Right Seat: Land and don’t hold short

It also can be isolating. In a car, other drivers give us a constant check on our abilities. If other drivers beep at you often, you may have some issues. Get into accidents frequently? Maybe it’s you. In the airplane, people rarely judge us—unless you fly at a towered airport, that is.

That’s why so many pilots struggle with talking to the tower. It’s not the talking; it’s the constant judgment. Controllers generally don’t mean to be the nannies of the sky—but it’s their job. You never forget the first time a controller scolds you.

I was building time for my instrument rating with a good friend, and we decided to stop for lunch at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Florida, home of Sun ’n Fun. Lakeland is a bit sleepy the other 51 weeks of the year, but it is busy enough to occasionally operate two runways simultaneously. We checked in on the ATIS. “Runway 5 land and hold short operations are in effect,” it said. “Two thousand five hundred feet available landing distance.”

After being cleared to land on runway 5 we'd stop before the hold-short lines. and that's exactly what we did.Neither of us had any idea what this meant, but we figured it was straightforward. After being cleared to land on Runway 5 we’d stop before the hold-short lines. And that’s exactly what we did. Then we got our hands slapped. “Cessna One-Two-Three-Alpha-Bravo, don’t stop on my runway.” Learning experience checked.

If you ever look back and wonder why learning to fly takes so long, it’s esoteric knowledge like this. Because while the ATIS says land and hold short operations are in effect, the clearance to do so must come from the tower. And if you are cleared to land and hold short, you must abide by those instructions, unless you don’t want to. Or if the weather is lousy, yada yada.

Controllers can sometimes be curt in their desire to keep the peace, but that doesn’t make them mean, scary, or bad guys. I’ve been scolded maybe three times in 15 years of flying (maybe it’s me!), but they have helped me countless times. And you need only spend a few hours in a tower to realize that we all make mistakes—and most are forgiven a minute after they happen.

Our senior features editor discovered this on a recent trip to our home tower. Julie Summers Walker writes about her experience in our cover story, “Tips from the Tower,” which begins on page 28. And in a twist of irony, this month’s Technique covers everything you should know about land and hold short operations. I wish I could have read Technical Editor Jill W. Tallman’s story before our first experience. Keep it rolling to find the story on page 40.

Fly safe!

Email Editor Ian J. Twombly at [email protected]; Twitter: ijtwombly; and visit Flight Training on Facebook.