Class D Sucks

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 15:38:33 -0500, Andrew Gideon
wrote:

Jose wrote:

The hard
part is when transmitting, to know what to say before you key the
mike.

Not always. On my first or second solo XC, one airport along the way was a
class C. I contacted departure outbound, of course, and did what I thought
was my usual call-up. I must have missed something, because he asked me
for my "altitude departing".

Normally, when you are doing your solo flight during training, you
will tell ATC that you are "solo" or something like that. They wil
know you might need more help than normal.

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 00:41:29 GMT, Jose
wrote:


You'll learn to understand the stuff quickly enough, don't let it
intimidate you. Anybody who does square dancing can do ATC. The hard
part is when transmitting, to know what to say before you key the
mike. ("Danbury tower, Piper three four seven Alpha Charlie, eight
miles northeast, inbound for landing with Whiskey", rather than
"Danbury tower, uh, let's see, we're a Piper, yeah... we're
landing.... um... oh, it's three four seven Charlie... I mean three
four seven Alpha Charlie... we're to the south... No, we're heading
south - we're north by a lake, well, we just passed the lake, most of
it anyway. We're at 2000 feet, our heading is two five zero... um,
what's the weather. And we're landing. Is that ok?"

That's just practice. But practice the first method, not the second
one.

Jose


You can also pick up a programmable scanner from Radio
Shack for probably less than $100. Then you can listen all you want.
If you live close enough to the airport, you could listen from home,
and/or just listen to the approach and center frequencies. This is how
I learned about communication when I was a kid, and had several years
of listening that helped me considerably when I finally got my
license.

I found a portable intercom that I carry around in the plane with an
audio out and a digital voice recorder is a fantastic investment.
Recording your own flights and reviewing them post flight is a good
tool. It also can help the flight instructor as well. You can hear the
calls you missed or where unclear about in a low work load environment
after the fact and honestly evaluate your performance. A portable T/RX
(or scanner) in conjunction with the comm and recorder also works
well. You can get hours of radio trainning tapes (CD's) for pennys.

Jon Wanzer
CP ASEL / IA
AGI IGI (CFI / CFII soon-to-be)
San Jose,CA

"Nimoy Pugh" wrote in message
...
Ha, you got it (silly spell checker, it should know what I mean).

So are there good reference material to learn that, I'm thinking I'm going
to have enough fun watching my air speed, rate of descent, keeping on the
center line, slipping and crabbing, etc. And I'm going to choke when I
hear
the ATC going on like that. I'd like to get a head start on knowing what
to
expect and what it means.


Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf
Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November
Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform
Victor Whiskey X-ray Yankee Zulu


Knowing the alphabet is a very good place to start. Copy this part of this
post, and keep a shortcut on your desktop, and every time you can't remember
a letter real quick, go through the whole thing again.
--
Jim in NC

Nimoy Pugh wrote:

Hmmm, fingers not typing what I'm thinking, "I can make more since out of a
square dance call"

What you just typed doesn't make sense.

George Patterson
The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.