Aviation articles  by Garth Wallace
1/ Do you want a punch in the nose?
I flew to an uncontrolled airport. I had
been
there often so I knew the layout and unicom frequency. I didn’t bother to look
in the flight supplement or to check NOTAMS.
Five minutes out, I gave my position, intentions and asked for an airport
advisory. There was no response. I couldn’t hear any other aircraft in the
circuit so I continued for an overhead arrival.
Approaching the airport, I could see an airplane departing so I set up for a
circuit to that runway and called again. Nothing. I could see another aircraft
inbound for a straight-in downwind. It was well back so I turned to a
mid-downwind ahead of it and called again.
I checked the radio squelch. It worked but nobody was talking. I gave up on the
radio, watched for traffic and continued for a landing. I turned off the runway
and taxied to the ramp.
My passenger and I climbed out of the airplane and walked into the clubhouse.
There was a notice board behind the flying school counter announcing a unicom
frequency change for the airport. The effective date was a month old.
Oops.
Familiarity breeds laziness. This time it had caught up to me. Oh well, no harm
was done. I made a mental note of the new frequency.
I could see the aircraft that had landed behind us arriving on the ramp. As the
propeller stopped turning, a young flying instructor jumped out and made a
beeline for the clubhouse. He burst through the door and bellowed, "Who was
flying that red airplane that just landed."
"I was," I replied.
He hustled over to me and stuck his face in mine. "What frequency were you
on?" he demanded.
I could have admitted my mistake but this guy was threatening mad. "Why do
you ask?" I replied cautiously.
"Because you didn’t make any radio calls and you cut me off in the
circuit," he declared loudly. "Don’t you know that the frequency
changed here a month ago?" His face was turning bright red.
The five other people in the small room stopped what they were doing.
"I do now," I said as calmly as I could.
"Well, smart mouth, we could have collided!" he yelled. "It’s
against the law to fly without the right information. You should have checked
the latest supplement and called for NOTAMs."
This airport vigilante was right about knowing the correct frequency. It would
have made my arrival safer. If he thought his life was in danger, he needed
lessons on sharing the circuit with other aircraft. I decided he didn’t want
to hear that part.
"Thank you," I replied. "I’ll remember next time."
He wasn’t going to be satisfied that easily. His face started to turn purple.
"Guy’s like you are a menace to aviation!" he roared. Now he was
grandstanding to the others in the room. "If you’re going to fly like you
own the sky, you should quit now before you kill someone!"
"Well, if you’ve never made a mistake, I will," I snapped back.
My retort just spurred him into a greater rage.
There are all kinds of pilots. Not one of us is
perfect. We are in aviation together for better or worse. If we help each other
we can make it better.
The belligerent instructor was right to point out my error but he could have
asked in a normal voice if I was familiar with the new frequency. No one wants
to learn from a screamer. He lost credibility with the flying school customers
in the room and he had me defending my ego rather than learning anything.
I wanted to remind him that radios were not required at his small airport. I
thought of asking him if he flew while reading information instead of looking
out the windows but I decided he wasn’t in my face to listen.
I was getting the impression that this guy had made a career of berating pilots
who arrived on the wrong frequency. Maybe he was the one who campaigned for the
change so he would have something to rant about.
As he continued his tirade I had the urge to punch him in the nose. I didn’t
but I wanted to. I stopped answering him and he eventually gave up and stormed
off.
My passenger that day was my father. He had learned to fly when all training
aircraft had tailwheels and no radios. At the time of this encounter he was in
his eighties. He had stood to one side during the instructor’s onslaught. Now
he walked up to me, took measure of my agitation, smiled a little and said,
"Nice welcoming committee."
He was being cute but it helped defuse my anger. I vowed then and there to be
nice to other pilots no matter how stupid or ignorant they acted.
Later in my flying career, the pilot of a
high-performance, single-engine airplane was taxiing out ahead of me at an
uncontrolled airport. The only runway was short. The windsock indicated that 06
was the active. It had been all day. The pilot radioed that he was backtracking
for runway 06. I waited at mid-field short of the runway.
The pilot turned northeast and taxied toward the end of Runway 24. I called him
on my radio. "Aircraft taxing, you’re going the wrong way for a departure
on Runway 06."
There was a silence as the aircraft continued and then came to a stop. The pilot
was obviously checking the windsock and trying to decide who was right. Finally
he turned his aircraft around and headed for the other end.
"The wind must have switched," he declared over the radio.
I might have just saved the guy the embarrassment, expense and pain of running a
$100,000 airplane off the end of the runway attempting to takeoff with a strong
tailwind. I expected him to say, "OK, thanks very much," but his ego
replied instead. I could feel my face turning red. I wanted to punch the mike
button and say, "You’re welcome, you ungrateful dipstick!"
Remembering my incident with Instructor Screamer, I did a slow burn instead.
I believe that most pilots don’t speak up
enough. We are mainly a conservative, non-confrontational lot. If we see or hear
another pilot making a mistake, we don’t react except in our thoughts.
If you see an aviator needs a nudge in the right direction, please do it, but do
it nicely so he’ll thank you rather than punch you in the nose.
If other pilots help you along, leave your ego out of it and thank them.
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