On the Air: February 2017

Your recent OTA reminded me of a flight several years ago with my cousins daughter and her husband in the back seat during a scenic flight around the Dallas area. After the flight I asked her if she enjoyed it. Her reply was that the flight was nice and lots of fun, but she was concerned that I had to read the instructions on my kneeboard as I went through checklists during the flight.

Editorial Staff

Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots experience humorous radio exchanges, from reporting "huge" Canadian bugs flying high to controllers making witty remarks about prohibited airspace.
Unexpected ATC communications, such as ground control calling just to identify an obscure aircraft, can cause pilots momentary anxiety.
Passengers may misinterpret standard flight procedures, like a cousin's daughter thinking checklists are "instructions" because the pilot doesn't know how to fly.
Language barriers and inattentive instructors can lead to significant ATC misunderstandings, such as a foreign student nearly confirming a flight to Dallas Fort Worth instead of a local airport.

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One July, I was flying an Aerostar from Sherbrooke, Quebec to Kitchener, Ontario, passing through Toronto’s airspace when I heard an RV6 pilot with a thick southern drawl make a call that went something like this:

RV6: “Toronto Center, this is RV6 N1234 VFR at niner thousand, five hundred, I’d like to report an insect strike. I mean, we just entered Canadian airspace and this here bug was huge. I mean, it is smeared all over my windscreen, and man, it’s a reeeal mess.”