Is the mic hot, or not?
I taxied the Piper Seminole out of its parking spot. I was in the right seat, as a practicing MEI; my MEI instructor ("Bob") was in the left seat, and another MEI candidate ("Dave") was observing from the rear seat. As I taxied, I called ground control to request a reposition to the run-up ramp. The request was approved, but unbeknownst to us, it was the last time that the radios worked. The number one radio had not only failed, but it had also latched internally into the transmit mode. This meant that everything that any of us said from now on was picked up by the airplane's intercom and transmitted to (and recorded by) the control tower.
We reached the run-up ramp; I set the brakes and then started to go through the runup--a somewhat long and involved process on a twin with carbureted engines. I had been practicing the procedures in a ground trainer, but this was the first time I'd done it in the airplane. To say that I was buried in the cockpit would be the understatement of the year. In an effort to get me to look outside, Bob said, "Oh, look--there goes 'Steve' in a thong," naming one of the school's administrators.
At this point, we learned too much later, the controller working the ground frequency said, "Hey, guys--listen to this!" and put us on the speakers in the tower cab.
Unwittingly, I tried to be funny. "Steve in a thong? That's horrible! I wouldn't want to see that; if I knew Steve were really out there in nothing but a thong, I'd look inside even more!" Not only had we jammed the ground frequency, but also now all of the tower controllers were incapacitated with laughter, temporarily bringing takeoff and landing clearances to a halt.
Bob's comment did have the desired effect, however, and I managed to finish the runup while looking outside and monitoring other aircraft around us. Now we were ready for the runway, or so we thought. I called ground; no reply. I called again, and checked the squelch and volume controls on the radio (see "Can You Hear Me Now?," p. 30). I tried the number two radio; Bob also tried both radios with no success. We had one of the older Seminoles that day, and while the radios were a lot newer than the airplane was, they were not all that new. Bob was tired of dealing with older, noisy radios, and ground control's failure to respond to us left him quite irked with the equipment. "These [expletive] radios!" said Bob, and he continued his rant for a few minutes. His comments are left to your imagination, but they kept several people in the tower laughing hysterically. Thank goodness they had a sense of humor.
"It's OK," I said, "I've got the tower's number in my cell phone. I'll just call them and get a taxi clearance back to parking." As part of my duties at the school, I occasionally have to call our tower or approach control to check on the whereabouts of our students, so I keep the numbers handy.
Now it was Dave's turn. He had been quiet up until now, but he thought a cell phone call for a short taxi was silly. Dave didn't think that I should bother calling the tower. "Nah," he said, "you don't need to call them, just taxi back to parking. They won't mind." Boy, did he hear about that later on!
I phoned the tower anyway. It usually takes several rings before they have time to answer; that day I was pleasantly surprised when someone answered on the first ring. The guy was laughing and seemed to be in a very good mood. I hardly had to explain at all what our predicament was; he understood right away and cleared us to taxi to our parking spot. Gee, I thought, that was nice of him. He even gave us the light gun signals that I requested for practice.
We found out later that there was some debate amongst the controllers over whether or not to tell us what was happening when I phoned in. We were still blocking the ground frequency, but the inconvenience of that was completely overridden by tower's curiosity to find out what we would say next. We didn't disappoint them.
Bob was still mad at the radios; he had other students scheduled right after us, so there wasn't enough time to simply swap airplanes and fly regardless of the problems with the first one. Our comm problems had cost him a flight and derailed our MEI training, which is on a tight timetable. "[Expletive]," said Bob. "We pay enough money to train in these airplanes, you'd think the avionics department could give us better radios than these [expletive] things," and so on. He continued to complain and swear at the unfortunate radios and avionics technicians for the duration of our taxi. At last we reached our parking spot, turned off the avionics, and shut down the airplane. We gathered up our various bits of flight training gear and walked back to the school. Once inside, we were met by a bunch of laughing people who told us to call the tower. "Huh?" I said. "I just talked to them, what do they want now? And why is everyone smirking at us?"
The lesson I learned was to always assume that the mic is hot, and that the radio is transmitting.
Bob, Dave, and I called the tower and learned the awful details of what we'd done, and how many people knew about it. Not only had the tower personnel been listening, but they had also called the flight school to tip them off, so many of our fellow instructors and students had listened to our impromptu lesson on "How Not to Talk on the Radio." I avoided Steve ever after.
To make matters worse, the tower controllers absolutely refused to erase the tapes, and the last I heard there was talk of replaying them at the Christmas party. We won't be there to hear it, believe me.
"Learning Experiences" is presented to enhance safety by providing a forum for students and pilots to learn from the experiences of others. It is intended to provoke thought and discussion, acknowledging that actions taken by the authors were not necessarily the best choices under the circumstances. We encourage you to discuss any questions you have about a particular scenario with your flight instructor.
Related Articles
