where they do our maintenance. Growing up in Oklahoma im pretty used to smallish towns, however I found myself in a bit of culture shock in this small northeast Arkansas town. It was everything you picture a small hick town to be, luckily though our hotel was nice. The next morning met the captain for breakfast at the Perkins in the hotel (didn’t see Tiger Woods) then we headed to Memphis. Our driver was one of the mechanics from Blytheville and needless to say it was an entertaining ride. Also that morning I found out that as soon as I got back to Miami I was going to be flying to Nassau and back.

                Got back to Miami and had just enough time to run into the terminal and grab a bite to eat then headed out to the plane to start my pre flight duties for the Nassau Turn. As soon as we landed in Nassau an extremely heavy rain shower came over the airport but thankfully it let up in time for me to do my post/pre flight walk around. I’ve made it 2 months in Miami without an umbrella or a raincoat. Felt I was pushing my luck to much so today I purchased a raincoat since im sure were going to get a good bit of rain from the passing Hurricane this week. That’s it for now, stay tuned.  

S1 Nassau

                Hey everyone, sorry I’ve been slacking this past week on posting. Had the weekend off so didn’t really have any motivation to post. All this month I have the S1 shift, which if you recall from my post about schedules that means I have ready reserve at the airport from 6AM-2PM. It sounds terrible but really im sort of adjusting to it well. I normally still stay up pretty late about 12-1AM just because that’s what im used to and I work best that way. I’ll basically take a nap at the crash pad from the time I go to bed to 4:20AM when my alarm goes off. I take the 5AM shuttle to the airport and usually sign in by 5:30AM. Once I get signed in and to the crew room I go right to our “quiet” room where we have a couple of recliners, I’ll get comfy in those and finish off the night of my sleep, sometimes I’ll sleep all the way till 11-12 if im not called, so in the end I still get an easy 8-10 hours of sleep. It’s also nice because more often than not I get to sleep through about 6 of my 8 hours on duty.  All of this works great until your phone rings at 6:20AM.

                Yup that’s what happened to me last week. Just as I was getting comfy to finish off my night of sleep my phone rang at 6:20AM and it was crew scheduling. Apparently the plane that stayed overnight in Nassau was broken and I was assigned to ferry a new plane out to Nassau to rescue the passengers. Captain and I blasted off with an empty airplane and no flight attendants to Nassau at 7AM. After we were shutdown I learned I was being marooned in Nassau until the broken plane was fixed and they would fly a new Captain out later that day to take the fixed plane home. Not really sure why they just didn’t have the captain I flew out with also fly back with me but whatever, crew scheduling often times has a mind of their own. After getting things sorted out I learned I would be sitting in Nassau for about 4 hours. Took the time to get some breakfast do a little shopping around the airport and got some reading in. 

                The new Captain finally showed up 2 flights later and we quickly got on our way back to Miami. Flight went pretty smoothly, again a completely empty plane with no flight attendants. It was my leg flying home and was met with a nice 15kt crosswind, doesn’t sound like much but the ATR has a relatively narrow wheelbase and a high wing which causes it to become a handful in even a small amount of cross wind. We flew through a good downpour on final which quickly became a stout little cell with a lot of lightning which caused us to have to sit in the plane for an extra 15-20min due to the ramp closing once we parked.

                That was pretty much the excitement from last week. I’ve been keeping a photo album on facebook, here is the public link which should allow anyone to view this one album even if you’re not a member of facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150208132207880.318424.507817879&l=49a1206d98&type=1

Land of the Seminole

                Hey everyone, happy Tuesday. Hope all of my friends and family back in Oklahoma are staying cool, looks like the heat wave has somehow been turned up a notch this week. Im on day 4 of 7 of being away, my last day is Friday then I will be flying up to New Jersey to spend my weekend off with my grandparents and fiancé. Today Im going to write about an interesting flight I had a couple of nights ago.

                I was sitting S3 reserve and got the phone call around 3PM that I would be flying up to Tallahassee and back leaving at 5:50PM. This is normally a route served by the jet but they cancelled today for some unknown reason and they decided to send an ATR in its place. Got to the plane about 45 minutes before departure, I like to give myself plenty of time to get everything situated up in the cockpit and get all my pre flight duties accomplished without having to rush. In a later post I’ll give a detailed description of everything I do during a typical flight.

                We left the gate pretty much on time. I was going to fly us up to Tallahassee and the Captain was going to fly us back. This is how its normally done at the airlines, the Captain and First Officer switch off between the “Pilot Flying” and “Pilot Monitoring” roles. The pilot flying is obviously the one controlling the aircraft and the pilot monitoring is working the radios and running the checklists. Took off on 8R out of Miami and made our left turn to head NW towards the land of the Seminoles. Everything was going smoothly until passing about 10,000ft we got an alert that we had a bleed air over hear. This wasn’t a huge problem but it needed to be addressed. The Captain gave me the radios and control of the plane, which I all ready had, while he ran the appropriate checklists. After talking to maintenance operation control they wanted us to return to MIA since we don’t have any maintenance available in Tallahassee. Making an enroute return takes a fair amount of work to accomplish. There’s a handful of different people that need to be notified of what’s going on, flight plans have to be changed, and the Captain has to make the dreaded PA to the all ready unhappy passengers. Reason they were all ready unhappy is that the problem we had affected the air condition system in the plane so they were pretty warm in the back and all ready getting cranky. I landed us back in Miami without any issues and the passengers were sent back to the terminal for now.

                Next issue we had was finding a new plane to continue the flight. Turn out we all ready had 3 ATR’s broke in Miami, because of that it took them another 45 min to an hour before we were assigned a new plane. We ended up launching again for Tallahassee with the same passengers at about 9:20PM, about the time we were supposed to be getting back from Tallahassee. This time things went a lot smoother, our routing took us up over Tampa Bay then out over the gulf a short ways to Tallahassee. While we were over Tampa I looked out my side window and saw the fireworks from the Orlando theme parks which were neat to see from about 100 miles away. I luckily made a nice smooth landing in Tallahassee for our very unhappy passengers. One thing that is often beneficial about the ATR is that there is a cargo compartment between the cockpit and the cabin, because of this we rarely actually see our passengers. On nights like that it’s a good thing however I felt sorry for our flight attendants in the back.

                After having to wait for our last paperwork for a good 15 min we finally took off back to Miami. Some weather had built up to the NE of Tampa that provided us a very nice light show for about half the flight. So far that’s one of my favorite things is watching a big towering cumulonimbus cloud light up like a firework from the air. Also this time as we were flying of the Tampa area I had a great overhead view of the area where I will be getting married next summer, was neat to see it all from the air at night. Finally got to the gate in Miami at 1:23AM, we had both been on duty since 2PM so it turned into a very long day. It was worth it for the sites I got to see though.  

Niner Six Quebec

     For today's post i've decided to share an essay i wrote during my Freshman year of college for my English comp class. The assignment was something like describe how communication plays a role in your career field or something like that. That's why you'll see that topic talked about in the essay. However for the most part though the essay talks a lot about my flight training days and even before that. I know its a little over the top probably in places but i had to make it good and juicy for the professor. Anyway hope you enjoy the read, its long but oh well.

Niner Six Quebec

“Oh I have slipped the surely bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds
and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of,
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.”

“High Flight” by John Gillespie Magee

“Cessna niner six quebec enter a right base for runway 35 Right your number 2 following a Cherokee on 1 mile final cleared to land.” Those were the instructions I received from Wiley Post tower.

            I responded “Roger well enter a right base for 35 Right number 2 behind the traffic.”

            It was a magnificently beautiful evening. The sun was beginning to set in the western sky.  As we flew over downtown Oklahoma City my dad, who was in the right seat, pointed out the sun reflecting off the sky scrapers. Earlier that day I had taken my private pilot check ride. It had been an intense morning of demonstrating my flying skills to a FAA designated flight examiner. That afternoon my dad and I decided to take a celebration flight. We departed from our hometown in Ardmore Oklahoma, to go see my mom who was at a school conference in Oklahoma City.  As I listened to the busy chatter of the air traffic controllers in the busy airspace, I thought to myself how I found it easy to understand this language. It was not always easy for me. Although English is the worldwide language for all air traffic control, it is in many ways different than just speaking normal English to one another.

            Years before I started my real life flight training I became intrigued by a computer flight simulator. The game was played online with hundreds of other aviation enthusiasts. Since the game is focused on real world detail, even air traffic control is simulated. I remember the very first time I flew using voice air traffic control. I had listened to people talk on the game and even found myself listening to recordings of real pilots talking on the radio. Even though I had a pretty good idea of what to say, I was scared to press the button that would transmit my voice over the internet to the virtual air traffic controller.  After sitting there for what had to have been 5 to 10 minutes I finally gathered the courage to speak into the microphone.

I said “Delta 1129 request IFR clearance to Dallas Forth Worth.”

After a short pause the controller responded “Delta 1129 cleared to Dallas Forth Worth via the Atlanta 5 departure WESTWO transition, climb and maintain one two thousand feet. Departure on 126.9 squawk 4435.”

It all came so fast I couldn’t believe it.  I had to repeat almost everything he just rattled off to me. Most of the time I have a good memory, but the nervousness must have gotten to me. I was afraid I would say something wrong but I tried anyway. I soon was corrected on my mistakes. I only got a few of the directions and numbers right. I felt embarrassed but luckily the controller was nice about it. After a lot of practice and mistakes, I finally started to catch on to the flow of air traffic control language.

A couple of years later, I found myself sitting in the cockpit of a Cessna 172. I was about to take my very first real life flight lesson. I was incredibly excited. I was embarking on a journey to fulfill my lifelong dream and begin progressing towards my career. The aircraft I was flying was a 1971 model. I know this sounds very old, which it is, but airplanes age very well. Looking at it from the outside one could easily tell it was from the 70’s. The original white paint with puke yellow stripes showed signs of wear and tear. The interior consisted of brown and yellow seats. Even though she wasn’t the newest or shiniest plane out there, nothing could take away from my excitement and adrenalin. As I buckled myself into the pilot’s seat, my mind began to wonder if my experience on my computer game would help me with the air traffic control language of real life. After working my way through all the preflight checks, it was finally time to start the engine for the first time. After cranking a few times our engine sprang to life. The spin of the propeller and engine vibrated the entire plane. As we taxied out towards the runway I began thinking about what I would say over the radio. I felt like I knew what to say, but again just like on the computer that nervousness came over me. I turned and asked my instructor what to say just for reassurance.

Aviation uses a lot of abnormal words compared to the normal English language. One of the most noticeable differences one might hear, is the use of the phonetic alphabet. Instead of using letters such as A, B, or C, both pilots and air traffic controllers will say Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. This helps to avoid confusion with letters that sound alike. For example, M and N are commonly confused and sound alike. In the phonetic alphabet M and N are referred to as “Mike” and “November.” The steepest learning curve does not come from the language itself; instead it comes from the speed at which the words are presented. Often times in a busy airspace, air traffic controllers will rattle off an entire sentence, sometimes multiple sentences, in just a split second. A pilot must be able to hear, interpret, and reply within a matter of seconds. It takes a great deal of concentration and understanding to accomplish this.

As I progressed in my training, I found myself becoming more and more confident with my communications with air traffic controllers. Once my flight instructor saw that I had become comfortable with the air traffic control language in our local area, he decided to take me on a flight into the Dallas/Forth Worth airspace. This particular airspace is ranked in the top 5 of the busiest airspaces in the world. I was excited about the opportunity to test my newly acquired confidence. We took off and headed south towards Dallas. The closer we got to our destination in Dallas, the more air traffic control chatter I could hear. Even for the experienced pilot, this airspace can be challenging and confusing. Soon before I knew it, we were in the thick of things. The controllers in Dallas began shooting instructions and commands at us left and right. However I found myself staying calm, understanding the instructions, and responding in a timely manner. Although the common little mistakes were still made, overall I performed excellent. This trip completely assured my confidence that I truly knew and understood the aviation language.   As with nearly everything, practice makes perfect. The more opportunities I received to talk to air traffic controllers, the more confident and fluid I became with the language. After nearly a year of training, my flight instructor said I was ready to take the test for my private pilot’s license. I had spent hours upon hours on practicing the flight maneuvers and techniques that I would be required to demonstrate.

It was a steamy morning in June. I was scheduled to meet with the FAA flight examiner at 9:30AM. I woke up and took a shower to help wash the drowsiness away. I left the house early so that I would have time to stop by sonic and get some food in my stomach. I felt nervous, but I knew I was ready for the task at hand. Once I arrived at the airport, I was wished luck by all of the local “airport coffee drinkers.” Once the examiner showed up we began the test. It started out with an oral portion that took roughly an hour and a half. He asked me all different questions pertaining to aviation. Some of them included information about the different kinds of aviation language used. Once we completed the oral section, I did a preflight on the airplane. The flying portion of the review only took about 45 minutes. He instructed me to perform several different maneuvers I had learned. Once we made our last landing and began taxing back to the hanger, I felt relieved it was over, but now I was nervous to hear if I passed or not. As I parked the aircraft and shut the engine down, he opened his door and stepped out.

He leaned back in and said “congratulations you’re a private pilot son.”

As we turned onto final approach for the runway at the Wiley Post airport, I felt a sense of pride

greater than anything else I had experienced in my young life. I had learned the skill of flying an airplane and was now on my way to fulfilling my dream of becoming an airline pilot. Language played a large role during my training. Not only in the sense of communication with air traffic control, but also being able to understand and communicate efficiently with my flight instructor.