“Golf, Sierra, Quebec, you are cleared to land on 26L.” Those, folks, are the sweetest 10 words you’ll hear at the end of a long day flying. Why am I making such a fuss about it? Let me tell you. With those 10 words it means that I am Number one! Being number one means a whole slew of things. I shall tell you what they mean in a moment. It’s definitely not like, “Who’s on first?”
With a landing clearance from the Air Traffic Controller (or the tower), I know I am ready to make all the moves necessary to imple-ment a safe landing. My pre-landing checklist is run and my cockpit duty is done. (I don’t know why they still call it the cockpit with so many female pilots occupying the front office of a plane these days). With a grin on my face and a trim of the wheel, and a swirl of my tired butt, I can set the plane on the right speed and pitch attitude and pre-pare to fly the last critical mile in for “Final” to make a soft touch down, “like a butterfly with sore feet.” (One of my instructors used to say that, even though no one can prove nor disprove if a butterfly ever has sore feet)!
So, why is it so important to be number one? Well, besides the usual connotation of being in first place, being number one means these things to me:
1) When I am number one, I don’t have to extend my down-wind, to who knows how far, in order to allow the plane in front of me to set up its landing rituals. Extending my down-wind means flying low and slow (circuit height), maintaining my altitude, maintaining my speed. This is when the mantra “Power and attitude equals performance,” keeps running rampant in my little head. It’s one of those cheesy but good sayings instructors throw at their students to make them fly better (tongue in cheek). I have to pay extra careful attention to my instruments and to look out for traffic at a critical time of flight when I am already tired from a long flight. I am al-ready taxed, and now I have to summon up extra energy and garner a second wind to fly the plane right to bring me down safely. I am not complaining. Nor am I saying that I can’t do it. Been there, done that. In the initial stages of flight training I used to love it, as it gave me the opportunity to learn the unpredictable. In the initial stages of training, the flights were usually short and sweet, and any “extras” thrown my way were considered “bonus learning.” Pilots are supposed to fly with their minds. They ought to be always mindful and vigi-lant, and “fly ahead of the plane.” A good pilot should be able to anticipate a situation and comply with instantaneous instructions from the tower. (It’s called having “situational awareness.”) Nonetheless it can become demanding if you have anticipated a “typical landing” (in your own little head) and the tower throws you a curve ball just as you make the radio call to announce you’re “inbound, for landing” inten-tion. Or even before that, if you’ve been listening to the right frequency, “d’other plane” in the pattern has been cleared to land and you know you’re not number one.
2) When I am not number one, and the tower wants me to “extend your downwind,” and it doesn’t tell me how far to fly and to what point, or what vector to fly (for the non-aviator, a vector simply means a heading); I am afraid they might for-get all about me, and leave me flying all the way back to where I’ve flown from 8 hours ago. Lots of laughter! That thought had occurred to me in my early days of flight train-ing. It was legitimate anxiety time. When my instructor was in the right seat, I used to feel less anxious because I had im-plicit trust in my instructor (sometimes I was being naïve, but most of the time, I truly believed in his competency to swoop in and save my bacon, and rightly so).
3) When I am not number one, I know it will cost me more money than I had expected to spend that day for flying. And that does not make me happy. With “avgas 100LL” at $1.50 cents a litre in most airports (For non-aviators, that is aviation fuel, with 100 octane, and low in lead … yes they still have lead, as lead makes for a good lubricant … only for plane engines, that is!) My (not so little) Cessna burns 8 gallons of avgas an hour. An extra 15 minutes of “extend your down-wind” leg could cost me my “après flying” fun at the local watering hole. That would not be a good thing.
4) Sometimes, because you are not number one, the tower may tell you to “Maintain altitude, and do a Right, 270”. This procedure is to buy time for d’plane which is ahead of you toland first, without conflict. For now, that means you have to keep your plane on the level without losing height, with throttle and pitch control, and make a “standard rate turn” 270 degrees from your heading to the right. And that is YOUR right. (For the non- aviators, a standard rate turn is a 360-degree turn in 2 minutes time.) In this configuration of turn-ing required of you, you start to scramble with mental arith-metic and visualization quickly while you attempt to comply with the tower’s instruction; at the same time, blurting out “Wilco,” meaning you will cooperate; followed by a repeat oyour call sign (in a panic, you could say it wrong too, espe-cially if it is the first time you’re flying that bird). The tower knows you are sweating by now. But the traffic controller, being a true professional, standing over the radar surveillancescreen up there in the tower, will not try to flap you. As if this was not enough, you also have to repeat the instruction back to the tower, so that they know that you know what you’ve been told to do. And all this time you are playing an-other mantra in your head … that of, “aviate, navigate, com-municate” which is what you’ve been told to do. When in doubt, fly the plane first. But the tower wants to know … NOW. You are busy aviating, and not communicating. All of a sudden, silence is loud in this scenario. You are trying to stay cool. So you say to the tower, “Standby.” You say it just like a “Pro,” as if you know exactly what you are doing. All the while you are trying to figure out why the heck you started flying in the first place! (And on the ground, they are trying to take your cell phone away when you’re talking and driving!) I learned quickly that flying is all about multi-tasking. In a split second the frenzy vanishes because you say to yourself, “fly the plane”, and then you do.
And before you know it, the plane is flying itself. It isall trimmed out. The auto- pilotis on and all is well. You are onthe right heading again; and thenext call is from the tower tell-ing you that you are cleared to land, and you are now number one. NOW you can breathe again. Isn’t learning to fly so much fun, exhilarating and breathtaking (as in “take my breath away?!”)
It challenges you physi-cally, mentally and emotionally and makes a better person out of you at the end of the day. The tower is not trying to put you through a test to see if you can do what it is that they want you to do. The tower doesn’t care if you can fly and chew the prover-bial gum at the same time. The tower operates for a safety “traffic separation” reason, and it assumes you know what to do when you’re not number one. After all you’ve passed the flight test. You are a full-fledged pilot. The tower expects you to comply. So, you comply. It is vital that you comply I was told. It is not so difficult for all those seasoned, veterans/pilots/mathematicians out there to comply with vectoring, separations and intercepting instruc-tions. But for a rookie pilot it can be intimidating in the be-ginning of a solo flying experience and at the end of a long flight. However, the good thing is, as you get to fly more and more, they (the procedures) can become second nature and flying can become easier. Hence the saying, “Practice makes perfect.” Transport Canada safety circulars tell you that pilot error is most common during the pilot fatigue phase, so we need to pay extra attention when a tower deviates from the standard, “You are cleared to land, you are number one,” clearance call. Especially at the end of a long flight from NewMexico which began 8 hours ago. Your body might be cramped and your mind is wandering home to your own bed. After all, you’ve just spent a week sleeping in a tent on the desert floor with scorpions and rattle snakes. You want to make “final” for that soft landing; you don’t want to make it your final and last landing (pun intended).
5) And finally, when you are not number one, and d’plane ahead of you is not landing as expected, you might have to re-engage and fly a manoeuver which pilots call a “go-around.” That, my dear readers, will be the subject of another story. So, now you know why I like being “number one.” (I have been number 2, 3 and 4 before too. I have no problems with being number 2, 3 and 4, any-more. The sweating days are somewhat over. But I still prefer to be number one.)
I love to ramble on and on about flying … flying is my pas-sion (even when I am not number one for landing). But I havto go now.
I would love to be Number one on your list of flightschools to call when you’re looking for a flight experi-ence. Be it sight seeing, or flying lessons. Just come down to Cobalt Aviation and look me up and I will tryto satisfy your flying passion as well. For now, this isErissa saying adios, and blue skies and safe flights, toall the pilots and soon to be pilots out there. Hasta la vista!
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