Everything not in the book is gray area—subjects open to interpretation and potential confusion. Many of us will learn these lessons the hard way.
Establishing the difference between rules and social customs becomes a daily occurrence when you have a kindergartener. Not running around a pool is a rule. There are safety implications. This is easy. Not talking about someone’s beard while he's standing in front of you at the grocery store is a social custom. “But it’s so long,” my son pleads with confusion in his voice. Telling him it’s rude just brings more questions. Chalk up another parental failure.
There are similar dilemmas in aviation. Calling the tower before you enter Class D airspace is a rule. It’s even written in a book. There are safety implications. Giving the throttle a big bump to get into a parking space when there are people behind you? “It’s rude,” your instructor will say. But it’s not in the book, you’ll plead, confused.
Aviation is full of unwritten rules. The regulations are pretty slim when you consider the thousands of decisions and actions we all take on every flight. Check weather and runway length, tell your passengers to wear their seat belts, and don’t fly drunk. Got it. Everything not in the book is gray area—subjects open to interpretation and potential confusion. Many of us will learn these lessons the hard way.
I’ll never forget the snarky comment an airline pilot made over the radio to me one night. A student and I were in a Cessna 172 on a taxiway waiting for an American Airlines MD-80 ahead of us. We were pointed toward the MD-80’s tail, so the crew of the airplane was ahead and well to our left. “Ah, tell that little Cessna pilot his landing light is working just fine,” the pilot announced on the tower frequency.
This was the first time I had been to this particular airport, and I was already nervous about making sure I was in the right place and didn’t screw up the rules. Social custom was the farthest thing from my mind. Then a professional pilot scolds me and I was thrown off. My student probably thought I was a dolt. I quickly turned off the light and realized the pilot’s point. There was nothing between the two airplanes and we weren’t moving. There was absolutely no reason to have the landing light on.
Every pilot has dozens of stories like this, and most of them are just as benign. No harm, no foul and all that.
Writer Jamie Beckett gets into a few of these customs in his feature story, “Aviation Etiquette: A Guide,” which begins on page 32. Jamie is an all-around nice guy so it didn’t surprise me that he thinks about these things and wanted to write a unique story about how to be a nice aviation guy. While Jamie certainly spends rainy Sundays pondering these things, the rest of us are too busy just trying to keep the shiny side up. His tips are a great starting point for coming up with your own list of different ways we interact in the pilot community and how we can treat each other with a bit of respect.
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