My Jeppesen Private Pilot Manual tells student pilots that radio communication is very serious stuff. "When speaking on the radio," the good book says, "it is important to speak in a professional manner. Radio transmissions should be as brief as possible to help avoid frequency congestion. Incorrect radio procedures can compromise your safety and the safety of others."
All valid points, and all absolutely true-at least, as a rule. But what Jeppesen doesn't tell students is that some of the funniest and most helpful, memorable and wonderful connections and moments they will encounter in the course of their flying will also be through their aircraft radio. And those communications will, at times, bend all of those strictures.
There was, for example, the roundtable discussion on the lineage and nomenclature of the Cessna 310 that ensued one morning among a whole group of pilots in southern New Mexico. I was making my way west from El Paso early one hot, summer Sunday when a 310 pilot checked in with Albuquerque Center. The controller acknowledged the 310's transmission and then, a couple of minutes later, came back on the air.
"Hey, Cessna Three Romeo Mike," the controller asked, "do you have another name for your airplane?"
"Say again?" was the confused reply. The pilot probably had quite a few other names for his airplane, depending on how the machine was behaving.
"You know," the controller answered, "like, a 172 is a Skyhawk, a 182 is a Skylane … We're trying to remember here. What's a 310?"
There was a long moment of silence on the frequency. Finally, the pilot responded. "I don't think it has one," he said.
"Sure it does," chimed in an airline pilot who'd checked in a few minutes before. "It's a Skyknight."
"Nah," countered a Bonanza pilot with a deep, distinctive voice. "That was the souped-up version. The standard 310 didn't have a name."
The discussion went on for a few more minutes before a new pilot came on the frequency and commented with a long, southern drawl, "Guess it sure is slow in Albuquerque this morning."
The controller laughed. If we'd all been transmitting with hot mics, there would have been laughter heard from all over New Mexico. Our conversation may not have followed standard radio protocol, but the interchange was like a wonderful splash of fresh water that drove away my morning sleepiness and livened up an otherwise interminably long, droning flight across the New Mexico desert.
My long flights up and down California's San Joaquin Valley have been likewise lightened by creative (and evidently bored) controllers. A controller near Stockton answered my listing of Chino Airport as my destination one morning with, "Hey. Does Flo's Café there still have those amazing cinnamon rolls?" On another flight, I heard a controller ending every hand-off call with a cheery "Happy Trails!" Somehow I don't think "Happy Trails" is in Jeppesen's approved listing of professional radio transmission phrases, either. But it put a smile on my face, which is worth a lot on a long flight. Intrigued, I called in and asked the controller if he knew the rest of the words.
