Mxsmanic wrote:

When you are given "a phone number to call" after doing something unwise, whom
do you actually call and what do you talk about? (If there's anyone willing to
admit having had to do this.)

In the 80's I was once asked to call a number after landing at Houston
Hobby (south of the city) from Dallas, with not much fuel left in a C150
and well overdue on my (vfr) flight plan.

The controller wanted to know why I was so late. I told him the plain
truth: I skirted Houston by a (too) wide margin to avoid the big iron,
and when I grasped how wide I'd flown, I slowed for maximum range inbound.

That was a serious error of judgment - avoiding the folks whose purpose
is to enhance safety, not shrink it.


I actually wrote the Administrator on another occasion, when I had been
flying VFR south of Dallas, and spotted an inbound SW 737 too close for
comfort. I wandered why a commercial was flying in so low.

In turn, I was invited to visit the DFW Tower facility to get a taste of
what they were up against. I supported the idea of major facilities
monitoring the entire area of their traffic.
Later, the US air space was divvied up to provide some of that
big view of the traffic round major terminal areas. That, and much
better transponder mode monitoring provides better security these days,
I believe.

Brian W