We've wrangled three real life air traffic controllers and brought them in to grill them with questions! Our thanks to Clay (from Houston Approach) and Nick & Gio (from Houston Center) for stopping by to drop some knowledge from the controllers' perspective of aviation. We covered everything from how to become an air traffic controller, to their common pilot pet peeves, to the scariest emergencies they've ever worked.
As pilots, we see other pilots all the time. But what about those mysterious voices on the other end of the radio... the air traffic controllers. Sometimes they may seem like robots spitting out clearances at a million miles an hour. Maybe they'll be the voice guiding you to safety if you encounter bad weather or an engine failure in flight. Possibly you've even been lectured by one for failing to comply with an instruction. But believe it or not there are real people behind those voices on the radio, and we've got three of them in studio with us today on the show! Thanks to professional air traffic controllers Clay, Nick, and Gio for joining us on this week's episode of Behind The Prop!
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4-mile final.
This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What’s up Wally? Hey Bobby how are you, fantastic. We are back with the guys. We have Nick, Gio, and Clay back in the room with us today and we're going to answer all of our listener questions that have been submitted and some of these are local. Some of these are just in general ATC questions that have come in and I’m sure we'll spin off to some other dialogues. Clay, Gio, Nick Welcome back to the show. Thank you. So this one's pretty local. But it's one that I think I vacillated about when I was a young pilot. We live in a delta airspace. Here at this airport and it's a two-thousand-foot shelf in the delta shelf here where right above us a big bravo and lots of planes turn right over the airport every day that weigh tons and tons. And you've got to think there's some wake turbulence their when we go out practicing we can go. We can stair step up to three thousand four thousand feet in some cases. Those planes look really really close and I would go out there and practices a newly certified private pilot thinking about. What should I do next to my career and I see this plane flying right over top of me. We're close. I know we're within a thousand feet right. What should pilots be thinking about when they depart airports around big bravo or spaces like this. Clay, You probably see everybody on your scope. What's too close. What should we be thinking about. How should we be navigating out there. Any tips or tricks for pilots, GA pilots You know I’m I'm sure that most pilots are very Aware of the class Bravo airspace. That's the main thing right away right And then the other thing. I'd say I shouldn't say this because I’m not a pilot But just because something is legal doesn't necessarily make it safe And I know that's hard to say because everything we do should be completely safe But you know for those listeners that that you know flying the Houston area east of lake Houston when inter-continental's west flow. We see it all the time where people will just stay east of lake Houston north and south and they'll be up at one thousand nine hundred feet yet. The united jets are coming in two thousand feet planning to seven. So it's kind of a pain you know we have to go. you know. we have to change what we're doing. We have to maybe climb the guys backup. We've added that quite a few times. Climb the guys back at least twenty-five hundred feet Or even move the guys out of the way completely at the guy looks like he might climb so You know flight following if you're going to get that close the bravo I know. Sometimes we push you down. You don't like it but if you want to be that close bravo flight following is a really good option otherwise like I said just because it's a legal doesn't mean it's good to do one hundred feet. Sounds crazy. I think. I heard Wally one time. Say he was with a pilot That was within ten feet. He said that's the landing gear. Never mind wake turbulence that’s the landing gear that's going to connect. Gio, you’re an instructor. You fly out of this airport a lot. What comes to mind for you when think you going west. And what would your separation thoughts be. And what guidance might you give to a new pilot. It's like hey this this is serious stuff at Clay brought up some really good points but. Generally I like to give a buffer in there. The shelf is two thousand. And I’ll be going out there. Fifteen hundred feet. I don't like to get too close To the bravo just because they are using every inch of that airspace. Coming in and you a lot of times you can even have an RA or some kind of TCAS issue with airliner if you're climbing they're descending out a certain rate even if you're going to miss it by fifty feet it can still cause an issue so I like to build in some space there especially if you're student pilot. Maybe you're looking at your checklist you're looking away. You didn't trim the airplane properly. If you only give yourself one hundred or you can very quickly pop in and out of that airspace. Where you know they see it all day. They can. They know they'll see that track it in. They're like oh you busted bravo which could be an issue could be a non-issue but I generally always tell pilots to give some sort of buffer I don’t have a hard number to give to everyone but like I said I personally will say at least five hundred feet underneath it. Just as a as a precaution. Give myself some breathing room and Wally. I know you're not a traffic controller but to fly some bigger planes into intercontinental. Sometimes in somedays you might be on the check ride out in the west practice area. What would you hope that someone would be doing if you were on the approaching the big aircraft and not the little. Oh yeah I. One hundred feet is not what I would hope for. Yeah I think. Five hundred feet is a good buffer, perfect. So that's the answer to your question if you're going west what should that separation. Next to you, Nick. What what's the worst time to ask for request for something? I would say especially if you're IFR the worst time to request something with a controller is when you first check on a new frequency A lot of times well almost every time when you talk to a new controller. You're still in the previous controllers airspace. They wrap up with a need from you and ship you to the next frequency a couple of minutes before you leave their airspace. So if you make a request and you're still in the other guys airspace. I got to tell you hang on. I got to put everybody else. Basically on pause. Get on the landline. Call the previous controllers. Sometimes it's a whole different facility and may have to call Clay over Houston approach on the shout line So just wait a couple of minutes to get a feel for what's going on the frequency and if you can unless it's unless you're getting rocked by some bad turbulence or safety related. I'm just talking about if you want to ask for a shortcut or something. You're much more likely to get it if you wait three or four minutes when you're on a new frequency interesting so I guess you say airspace. I'm thinking bravo, Charlie, delta. All that stuff. I'm still in like trays quadrant. In the city as I was telling me like. Yeah we have. We have everything divided up into sectors both laterally and vertically and pilots have no way of knowing what airspace you’re in but we kind defined airspace a little differently And so yeah. I mean you're in the previous controllers sector basically and they hand you off to a new controller before you leave their airspace and how would is a pilot or is it important that I know at all how long how much longer than being airspace. You said a couple of minutes. Is that a good rule of thumb for GA pilot. Yeah it's hard to tell. I say most guys depending on your speed you know it's going to be different for a triple. Seven as opposed to a Cessna seventy-two. But I’d say a couple of minutes or so a good real of thumb two to four minutes or something like that. And you talked about sectors and vertical and horizontal laterally. What is that depicted anywhere do. Should we care about that airspace. Or is that not important to us pilots as it relates to Clay’s sector being handed off to Gio’s sectors. That is that not important to a GA pilot. I don't I don't really know again. The wrong person to answer this but I don't think so I think the only time it really matters if you're lost and you're looking for frequency I guess but if you're already talking to us I mean we're going to work with each other you know facility, facility to figure out where you need to be so. Don't think you have to worry about being lost as long as you're on some kind of frequency with us so one of the questions that came in Over the innerwebs was what is a hand off. I think we've all been. I don't know whether we use it as slang or not. is it. The you guys considered truly a hand off and if so if the terminology is a hand off what happens when we're being handed off from one person to another Well I’ll take that one so a hand off is us transferring the track of a data block and radio communications to another controller And when we do this hand off we are essentially. Make an agreement with the receiving controller. Saying this airplane is going to be on the route that you see. And he's going to be at the altitude that you see. So whenever the receiving controller takes the hand off which a lot of times they just put an you know whatever Each aircraft has a CID which is just a unique code for the enter. The CID and they'll accept the hand off at that point. If there's no traffic for you there's nothing pending for you. Then I will go ahead and transfer radio communications to the next controller and that'll be the process of a hand off and that's why what. Nick was mentioning earlier. Why the worst time to make a request is whenever you switch frequencies because we already agreed with a receive a controller that.
Hey you're going to be. You know ten thousand feet if you went twelve thousand feet. While now I have to go and renegotiate with that controller could be traffic. They're going to be something else in the way a MOA or something that is active at twelve thousand so we have to and a word negotiate, A hand off but once handoffs a made call it from Houston to Austin control. Centers wants to Austin. Has me traveling westbound. Then you can forget about me. Even though I’m in your airspaces that pretty much what happens. No we still Will so watches for traffic. If you're in in my airspace. You know. I got to take responsibility for the airplane. But we're not going to transfer data blocking radio communications unless all traffic situations are handled in your clear to go into that airspace. So another question came in very similar to this traveling in the VFR conditions. But I’m on an IFR flight plan. And I see pockets of precipitation from me. What what's what can I legally. You're what are you guys. Expect me to do if I want to divert around that stuff. So tell you. I wanted to run around stuff. Or you guys. Expecting me to see around that. See some of this precipitation I guess. What's the expectation by both pilots. And then what's your unwritten. Rules are so are other real. Rules are the big thing that's controllers anything on our scope. We have to tell you about so we would do our best to tell you. you know. Moderate to extreme precipitation twelve o'clock one zero miles five miles in diameter So if we haven't called it to you we probably don't anything but doesn't mean you certainly can't deviate if you want to you would say center 9TC of which is looking for ten degrees left for the weather at my twelve o'clock and we'd say you're clear to deviate up to ten degrees left the course but definitely tell us before you make that turn because I could have parallel traffic at the same altitude right off your left hand side that you don't know anything about that. You're just going to turn into a lot of air carriers that come in from foreign countries a lot of times I’ve noticed for whatever reason they might have different rules over there or whatever but they'll just crank it hard forty degrees left and then as they're turning let me know that they're deviating and that that has created some scary situations definitely not good to turn prior to asking guests you. You haven't done this flown with my wife. And if she's a cloud eighty thousand miles away. She wants to divert even though we can go through it and she wants me to divert so it could vary on your scope versus what my wife sees but we should just alert of a deviation. Get the clearance from you. That it's okay and then make those you. You're never going to get a question from a controller. The only thing is you may get re sequenced if you're in line number three to land and there's three real tight behind you. You may get spun around to you know. Get a new spot in line for the airport. If you're close that's the only thing but you're never going to get a controller. That's going to give you a hard time about Or shouldn't anyway deviating. Because if you end up hurting the airplane or hurting someone on board. That's going to come back on us if we didn't you deviate unless there's another aircraft out there.
I don't see anybody ever say no. But I want to reiterate it is a request. The deviation is a request. we have to approve it. I like you said you got to you got to ask for it. I don't ever turn or we've had. I've had people climb five hundred feet. Well I was missing this cloud all right man. You can't do that. You know you know. I could have had somebody above you; you know. Whatever and everything are always a request. And most I’m we're going to say yes if we can and again we're talking IFR there. Yeah, IFR but a very similar question. Came in is VFR altitude your discretion but there are rules around altitude. So I’m at four thousand five hundred feet flying along. I see a cloud. That I’m not going to get I’m going to have to have to either climb or descend or something because I don't want to go through it and be at fault myself for being in IMC. When I shouldn't be and you are a controller center. Whatever it happens in Austin has happened to me before says altitude your discretion. I have some rules. I'm supposed to be following. What would be your expectations in front of me control. It tells you altitude discretion. And I don't care unless you're in the bravo I’m going to give you hard altitude. I'm going say I need you. This altitude doesn’t go out of that unless you tell me first and then if there's traffic let's say you're outside of the bravo and you’re just flying out there and I’ve traffic for you. I'm going to let you know. Hey I need you know at or below forty-five because of this crossing traffic once that traffic is gone I’ll say altitude your discretion. Now I don't care anymore So unless you get that hard altitude on no one cares and sometimes the center. We worked so much IFR traffic. I'll say advise any altitude changes so in that case. If you were told something along those lines you might want to say hey. We got some get some clouds here. We're going to try to climb. Descend we may be a little bit left and right of course but I guess Gio, I hate to put you on the spot. But let's assume you're instructing me and I’m your student I'm on VFR flight following a forty-five hundred feet. I feel like I’m going to run into some clouds. He or she says altitude your discretion. What are you going to recommend me to do. Even plus five hundred to go all the way to twenty-five ago all of a sixty-five. What what's the real-world guidance. On that when. I really just feel like I need to go up about seven hundred fifty feet go over a little pocket of moisture in the air and then come back down. What would you recommend or teach your students during that situation. So obviously first and foremost you got to you got to keep the you know the regs mind. You have to do your five hundred feet below thousand above or Two thousand horizontally. So whatever you choose you have to remember to the those are VFR cruising altitudes if you're climbing descending those altitudes don't apply in those cases so if you have to climb to miss it and then go underneath it. That's fine but obviously you know you keep in mind efficiency if you know if you're going to Navasota and there's a cloud in front of you and maybe more efficient to go and start your descent early versus climbing up again then descending and also keep in mind you know airspace around you.
You know if you're going to climb maybe you might clip the class. Bravo airspace. So I would say it's probably more art than science Getting around clouds and weather but You know it's definitely you know. Keep in mind. You know where you're landing and airspace around you because it if you see a big scary cloud your initial instinct. Could maybe put you in a war situation with traffic or get you in someone else's airspace perfect. I think I think you're keyword. There was cruising altitudes. And if we're doing something to not specifically cruise probably in the right spot remember the rags and be smart about your decisions so question from one of our listeners squawk codes I always seem to get the same squawk codes in the same areas of the state that I fly in is do people have a certain set of codes. They use or how are squawk codes being assigned to my aircraft. You know depending on where you're going Like we talked about before we have. You know NAS code and a LOC code. If I’m heading off to these guys and it's got to be a NAS code so there's going to be more information there so it comes up on their system over there. I'm for us. It's going to be a different bank if it staying in our you know Airspace Houston TRACON on that is And so we don't need as much information there It's really it though. I mean there's no major differences minus you know having to put a little bit more information as far as altitude. These guys want to know what they're coming at them type aircraft all that stuff. Where if it stays with us. All we need is a call sign really. That's all I need and we can get you going and I guess a similar question with ADSB. Be what's the future of squawk codes. And I guess maybe what's the purpose of a squawk code with ADSB being obviously in controlled airspace. What are we solving with the squawk code now that we all have ADSB in our aircraft essentially as far as I understand. You're able to see us as air. Traffic control can see information about your aircraft like the call sign and whatnot Even though you are not on any sort of flight plan so in the old days we would we'd see what was just called like a mode c intruder we might know your altitude and that you're kind of in the airspace around. They're doing some VFR stuff but we don't know anything about you now. We can see a call sign and there might be a little more information to that. The suits upstairs can look into. I don't know but as far as we can. Just see a little bit about the aircraft. Even though you're not on flight plan of squawking twelve hundred on flying VFR. You would know more about me now. If I was out in uncontrolled airspace. I might have some information that others might get to see as well. Yes makes a lot of sense. This comes for maybe a student. Maybe an instructor. I'm not sure says. How do you feel about student read backs. Do you wish they were longer or shorter and what information is really important for students to read back to you. Definitely any control instruction. I'd say is very important. You know in altitude or route anything like that. Altimeters? I've heard both on that it. That's a great point. Because I hear that all the time. Yeah they check in with someone they say. Great college station altimeter two nine hundred two and it feels like you should respond. And I think I do just .95, 9TC. Just give them something because it feels like you should have a read back. But I don't.
I don't believe that's required necessarily, Gio, you want to expand on. That'll I personally. I appreciate it If you check in say hey. This is American one-two-three descending via the Suzie four arrival. When I read back American one-two-three Houston center. Altimeter 29.93 if you read back nine Three American one-two-three that just for me. That kind of lets me know okay. Yeah he heard it but again this is just a preference is you're not. There are no rules but as far as like read backs go Generally you know the old rule of thumb is reading back the numbers. If you hear it clear to taxi to those you're going to want to read back. And I think the biggest one too is attaching your call sign to it That's an easy one of forget but it's number one thing you'll see controllers getting on pilots with is not using their call signs when they're talking you know one thing I’ll here's okay. Hey I’m requesting lower okay who's requesting lower. Okay it's November one two three four. Okay thank you so definitely whatever you read back attach your call sign to because it's very important and can cause some issues. If someone else has a similar sounding call sign which sometimes it's hard to believe but there can be very very similar sounding call signs out there Where one person can read back and can cause a whole set of issues. When asked the question that might cause some controversy here that was not on our list of questions. But isn't it really cool just to click. Click like the way. I'm honest when I worked good enough. When I’m working and I hear a pilot do that. I think that guy is awesome. I wish I was that guy again without an altimeter or something like that. It's better than nothing. I guess I appreciate it when we're calling weather too. That's really important for us. We've had that beaten into us as controllers that we have to let pilot’s know about the weather. So give us some sort of acknowledgment. You know the mike click is fine just that you got the information that we threw out there. It's fine okay. And then I guess to that mike click. Thought we'd have more discussion. Okay mic clicks. Clay, I don't know you know it is what it is. Yeah I don't know anybody does not going to go away tomorrow. What about I. guess. I'll call it humor on the radio we. We fly a lot. We some of it's monotonous if we're flight training and we're doing our stuff. What about the humor on the radio. I think I hear a lot on the ground. Where will say. I'm ready to go where they say something. Cute like that right ready. Go see grandma grandpa. what are your thoughts on people doing things. That aren't I. Guess the right or official way to do. Let's go back to the drive through at chick-fil-a if the lines long and that guy looks pissed off and exhausted in it's the end of his ten-hour shifts. Are you going to want to mess with them. It's probably not an appropriate time. You're probably just going to stick to your order right. I say that's my inclination is to say something like that. If it's really slow it's late at night. Hey how you doing. How's your day going man. Sure that's fine. We can have a little conversation is if we're busy it's weather related and it's all business you know your audience. Yes sometimes when. I when I’m land and you know they attack exit. You're supposed to contact ground today day. I want to tell them thanks to serve time at a very busy airport. What should I do. If I don't say thank you or have a good day. I know they knew who I am. Was bobby mad. I'm obviously an anxiety wreck when one thing I will say is one thing that when I’m working with students what I talk about is if you're going to fly internationally what you have to realize is that you. You're very likely going to be speaking to a controller whose native language is not English and he may have he or she may have a very limited command of the English language and its aviation related. So talking in slang may not may not be good because they make quite. Frankly not understand what you're saying and sometimes we're over the ocean we're not even actually talking to controllers. We're talking to a company that relates to controllers. We may be talking to a clerk. And they're just putting numbers down on a spreadsheet and then relaying the controllers. So that's why from the get go. I try to get people to say. We're not climbing ten thousand. We’re climbing one zero thousand and just use the terminology. The phraseology exactly right and I mean if you can start that from day one. It just seems to be a lot better. Could make a big deal one day. The other thing is a lotta times at a tower. You're right next to the transmitter. So you usually around the air like here it hooks. You have a pretty good connection. I guess a good signal with the controller true but in the center environment. Sometimes you're we're talking to people who are hundreds of miles away literally from the transmitter. And they're descending the low altitude and the receptions getting even worse and a lot of that. Phraseology is made to cut through those really bad reception. And get the important stuff across gotcha so not necessarily question something nick you and I have spoken about specifically in that is that not. All controllers are pilots. And maybe not all controllers.
No matter what phraseology us will understand. If you're having a problem Talk to us a little bit about what. What would it mean if I said I have. A vacuum system is not working. That might not mean the same thing to every controller. Oh yeah a lot of us are airplane geeks but a lotta or want to be pilots. I guess but a lot of controllers. Most I’d say good ninety five percent ballpark are not pilots. So if you start going on and on about your vacuum system failure and you don't think you're directional gyros spinning properly. I don't know that's going to mean nothing to most people. Tell us what you need. You know assume you talking to somebody that doesn't know anything about airplanes. I need the nearest airport immediately. I'm having some sort of flight control issue. I need to put this thing on the ground. What's your nearest airport. Be direct and let us know what you need and also don't ever hesitate to let us know that there is an issue going on. I've seen a lot of different shows. We bobby. And I was talking to. We watch air disasters. How many people have flown the plane into the ground because they refuse to acknowledge that there was an issue and confronted or communicate to the controller. Forget being embarrassed. You don't have as much fuel as you thought you did. Forget about all that. Be safe communicate. What's going on with the controller and be direct about what you need. Yeah I think it would be so sad if anybody got hurt. Because they didn't declare something right. I mean I think that's important. But I think the conversation we've had in the past about people not knowing what all these instruments might be doing for you to help navigate. You just need to say navigation problem. Any real help to help turn. I'll have left as a compass. You know something and then. I think there's this thing that I worry about. I've got an ego. Sure we all have egos of bearing levels That ego should not ever let you get hurt right so you got to speak up. You got to scream and yell. I got real issues right. You're not going to think any less of a guy who says hey. I'm losing everything. I need your help. You're just going to want to be that service-oriented team to help them but we're here for right so talk about fuel. How Wally, how important is fuel. Well, it’s one of the top five things number one is fuel number two is let me see fuel looking at my notes. Three is fuel number. Four is fuel and number five are. It's the airplane can't fly without you know. We can fly without electricity to an extent we can fly without an engine Glide somewhere and if we got more than one inch and we can fly maybe a little bit longer fuel is really real import and so in all these GA aircraft fuel gauges are fuel gauges. We don't we can't trust them. We got all look if you had someone call up and just tell you. They didn't know I need help again. No harm no foul. None of your going to hold against them. We're not going to get reported anyone. You're going to help us through the situation and we're going to deal with anything else tomorrow. Right absolutely transition from that would be we all like to hear about your scary moments. Give us a little bit of insight into some scary Controller pilot moments are something that you can share with us. That might help us all. Be a little bit smarter or better. Pilots are safer pilots in the future. We'll start with you. Gio yeah so This was maybe two years ago but I’d an aircraft was a turboprop piper. Malibu I believe in He was climbing into high altitude. I think final cruising altitude was twenty-eight thousand feet and he checks on From us from fort worth climbing out of fifteen thousand for his assign altitude of twenty-eight thousand feet. Well for us. It's pretty important that we get that out to that altitude that you're leaving especially because he was coming from a different facility to us. I have to verify his mode C. Well what I saw my side was twenty-three thousand feet and he said he was at fifteen thousand feet. So I said okay. That's weird and I said okay. Just verify you are. You know you're climbing to your out of Two three zero is negative. Fifteen thousand feet well. After a few other small communications he quickly becomes disoriented. He loses all faith in his instruments. And I see his aircraft go from my side I saw twenty-three thousand feet down to nine thousand feet in probably less than two minutes and during that time you know for us if an airplane does something that the computer does not think it's should be doing it X’s out. There's X’s Next to it. And I see this come out and I’m like oh my gosh. I don't. I don't know what this guy's doing but he's in trouble well during that timeframe where I’m trying to get a hold of him. He switched to guard frequency. Which is you know what. A lot of us are taught during emergency. 121.5. Well when he did that he was talking with controller in Laredo and my airspace is pretty much directly over the Austin area and now this controller trying to figure out where is he What's going on. And they had to play a game of telephone to get them back to me because he switched frequencies and then I had a kind of quickly tell him. Hey stop your decent. Because by the time that he came back to me he was just about nine thousand feet in someone else's airspace. Airspace ended at thirteen thousand. Feet where he was at so. I coordinate with other controllers and he had missed another airplane. That was very close to him so from out of that. It's pretty important to know that airspaces is vertical and laterally but in an emergency. You don't have to switch to 121.5. If you're talking to air traffic controller if you are radar identified stay with your where you are because it's the most helpful person you can talk to you and not all of us have 121.5 outer sectors. I don't know how they decide. Who gets it but My whole area. All the sectors. I work we don't have one to one point five so I wasn't able to talk to the pilot but to kind of wrap it up here. He eventually had a pilot. Just say hey you know one two three four check your gps altitude. And he. I guess he went foreflight or maybe on a four thirty or whatever he had in there and he saw that was showing about nine thousand feet while eventually the pilot got reoriented and was able to stop his decent and funny enough this guy. He wanted to truck onto his destination. Like man back to twenty-three thousand people. Yeah and he was. He was fine after the few moments of sheer terror for him where he was ready to go on. I mean guess. More power to him. But I mean I want to get on the ground for a little bit. Take a breath. Maybe get some water. Before I go out again and figure out what was going on. If my wife was in that aircraft we would not be flying again for years. Clay give us a story that we can all hope we learned from a relate to In your in your time There's a lot of stories. But I mean any controller that has been around for it. All you know the bird strikes. They've seen military jets flaming out. They've seen people thinking they had more fuel than they did You know the probably one of the ones that got me. The most was Icing issue and I worked out northern California the general aviation aircraft Worked out You know got him over. The coast got them lower and everything started working out for him and continue areas going. But I think it's you know I never get stressed out. I don't get scared when I’m on the radio you know. Somebody says he has an emergency because normally the pilots voice is smooth. And it's you can tell he's still in control. He's still in command but when that pilots voice starts getting frantic. And you can tell that. There's something really serious that's whenever to me. It's like okay now. I've been in quite a few of those words like this guy and he wasn't he's not talking like he was three minutes ago. Something's wrong and it's pretty bad. And that's when my attention goes to it and we kind of kick everybody else out. You know you. You might have heard sometimes flying. You know there's emergency we'll kick the transfer and people to other sectors and all concentrate on you. Well I’m sure we've all watched a YouTube video or listen to something of someone who's gone from. Hey can you tell me that. Something to the cracking in the voice. No there's really it's imminent. There's real danger there absolutely. I think he was scare me more. Hear someone who was trying to become but also voiceless cracking almost trying to play it off. And that's I think what scares me. The most is. I don't want anybody who's ego to get the better of them and try to play cool Nick I’m sure you to have something that we can all learn from gives little example. Something that you've been involved with yeah we At the center we all monitor guard If you have it at your sector. You're supposed to have kind of on the speaker. they're just listening and most of what you hear on guard is either person making Chewbacca noises for some reason. I don't know why. That's the thing. But I seem to hear that every day. Just drive it out not only. Is that you Bobby in your one eighty-two doing that. Stop it No or people. You know testing their ELT’s at the top of the hour. Whatever it's very rarely. Do you hear anything. It's not an actual call for help. But one night. I was working late and Heard a gentleman call up and he was in the middle of. I think he said he was near Hammond Louisiana and he lost all his electrical and he was kind of getting disoriented or lost. Or something. I didn't get the full picture but I realized I needed help and half waited for somebody else to respond. Because I figured somebody else's probably already talking to him. I wasn't going to get involved. And I heard him call again and I’d hit the button to respond on guard and sure enough. He responded to me. And I was like holy crap. This guy really needs help. And we got a frequency. The supervisor came over and another controller came over who is a pilot. And we've got a frequency for I think it was baton rouge approach or something and ended up getting I think at that point. I believe he was on his hand. Held back up radio or something. I don't know exactly what's going on. But we got him a frequency. Got him in touch with everything and I ended up leaving my number form at the FBO at baton rouge and he called me the next day and we had a long chat about what had happened and he was grateful that we helped out. But yeah so walling.
And I have done multiple shows now on emergencies are just the context of emergencies and they get a lot of listens downloads. One question that. I think many pilots still want to know if there's some special secret sauce to declaring an emergency what would you three gentlemen all listening to radios all having an emergency’s declared what would you recommend for someone if they've got the wherewithal. How should they declared an emergency. I would save well first of all number one is don't hesitate to declare an emergency There's not anything that's going to happen to you if you think you're in an emergency situation Declared emergency and a lot of times. The controller talking earlier to the controller will declare one for you. And you won't even know if you say you've got some say a flight control issue going on and you're weaving left and right of course but you're hesitant to declare an emergency. Guess what one's already been declared for you and help is going to be waiting for you on the runway. But no I would say the number one thing when you declare an emergency is you just be very clear about what you need be concise. Don't go on and on. And on. And I think we all know. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate your most important thing you have to do. There is fly your airplane When you tell what's going on and tell us how we can help and we're going to do. And then I guess we'll leave this final question as we wrap up will almost pretend that this person's at their destination after a long cross country of IFR they're landing at an uncontrolled airport and they decide the not close their flight plan clay. What really happens in the real world like nothing's really going to happen you see me on Foreflight you'll see me land. Everything's good yeah. Well you're going to make at least one controller mad and maybe possibly a sheriff as well so whenever you land and you know or right before you land. I should say and we switched over to CTAF and we ask you. Please cancel as soon as you possibly can and you either choose not to forget to whatever We basically shut that airport down. If there's somebody there is available that we can call the airport and they go check on you. We will do that. If not the Sheriff is going to come looking for you We'll get your information on. The internet will call you at home. We'll call yourself whatever got we'll figure out where you are and just know that your buddies on the ground you're buddies in there they can't get in that airport until you give us a call also recommendation to let them call you so they can help you close your flight plan out. We will find you and off radio. We were talking a little bit about the phone number that we put in our flight plan. How valuable that really can be. I think early on. I was taught to put the FBO I was leavings phone number in there. Obviously I put my cell phone number. And they're now you guys mentioned sat phone really truly. You're recommending. I think. I heard you recommend whatever phone number. They might be able to get you in the air even if it's via text any tech story. Y'all have that you can share with us. Yeah released to the phone number definitely. Yeah having your phone number and the remarks helps We can pull it up at our sector pretty easily now. There is a for us. We have the archie awards which is generally a controller that went above and beyond. To Help an aircraft in distress that had some sort of excellent service and you at home can go look up ZFW, which is fort worth center archie award where they had a pilot who lost radio Communications and he was the controller was able to get his number and they were to text him information. There's VFR weather north of you, and we're going to turn on the pilot control lighting. They're able to text him Just because he had his number in there And I know. Nick has talked about other times. We're is able to get a hold of airplanes via sat phone. They have it on there because you know. He deals with aircraft over the ocean. Where the radio's may not be as good so there's definitely a lot of ways that having your phone number in there can help so. Make sure you're doing everything to get help if you ever need anything to close with their. Oh yeah just about that phone number two. It could be another way to get a hold of you on the ground. You know if you if you're on the way home driving home or you're already home and you have no idea. There are five aircraft in a holding pattern because you shut the airport down. We could use that cell phone number to call you quick. And just say hey Bobby on the ground cancel IFR. Okay great sounds good man. I hope I never get that phone call. Thanks for coming Back and joining the show again, Wally Anything you'd like to add as we wrap this episode up. Nope, It's all good. All right as always thanks to these three gentlemen. Fly safe, and as always, Stay behind the prop.
Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Show creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This show is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!