Fly, Listen, Talk

Bernoulli's principle (also known as Bernoulli's law) explains differential pressures around an airfoil, from whence lift derives. Boyle's law helps to explain a lot about aviation physiology. Newton discovered a few laws worth mentioning, too.

By the time most of us have earned our wings, we've memorized these "laws."

You may not have heard of Marconi's law. Named somewhat facetiously for Guglielmo Marconi, who transmitted the first wireless message in 1895, it says, "Fly the airplane, not the radio!"

Some of the corollaries to Marconi's law are "Listen and think before you talk," "Don't talk if you don't need to," and "When you do need to say something, say it."

Marconi's law means, "Think (and listen) before you are tempted to talk, especially when nobody outside the cockpit can do a thing for you at that moment." Talking is not the thing; doing is. Remember "Aviate, navigate, communicate"?

How you use your radio could mean the difference between success or failure, having fun or not so much fun-even life and death.

Sometimes, the most effective way to use your radio might be not to use it at all.

If you're just learning to fly, transmitting on the radio might still be an unlearned skill for you. If so, there are training devices available to teach the talking part of radio communications. The Internet can help you-try logging on to one of the numerous Web sites that offer real-time air traffic control exchanges at busy airports. Several good training aids are available, such as Comm1 Radio Simulator, a software program for personal computers. A handheld aviation radio may let you listen to air traffic control communications from your home.

The more you think about the radio as a tool, the less important talking on it becomes and the more you'll appreciate that a radio is just another resource to help manage your flight.

Managing your radio

Management is a critical function in flying, and radios are a part of that. A radio is nothing more than a tool for helping us to dispense information and fill in gaps between what we know and what we need to know.

Manage your communications aggressively. Especially where traffic control is involved, if you need information or hear directions, clearances, or other things that don't make sense to you. Ask questions. Don't take anything for granted.

As you become a more experienced pilot, talking on the radio should become second nature. Listening, thinking, and knowing when not to talk are equally important. With experience, talking becomes easy. Maybe too easy!

Listening is important

It's been said that the reason we have two ears and only one mouth is so we can listen twice as much as we talk.

From the pilots' perspectives, consider these scenarios and analyze them in terms of listening and talking.

March 9, 2000. Sarasota-Bradenton Airport. It was a beautiful VFR day in Sarasota, Florida. The airport was busy. Three airplanes were lined up and ready to go on Taxiway Alpha at the end of Runway 14. Three more were ready on Taxiway Foxtrot where it intersected Runway 14 about a thousand feet away. Visibility was 10 miles, temperature 75 degrees Fahrenheit, winds were 6 knots.

A Cessna 152 at the end of Runway 14 was cleared for takeoff and began to roll.

Meanwhile, in the mistaken belief that it was at the end of the runway, ground control cleared a Cessna 172 at Taxiway Foxtrot to "taxi into position and hold"-ahead of the 152 already rolling for takeoff. The two airplanes met near the intersection of Runway 14 and Taxiway Foxtrot.

The 152 had barely lifted off and apparently stalled trying to avoid the collision, flipped over, and ended up inverted on top of the 172. A fire erupted. Four people died, including two CFIs and one ATP. One of them had more than 13,000 flying hours.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the most probable primary cause of this accident was controller error. But could it have been prevented? Clearly the four pilots were focused on the job at hand: getting off the ground.

Might Marconi's Corollary have been helpful in this case? Could this accident have been prevented if the pilots were listening more attentively to what was going on? Using the information that they heard to paint a mental picture of what was happening around them? Who knows? But it's worth taking the time to think about. (You can read the accident report on AOPA Online; enter NTSB number MIA00FA103B.) Are intersection departures used frequently at the airfield where you fly?

November 22, 1994. St Louis International Airport. It was dark. An MD-82/DC-9 airliner with 140 people on board collided during takeoff with a twin-engine Cessna 441 carrying two persons.

Backing up, we see the airliner waiting near the runway for takeoff clearance on Runway 30R. The Cessna taxied to the same runway (30R) when it was cleared to "back-taxi into position and hold on Runway 31." Believing that the Cessna was on its assigned runway (31), controllers cleared the airliner to take off on Runway 30R.

By the time the jet's crew saw the Cessna in front of them on the runway, it was too late to avoid the collision. The Cessna was destroyed and its occupants killed. (This article was the subject of a "Safety Pilot Landmark Accidents" article in the August 2000 AOPA Pilot available online.)

February 1, 1991. Los Angeles International Airport. Shortly after sunset, a Fairchild Metroliner turboprop operated by Sky West was cleared by ground control to taxi to Runway 24L. It was then instructed to taxi into position and hold for takeoff clearance.

At about that same time, a Boeing 737 inbound from Columbus, Ohio, was cleared to land-on Runway 24L.

Approximately one minute later, as the 737's nosegear touched down on the runway, it hit the waiting Metroliner. Both airplanes slid off the side of the runway and exploded when they struck a nearby building. They were engulfed in flames, and 34 people died.

What would you do if you were holding on a runway-tonight-and heard another aircraft cleared to land your same runway? Might "listening up" more intently on this particular night, have warned anyone that a disaster was about to happen? Might controllers, or pilots, have done something-or not done something-to prevent this accident?

A couple of years ago, I was waiting at the hold-short line for a night departure from Runway 17R at my home airport in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The tower cleared us for takeoff on Runway 17L. As my student advanced the power to cross the hold line, I applied brakes and asked him to repeat the clearance he'd just "heard"-after which I reminded him that Runway 17L was a parallel runway several thousand feet to the east of our position.

The point is this: Particularly at busy airports, it takes an alert team of controllers and pilots to keep it all together. All of us have to listen, hear, and visualize what is happening. Marconi's law and its corollaries should constantly remind us of that.

Don't talk-fly

When you're 500 feet off the ground just after takeoff and the engine coughs itself to death, calling "Mayday" on the radio won't do you much good. So why don't we just fly the airplane-first-all the time?

That thinking applies equally to the classic engine failure while you're en route from Point A to Point B (or just in the local practice area) and things suddenly get quiet in the cockpit. Even on a nice VFR day, you're probably going to need someplace to land-and soon. So, pilots ought to have in the backs of their minds where that "someplace" is, all the time. The radio can wait.

If you're flying in instrument meteorological conditions and clueless about where to go, you might have to use the radio and call somebody for a vector. But even in this instance, reaching for the microphone is definitely not the first thing you want to do. The first thing to do, says Marconi, is fly the airplane.

Engine failure. The outcome of an engine failure is largely up to you, but Marconi would recommend that you control the airplane first; assume the right glide attitude and airspeed; pick out a place to land; maneuver to an appropriate landing pattern; and land the airplane absolutely under control. Make it the best landing of your life.

Those who don't know Marconi's law, on the other hand, will probably lunge for that microphone and try to call for help before taking action. Talking to someone provides a sense of reassurance, doesn't it? The problem is that those pilots are likely to waste precious time responding to people on the radio, outside of the airplane, who can't do anything immediately helpful.

If time permits in this situation and you don't become distracted by outside radio calls, you might even have time to find out what caused the engine to quit in the first place, and try to restart it.

If my airplane's engine suddenly quits, talking on the radio would be the last thing on my emergency checklist (being the "Marconi thinker" that I am). I'd probably have my hands more than full doing more important things.

Missed approach. Here's another "hurried-if-you-allow-it-to-be" situation when talking on the radio is the last thing I want to be doing. Visualize this: you're flying an instrument approach and you're at the missed approach point on a bad, black night; your time from the final approach fix to the missed-approach point is expired; and all you see ahead of you is murk. That's not the time to call, "Missed approach." The airspace ahead is already cleared out for you anyway and the controller will wait while you stabilize the airplane and climb safely away.

When it's OK to talk

There are times when talking on the radio is important.

At nontowered airports. Pilots operating at nontowered airports are not even required to have radios, let alone use them. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't. Standard radio calls recommended in the Aeronautical Information Manual enhance safety, preserve order in the pattern, and help to keep everyone (who bothers to listen) oriented.

When you're in the pattern at a nontowered airport use your radio and listen up to keep current with what's happening. Make standard calls 10 miles out, turning downwind, turning base, turning final, clear of the runway, and anywhere else you feel will enhance safety at nontowered airports. Keep your calls short and use standard terminology.

When giving pilot reports. Pireps are powerful tools. They can result in weather forecasts being changed. Regularly report what you encounter to Flight Watch (122.0 MHz below 17,500 feet; assigned frequencies above that), whether the weather is good or bad. Make it a habit to file at least one Pirep on every flight.

The sequence is: 1) Location, in terms of the nearest airport or VOR; 2) Time; 3) Altitude; 4) Aircraft type; 5) Clouds; 6) Visibility/precipitation; 7) Temperature; 8) Wind; 9) Turbulence/icing; and 10) Remarks.

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation offers an interactive online course, SkySpotter, to help you become Pirep proficient. Check it out.

With ATC. Most of us have gotten lazy in today's radar environment. But when the ATC radar goes down, our procedural and communications workloads increase. It takes coordination and practice to be able to make additional radio calls and fly the airplane through rusty procedure turns when on instrument approaches in a nonradar environment. Familiarity with increased requirements helps to prepare us. How long has it been since you've had to make a real position report? Do you remember how to do that?

When weird things happen in the cockpit, workload increases, passengers get nervous because they don't understand what's happening, ATC starts to time approaches, and the flight starts to get more than routine, remember to fly the airplane, first. Never sacrifice aircraft control to make a radio call.

When flying partial panel. If you're flying in instrument conditions and lose your vacuum system, Marconi's prime directive, "Fly the airplane, not the microphone," becomes crucial. Level the wings, get control, and then maintain it. Only then-after you're straight and level and totally under control-should you even think about doing anything else.

Consider this plan if you find yourself flying partial panel in IMC, and think about it ahead of time: 1) Just to get somebody's attention while you're continuing to get squared away, set your transponder on 7700; 2) Declare an emergency-because you do have one-on your currently assigned frequency; 3) Ask where the nearest VFR weather is and request a vector to get out of the clouds if that's a possibility; if not, 4) Ask where the nearest ILS is; 5) Ask if there is radar surveillance approach capability nearby and request a vector to it; and 6) Tell ATC what you intend to do.

On final approach inbound. Every pilot flying at your airfield knows where the final approach fix for the instrument approach is, right? Wrong. I doubt there's a single student (or VFR) pilot at your strip who knows where the "FAF" is. Students and VFR private pilots don't fly instrument approaches and may have never even seen an approach plate. For them, your announcement that you're "at the FAF" for Runway 24 is meaningless. How about talking in plain English? Tell others where you are-"Three-mile final for Runway 24"-it works, all the time.

When you should say "no." Have you ever found yourself sitting on the centerline of the runway after having been cleared into "Position and hold"? If it happens again, listen very carefully-and look before you taxi across the hold line.

If you're not cleared for takeoff very soon, tell the tower you're going to taxi off the runway until you can get takeoff clearance. Aircraft at both towered and nontowered airports have landed right on top of other aircraft sitting on the end of the runway. Don't add your tail number to that list of victims.

Guglielmo Marconi was born in 1874, a quarter-century before the first airplane ever flew. But he lived long enough to begin to understand the impact of his invention on aviation. What would he, the so-called father of wireless communication, think now? What a great tool, if we use it right.

He probably never heard of Marconi's law-but now you have.

Wally Miller is president of an aviation training, consulting, and marketing firm in Monument, Colorado. He is a Gold Seal CFI who has been instructing for more than 30 years and flying for more than 40.

Want to know more?

The following resources offer additional information on topics discussed in this article.

• AOPA Air Safety Foundation information on runway incursions, including airport taxi diagrams, flash cards, and the Operations at Towered Airports Safety Advisor.
• ASF's online Runway Safety Program course.
• ASF analysis of recent runway incursion accidents.
• "Safety Pilot Landmark Accidents: Chain Reaction" from the August 2000 AOPA Pilot.
• Karen Kahn's September 2002 AOPA Flight Training article, "Listen Up Out There."
• Peter A. Bedell's November 2002 AOPA Pilot article, "Battling the Babble."
• Web sites where you can monitor real-time air traffic control communications.
• Web sites of commercial radio simulator products.

Links to these resources are available at AOPA Online.