OB421: Wrong Comms, Not Lost Comms

the controller just says, okay, turn right heading and starts vectoring them. I know exactly what the desk jockeys reviewing this are going to tell that person. And it's the kind of thing that drives me absolutely nuts. They're going to say you didn't give them a clearance to their new destination, which was their departure airport. Ready? Welcome to opposing bases air traffic talk, an aviation podcast by two air traffic controllers and rated pilots who love to talk about flying, controlling and everything in between. The show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for your instructor, your supervisor, the FAA, the NTSB or your cat. The show will give you a better understanding of how things work in the national airspace system and maybe even make you laugh along the way. Please welcome retired Army pilot Alpha Golf and first officer at Penguin Airlines Romeo Hotel. Yeah, it's Wednesday, January 21st, 2026 episode 421 on today's show. We'll share a masterclass on handling emergencies, learn how to handle ATC rejection and answer more of your aviation questions. What's up, Bay G? Hello, hello, everyone. Happy pre snow event day Wednesday. I just saw it running across a banner on the TV here. It says, children will return to school on August 19th. We're done for the year. We're just packing it in. Can't do it anymore. Are you, have you seen any of the predictions on local channels? No, I've read some of these and I've heard tell of it from people. But what are you telling me what they're saying? They're being very careful about saying how much, but they're 100% saying there's going to be a large icy snowy event on Saturday all the way till Monday. A wintery precipitation event. Yes, which could be ice, which could mean power loss. That's how we're assuming we're going to lose our power for about a week, because that's just how it happens here. That means we'll have to go somewhere to get a hotel because when we lose our power, we don't have water. Oh, yeah. Because we're on a community well and that also has no power if we lose our power. It seems like the community might want to invest in some alternative power source. I agree with you for the water. Right. So even if I wanted, even if we have a generator going, I have a generator. I can keep some things going, not the whole house, but then we wouldn't have water. I was supposed to live like that. You need water. You need running water. Yeah. Do you normally lose power in these situations? We used to. Okay. But we are on city power, not big company power. Okay. And the city came in and fixed those problems. Whatever the problem was that was causing us to have power outages. I don't know if the lines were up above the ground. They definitely buried a bunch of new lines in the neighborhood. They did that with us recently too. I think it's been two years since we lost power. Yeah. It means we'll lose it tomorrow. It's very right. It's very rare though since then that we have lost power. That's good. Well, maybe we'll be lucky. Maybe. But I'm assuming that it'll be like normal and I'm not making fun of the state, but the sun is our major snow plow. It's the most reliable snow plow and it's not supposed to be able to freezing for quite a few days. Right. Which creates a problem when you're waiting for things to melt. Yes. You also won't be using the North runway at Triad until April. If it gets a foot of snow or two like some people are calling for. Right. It will remain there in this little igloo of coldness. Anyway, what's going on? How's work going week two of the new schedule? Yes, I was off Monday. Mm hmm. Just because. And Monday. So then I worked yesterday and now I'm off today. Mm hmm. And then I just have two mids and I'm done. Did you ever think that you would say it in such a gleeful tone? No, no, I didn't. But it's it feels like I'm never there. How did the last week go? How did you feel at the end? What's your overall? I felt good. Okay. Yep. I felt good. It went by very quick. All right. The work week was good and you're not really there when all of the administrative people just sort of there with a skeleton crew. Mm hmm. And that's it. That's good though. It's very relaxing. Yes, it is. It's less stressful for sure. It is. Shall we begin? Okay. All right. Since OB 419 we have, I'm sorry, 420. We have some new penguins on the iceberg. Juliet Sierra, Delta Charlie, Tango Echo, Alpha Whiskey, Romeo Mike and Alpha Hotel. Charlie Sierra sent us a PayPal drop and Juliet Victor is new over on Patreon. If you've been enjoying the show, you can take it to the next level by joining our premium feed on Supercast. Supporters get every episode on time. No delays, our back catalog access to our live stream. Bonus audio and a direct line to us through our supporter only email. You'll keep the show ad free and community supported. You can sign up or learn more at opposingbases.supercast.com. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Review one announcements and announcements. This is a good one. It somehow went to the next page. I shrunk it and moved it up. I'm sorry. That was my fault. It's fine. Okay. You get it. Okay. Five stars for a 28 hour labor. I don't. I look forward to finding out what this means. Hello. Hello. Five star review from someone who is not an aviator. My partner was. Bit by the aviation bug in eighth grade. Thank you, Microsoft Flight Simulator. And after a whirlwind or not so whirlwind, dare I say soul sucking career in frontline healthcare and EMS, H EMS that spanned before during and after the pandemic. He is now returning to his first love and his first career path, professional aviation. We are a partnership that has always respected each other and tried to be somewhat engaged in one another's hobbies and interests. But whenever I play dental podcast, someone always falls asleep. But a podcast about ATC and piloting, apparently that is something that we both enjoy and we'll listen to together. So for several years now, we have enjoyed listening to the show. In this summer, we welcomed our first child into the world. 28 hours of labor was helped mostly by a great epidural, but also a few episodes of O.B. No, no, no, no, no, this can't. This is not real. You just. They had made you to the psych ward if you listen to this during labor. This is the untold irrevocable damage done to a child. The first thing you heard was H E. Oh, no. Oh, my word. Ike never going to be the same. Yeah, they continue. We listened to the one where Sierra Gulf in episode three, 90 shared audio of their four year old talking to ATC. I know it was a center controller being nice. So it was probably the hormones from being in labor. But that episode sure elicited some real tears since bringing little Tango Echo Sierra home. We have listened to more episodes together and even some live ATC from Oshkosh. Mom may have napped through that portion. Dad's swear that hearing good rock. Oh, good rock, right. Health, health, our newborn get back to sleep. All this to say, this is a wonderful podcast that non aviation people can learn and enjoy from. I grew up listening to car talk with my family and strongly fill opposing bases, maybe that source of entertainment for our new family to enjoy together. Thanks for the great content and all the people who helped make this show happen. Sierra, Sierra. Wow. You know, that is a, that is an awesome story. Really. Thank you for sending that. And congrats on the little Tango Echo Sierra. Uh-huh. Their first words are going to be requesting follow it. Which is everyone knows is the first thing that Orville did when he got airborne. It was he called approach. All right, some announcements. Subscribers have two compilation bonus audios that have been released. They're out there available now and they'll be more released soon. So we're targeting Friday releases. We have one set for this Friday and next. So stay tuned for more and enjoy. Uh, most of our patients have migrated to Supercast. Thank you. If you've remained on Patreon, don't worry, the episodes will still come out on time over there and you'll see upcoming live shows, streaming links like the one we sent today. And Patreon will shift to a per episode from per episode to monthly billing that starts in February. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's because you've ignored the emails. That's also okay. It's fine. Uh, you get number three and then I'll get number four. Number three thing when not Mike Sierra started A&P school. I congrats in a note. Yes, congrats. It's in a note. I'm foolish and continuing to work full time and doing school at night, but I'm now approximately 20 months away from being allowed to take a written test to be allowed to do an oral and practical exam to be allowed to be in A&P. It, that is crazy. I mean, I'm sure it needs to be that way or something similar to that. But think about it, that you could go get a pilot's license in way less time. Yeah. And they do quite a bit of logging of actual time doing things. I don't think they can just take tests. They have to log back time. It takes time. It takes a long time. A&P is airframe and power plant school. Uh, we throw that term around, but it's an aviation mechanic of sorts. Yeah. So good luck. Yes. We had, um, a pilot that flew from racetrack north to Triad. Mm hmm. Almost every day and then back. Mm hmm. Like clockwork. And finally, after months of this, months, I said, what, what are you doing? You know, are you going, cause I couldn't figure out if they were going, you know, to or from, like, are you staying here and going there? Or are you up there and coming here? Like, mm hmm. And he said, yeah, I come down here to do my A&P class. Five days a week or whatever. And then I go back home at night. So it's a lot. That was happening for a long time. All right. Yeah. All right. Get number four. Supercaster Romeo Foxtrot sent feedback disguised an announcement as an announcement, but we're going to let it slide here. Oh ye interpreters of the NAS. I'm a midlife bug smasher and wanted to share that I recently passed. My IFR check ride. Congrats. Congrats. Well, most examiners in my area insist on VMC weather. That's stupid. And then play the role of ATC during the check ride while staying out of the clouds. My examiner prefers filing IFR and flying in the clouds saying, I want to know if you can really do it and do this. So off we went into the clouds. I'm okay with this. Are you okay with this? I think so. This takes a fair bit of confidence on the. Examiner's part. Yeah. And there. In their ability. Right. Agreed. All right. So off to the end to the clouds, we went where about five miles from the initial approach fix on our first IFR approach and our nav into a class Charlie. When my nav system suddenly displayed an integrity warning with the message loss of GPS navigation, it was the worst possible timing and her helmet fire from stage right or lizard brain is one of my instructors called it. After calling up a few of my OB penguins in my head, I calmly stated, we need to let ATC know which appeared to please the examiner. I liked that. And then suggested we fly an ILS instead, which also pleased him. So I let ATC know our problem requested the ILS and my helmet fire settled down a little, but that's not the end of the story to trouble, troubleshoot my broken nav. I switched comms to calm too. While I cycled the combination nav com system off and then back to the cycle, the combination nav com system off and then back on that cycling successfully reset the GPS. Although we continue the ILS approach since we were already set up for it on the panel and with ATC, I then dialed the tower into my calm standby. But after Traycon changed me over to the tower, I didn't get a response to my radio call. I could hear ATC talking, but they didn't respond to my call. I called the second time followed by two radio check calls. Still no response. The helmet fire rekindled and was raging full blast. This is on a check ride. Wah wah. I was approaching the class Charlie runway threshold, didn't have a landing clearance and couldn't reach the tower. Finally, the examiner who figured it out long ago had the mercy on me and pointed out that I was talking to the tower on calm one, but still listening to the Traycon on calm two. Oh, I've done that. Yes. A royal comms button fumbled by me needless to say, I buried one of my guidance needles during the approach and it didn't declare I was going missed before everything fell apart. So I failed that approach. I eventually pulled myself back together enough to successfully fly GPS circle to land and even a VR DME arc lesson learned. Keep track of your radios. Know your comms button by heart. And when things go sideways, declare you're going missed right away. I returned a couple of weeks later and reflux the same ILS successfully. I flew back home in the thick soup. I'm good for you. Congrats. You missed a line there. Oops. Managing the radio buttons flawlessly on the second attempt to even gathered some winter flying tips from the examiner, which helped as I flew back home in the thick soup, although OB swag wasn't going to influence this examiner. He said he doesn't do podcasts. You know, up until then I was like, oh, this guy seemed pretty cool. Yeah, no, he's terrible. It's the worst. The knowledge I learned from OB helped tremendously, both on in the oral and in the air, the examiner acknowledged that I had taught him a couple of new things, which I had learned on OB, of course. Thanks for all you provide to the aviation community. You'll never know the number of accidents you've prevented and would be conflicting via far aircraft. You've convinced to get flight following supercaster Bravo Foxtrot. That's a Bravo or Romeo Foxtrot's. Congratulations. Great story. Yes. And it's a terrible lesson to learn during a check ride. Hmm. About the comms, but it happens. So for the instructors listening, that's one thing you can do to gauge, uh, buttonology and understanding, do something like that, turn down the volume on calm one and see if they can troubleshoot the buttons and the dials to make things be normal in flight. Not saying that hasn't happened to him before, but this is a terrible time to happen on the check ride. So tell me how your comms work in your cell and you spend most of your time in the 76. Each side has, uh, um, um, active calm on the left in a window and there's a standby on the right window and separate. It's a set integrated into the FMS. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, think 1989. Okay, good. All right. Yeah. Yeah. No, some of the newer aircraft that I jumped seat on, they can select their frequency and dial it and it, that's how they set it. It's through their computer. Yeah. We're in a separate comm box. It's on the pedestal and we each have our own left and right active and standby. So calm two is on the right side of the plane. Com ones on the left. Okay. You select a button on which one you want to talk to. And if you just want to hear one of them, you turn up the volume of these, like DJ dials to turn up the volume on the ones you just want to listen to, but you smash a button down on that comp panel. If you want to talk on it, they're all a little bit different. You do have to look at it and think like, okay, when I push talk, the talk button, what am I going out on? Yeah, right. Usually you'll see the fumbling around happen on the ramp when you, you may have parked on com one and you want to be on com two for ops and the, and the ramp frequency. So sometimes pilots will make calls on ground inadvertently when they meant to be talking on the frequency they're looking at their eyeballs are looking at it, but they're not that talk button isn't mashed down for that radio. Okay. Is it similar to how it was in the Chinook? No. Uh, when we were in ATC land, we only had one VHF and that didn't have a standby or anything. You, it was a dial. Each digit was a dial that you turned to get to that frequency. And then you had a selector that said, I'm talking on one or two or three or four or five. So then you, VHF was three and you would go to three and transmit. And then if tower, you know, switch you to departure, you had to go down, change the frequency manually. And now you've lost that other one. Towers gone. If you didn't write it down and you don't remember it's gone, there is no go back button. We wrote down every frequency we got assigned so that you could go back. Okay. Yeah. Cause you would get totally lost. Now the King Air was that standard, you know, orange. Yeah. The King, I know what you're talking about. Pindex King or whatever. Yep. Yep. Com one, com two standby main. Right. But when you, when you, when you dialed in, you were dialing your standby and then you swapped them. So you were on the button to swap it. Yeah. What you were on was still presented on the screen. Now it's your standby. Yes. It goes down to standby. If we didn't have that, we would be lost comps a lot. It's just lost. It's really like, where are we supposed to be? All right. All right. Cool. Well, congratulations on your check write and thanks for sharing the story. Yes. All right. Moving on. Time to feedback. You want number one? Number one from Supercaster Echo Kilo, HiRH and AG. Although I listened to RH's new hire bonus audio when it came out, I re-listened to it today as the combined audio is still enjoyable. When RH got to the term deadheading, it reminded me of my most memorable deadhead. I was working for chocolate chip cookie airlines. Out of the Brewtown, Charlie, back in the late 1990s. I feel so old. The late 20th century. Yeah. I was on reserve as an FO. It was an irregular ops day, very irregular. Hey Echo Kilo, you need to deadhead to LaGuardia to pick up a plane. We have stuck there. Okay. I do as I'm told. As the plane taxi to the gate in LaGuardia, what do I see taxing away from the gate? But the very airplane I had come to recover. Oops. I guess it wasn't as stuck as they thought it was. I don't think they even tracked airplanes and crews on a chalkboard back then. Not sure what they used, but it was not very effective. So I went back to Brewtown having ridden in the back, both to and from LaGuardia. More cookies for me. Oh, this is an airline that gives out chocolate chip cookies. For displacements. That's awesome. Schedule change cookies. So totally just, you just took a ride to LaGuardia and back for really no reason, except for cookies. Thanks RH for the walk down memory lane. Sort of my glass or my class was 10 guys, not 50. And I flew a DC nine, not a 7576. Cheers. Echo kilo. Cool. Glad you enjoyed that. Yeah. All right. Number two from patron. I'm sorry. Supercaster alpha Mike show topic a few weeks ago. Hey guys, as requested, I'm following up with a status on my helicopter training before I get to that. I first wanted to thank you for covering my feedback about the helicopter flight over beer city. I do think you are correct regarding the missed approach altitude. This is the one with the helicopter went and was asked to climb over the airport before proceeding southbound to that place that only sells cheese. I regularly, I regularly hear them give 3000 and missed approach instructions for practice approaches. Also of note regarding the remain north of the runway for landing traffic instruction as a G pointed out, pulling up to a hover at 3,500 feet would be super uncomfortable. So I made a turn to the east to parallel the runway and shortly thereafter got the instruction you mentioned traffic on final as an embryo report of insight followed by pass behind that traffic and resume on navigation. So your commentary fits in with that and definitely help me understand the overall situation better. All right. Good. Second regarding the Mars cheese castle. Yes, it is true that they're dedicated to cheese, but they sell much more, including beer, which I believe by Wisconsin law is required of all food service, food retail establishments and youth sport venues. Lol, they even have a small restaurant inside that serves brats, sausages and such. Again, this could be any more. Could this be any more Wisconsin? If you have some time to spare on your next trip to Oshkosh. Oh yeah, because we always have extra time when we go up there. We're just sitting around. Yeah, going, how do we spend this whole Friday night? Should be. I definitely recommend checking it out at least once. All right. Now for the requested update as of as of today. I'm nearing completion of my commercial helicopter rating, having elected to skip over getting the private rating. My written exam is scheduled for the ninth. I have about 72 hours of total time and the R 44 30 of that being PIC or solo time. Does that seem. What's the thought of that time? 72 hours. Trying to think of where I was at 72 hours. I would have been. Somewhere in the middle of instrument rating. Okay. Yeah, but I guess Alpha Mike wouldn't have to do that. Right. They already have all that already has an instrument rating. Yeah. This means I need five more hours of PIC time and I also need to get three more hours of simulated instrument instruction to fulfill the requirements for the commercial rating. My instructor and I are starting to transition into check ride prep. Hopefully, hopefully, I'm sorry, hoping I can have a check ride scheduled by the end of March. Although DP availability may push that out a month or two yet. Anyway, thank you as always for all the great information. I can't even quantify the number of penguins I've been able to spawn on other pilots and even instructors icebergs based on things I've learned from your podcast. Cool. Keep us posted. I think there might be one more in there that might be another update, but good luck. And thanks for validating some of the things we're speculating on in this show topic a few weeks ago. Yeah, I still think that at 3,500 feet, even the whole pass behind the traffic on final, like maybe just pass overhead the traffic on final. I'm thousands of feet above them. Right. Right. Because. Passing behind certainly does not seem necessary to me, but. Can anyone say over controlled? Right. You know, you can't. I guess you can never be too careful. You never know when a Robinson is just going to lose 2,500 feet. Instantly, I guess. I think maybe there's some a tendency to assume that the aircraft could go missed outside the threshold and arrive at this higher altitude much sooner than. Than actual happen. Yes, can they and they want to protect it. But if you're going behind them. I don't know. Hmm. Agey and I seem to have been in a position mentally where we may have worked out a little bit differently, but. Sounds like the controller was working kind of double double whammy on the separation. Yeah. As far as this. Hmm. Go ahead. As far as the 72 hours. It's hard for me to because I went into it without any flying experience at all. Hmm. Alpha Mike just needs to learn like the helicopter side and the rest of it already makes sense. Hmm. So at 72 hours, I would not have been ready. I don't think to go flying around in the NAS on my own. Hmm. I would have very little situational awareness. Hmm. You know. You know. Um. In a helicopter. I don't know. Maybe it's different in a plane, but I would have felt I, I, I don't think I would have felt really ready for that level of. You know. Flying, but. Where. There's already a lot of experience. I, so it's just hard for me to contextualize it is 72 hours. A lot. I feel like it probably is for somebody that's already been flying for quite a long time and is fairly accomplished as you know, already. So I mean, you could almost compare it to when you went to the King Air. You had a ton of flight time under your belt in a helicopter. Yeah. You probably picked up the King Air significantly faster than someone with no time in a fixed wing. True. When you got into that aircraft. Yeah. That is true. Probably very similar. Yeah. 72 hours in the King Air. I felt fine. Yeah, we're good to go. Yeah, let's do this. I get it. The engines go together. They're over there. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else on that? No. All right. Fancy jet music. All right. This looks so topic is brought to us by Supercaster Penguinot, Harrier the Bean, Hotel Tango Bravo. Here's the setup. We're going to play some audio. Hotel Tango Bravo sent us two audios. Pilot narrative followed by the ATC audio that's been compressed. You did a really good job of taking out call signs and airports. If we missed any, of course, this is all fantasy land. None of this ever happened. It's all for lessons and entertainment only. Hey, I generated. Totally. I have a picture on the screen there. That was really just for you so you could see it. About the trim wheel. But anyway, it's a 737 undisclosed company, super anonymous facility. They call Smurf. I'm ready to play when you are. I'm ready. It's about six minutes or so of audio and I'm ready. One, two, three. Ahoy, fellow Svinacide. That's a scientific name for penguins. Harrier the Bean here. And this is a story about air traffic control doing their job so well you almost don't notice. So I'm here to give a shout out to Smurf Approach in Tower for their help during a recent secondary flight control failure. The event itself was basically not an event due not only to the amazing skill of myself and the captain, but very much to the controllers and ground emergency crews who supported us. I've attached the audio for departure and unfortunately live ATC doesn't carry the tower audio. Honestly, that's the part I wanted most. And the reason I wanted that audio is when we switched to tower, I heard the emergency trucks all staged near the runway exits, excitedly asked how are what they thought we might need. I keyed up and told them we're good. We're just going to the gate. We don't need any assistance. And when I tell you that a disappointment was palpable, if you've ever had to land with emergency vehicles lined up next to the runway with their lights flashing, it is a surprisingly moving site. But let's rewind a bit. We had just departed Smurf and during the climb, the captain told me his trim had stopped working. On the 737, we have electrical trim switches on the yoke, similar to many small but sophisticated airplanes. He asked me to try my electric trim, which is also not working. The 737 is basically a Susnet 310 with jet engines. So we have a large manual trim wheel, which still worked. We asked ATC to level off at our current altitude and they immediately had their ears all perked up. You'll hear my voice on the audio and shortly after the captain takes over, he took the flight controls and the radios while I ran checklist, contacted dispatch, station ops, flight attendants, made a PA to the passengers. We really needed both of us up there. Insert gentle, not for Okunboy ears commentary here about the disreality about single pilot airline operation. Okunboys are baby king penguins, by the way. I did my research. So we ran the checklist and included a few of what we lovingly call career limiting switches, the guarded ones you really don't want to touch unless you mean it. I'll spare you instructor mode here. This is a story about ATC not piloting. During all of this, we received a few vectors, but very minimal. It was clear ATC was giving us space to do what we needed to do while quietly vectoring everybody else around us. At one point, we realized that they've moved all of the arrivals and departures to the other runway and they were keeping our closest runway clear for us. We didn't ask for that. We didn't ask for the trucks either. We didn't have the bandwidth. Aviate, navigate, communicate, right? But ATC had it all handled in the background. Once we finished the checklist and had the aircraft secured and I'd set up the nav aids for the approach back into Smurf, you'll hear me come back on the radios. We taxi to the gate, parked and dealt with the inevitable wave of calls from ops, maintenance, dispatch, scheduling and our critical response team checking in on us. We had a new airplane assigned before we even reached the gate and there was a fresh crew standing by the new jet just in case we weren't up for continuing. But thanks to the professionalism of everyone involved, we felt comfortable trying again. I then made what I can only describe as Oscar worthy banter with ground while calling for push a second time and it's truly devastating that there's no recording of that. Off we went, only an hour and a half late getting home. Huge thank you to the controllers for their concern for our safety and all the quiet work behind the scenes, coordinating traffic, rolling the trucks, effectively declaring the emergency for us. I cannot thank you enough. TLDL, thank you ATC for your vigilance and care. I always enjoy lighthearted banter with you. But when the rubber hit the road or rather gravity reasserted its authority on us, you were there and it means everything. And since you know I do love a good ATC interaction, one of my favorite parts of the job, right up there was singing Pearl Jam and Night Ranger and Cruise with the captain. I've included some audio from a different flight in which I got the very much desired and coveted short, short approach. Thank you so much for all you do. Take care and Toodles. Departure 61300, 7900. Okay, departure radar contact, climb the same flight, level one, matter zero. 7000, flight level one, matter zero. Hey, uh, can we stop for a question here? Sure, maintain whatever altitude and let me know what you need. Okay, that'll be a little close. Do you have any information for me? Yeah, talk, we've just got the light control issue with our trimmer and we're trying to figure it out. Right now, the, uh, we're under control of the aircraft, but more than likely we're probably going to have to return to Sacramento. So if you want to give us a delay back here, probably back around for eventually 35 left. Turn right heading 170 and maintain 5,000. Heading 170, maintain 5,000. Rush, but when you get a moment's fuel and first of all, more sleep. Stand by. That's 104 soles on board in two hours of fuel. Thank you. Do you all okay making turns? Yeah, we can take turns. Turn right heading 270. Getting 270. Uh, we'll probably ready, we'll visualize the localizer here. Just click on the back around to the right, uh, we should probably ready here in about 5 minutes or less. Roger, turn right heading 090. Turn right zero. Keep on, we're ready to go back. Roger, turn left heading 3, 0. Turn left heading 320. 3, 2, 0. Contact 125.25 and we'll take care of you guys the rest of the way. Okay, hit it. 25, 25. We have about 5,000 turning to ahead and 3,000. Heading south towards Sacramento, just going to maintain 3,000. Maintain 3,000. Fighting 3, 1, 0 and uh, just back to the final. Heading 3, 1, 0. If you want the ILS, 35L. Sure, uh, I guess. Roger. 6,000 from the front of the good faith turn right heading 320. Maintain 3,000. Go south with 3L, turn right 35L. Right, 3,000 clear for the ILS, 35L. Contact capital challenge 5.7. Good tower, thanks for the help. Set out, whichever one gets us on the ground faster, just blast off. I'll give you a short visual approach. Okay, we'll take the first browser. That's it. Cool. Initial thoughts? Yeah, I've had... I'm not going to say this kind of thing happens all the time, but... You get a departure and they don't immediately tell you what's happening, but they're like, hey, could we just... we need to level off here for a little bit. Okay. And work an issue, that's what they'll say. Normally, that just results in, yeah, we got it. We're good, we can go about our business. It does take a little bit of work on air traffic's part to... Find a place to keep a departure. Yeah. That was designed to go bye-bye. Yeah, somewhere else. That way, get out of my airspace. You're in arrival now? You're in a weird place. You're on the wrong side of the world here. Yeah. All right, let me do some little administrative stuff in the background so everybody's on the same page. Understands the voice from captain to FO and FO to captain and how that unfolds. In general, and I don't know how you guys did this in the helicopter, but in general, there's a pilot flying, hands on the controls, working the thrust, working the yoke or the side stick, flying the airplane. And then the pilot monitoring is doing just that, monitoring that, and they typically have the radio task on the pilot monitoring side. That's normal. That's in pretty much all commercial applications I've been in. That's a normal division of labor. Right, the pilot not flying is on the radios. Correct. Right. In the case of somebody needs to dedicate time and energy to a checklist and thought process and talking to dispatch or maintenance and the people on the flight attendants, the radios and the active flying the airplane gets transferred to one person. And in this case, the FO, the female voice that we heard was the pilot monitoring, the pilot not flying was on the radios. Initially, and the captain was the pilot flying, flying the airplane, took the radios. That's why you hear some of him on the ATC while she worked all the checklists, talked to dispatch, talked to maintenance, probably talked to the flight attendants, were going back, all the things and wasn't distracted with the radios. So he was, the captain side was doing all that. That's normal. I just wanted to throw that out there. So when she was done with everything, airplanes under control, we can go back to normal. We've pushed some of these, what they call the career limiting switches. Some of those are guarded. We have a couple of those. If you move the little plastic cover, right, we're committed to this thing. It's not accidental, but once that was all to that point, everything's stable and normal. She took the radios back and he continued to fly the airplane. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. Yeah. That's pretty much how we would have handled it. Although the part of flying and doing the ATC radios, we probably wouldn't have divvied up like that. We would have just dumped everything except flying on the pilot monitoring. Oh, okay. And the guy flying would have just been over there. Moving the stick around. Watching the other guy totally drown in our tasks. So the way we would, well, this is captain's discretion, but in the sim, at least in the situations I've been in in the sim, no matter who was flying on takeoff, if something happens, the captain, and it's not forced, this is their discretion, typically gives the airplane to the first officer, they fly the plane and do the radios, just like in this situation, but it's in the right seat and the captain runs all the checklist, does all the coordinating in the back, the flight attendants, the passengers, all the things and all the checklists that run over there. If there's three of us, the captain and the bunkie, the IRO, are the ones running the checklist while the pilot flying is on the radios. They let us know if they need anything, but we're working an issue while they fly the plane. So the av8 part is with one person. Right. Another thing I want to kind of talk about here is the, they threw it around casually about a flight control secondary flight control issue. They didn't get into a bunch of specifics. I love how ATC didn't ask them a bunch of questions on what does that mean? It doesn't matter. We're working it. What do you need? That's really what it comes down to. What do you want me to do for you? Mm-hmm. And the pilots came back pretty quickly. We want to come back and do an approach and we need some vectors to buy some time. We've talked about this on the show a thousand times. Aim me somewhere and give me an altitude and just please don't talk to me anymore. Right. Just let us work this out. When we get too far and we're outside the confines of the sandbox, you're allowing us to play in. Turn us. Yeah, exactly. Right. How do you, let's talk about this scenario. Would you have done anything different as a controller? Well, I was going to, what immediately came to mind is, you know, the controller just says, OK, turn right heading and starts vectoring them. Mm-hmm. I know exactly what the desk jockeys, reviewing this, are going to tell that person. Mm-hmm. And it's the kind of thing that drives me absolutely nuts. What are they going to say? They're going to say you didn't give them a clearance to their air to this, their new destination, which was their departure airport. You have to clear them back. Right. Right. Right. It's possible that that ATC clip was removed. Hopefully. Hopefully that's the case, but if it's not. They just had a pilot DVH. Who cares? Right. Right. Oh, yeah. I have had that before where a plane returns and I'm busy and I'm working them back. And the soup comes over and says, did you, did you re-clear them? Like, oh, yeah, you're right. Thank you, because that would have prevented them from coming back in an emergency. Right. They would have just hit the Charlie and thong. Like, won't this can't go any further. What do you think about the controller asking if they could take turns and basically taking the temperature there? I think that's a great question. I love that. Okay. What kind of tasks are going to overload you if I'm vectoring you around? Is that a problem? I don't know what's going on exactly with the plane. A flight control issue. Well, you need those. So, yeah, and right now that's basically what I'm doing. That's all that I'm doing. You've, you're leveled off at five and I'm just vectoring you around. So is this something that works? So the airplanes under control, they've asked you what they wanted. You're giving them turns. They can take those. Tell us what the coordination in the background may sound like with power. Yeah, depending on where they are in the departure corridor, it might be stopping Yeah, depending on where they are in the departure corridor, it might be stop departures. I'm turning this plane back through the departure corridor. Um, definitely coordination. You're definitely, you know, you're definitely telling the soup. My first call, if depending on where they are in the departure corridor is to local, is to the tower. Hey, either stop departures or take a point out this plane is turning back towards the airport emergency, whatever. Mm hmm. Um, that's the first thing. Then if the soup doesn't hear me saying that, getting the soup's attention. Depending on other sectors could be involved. You know, you don't own final. Say you're on south, you don't own final. You got to coordinate with West who owns final. Right. To go back. Yeah, and you hear him switch them off to I'm assuming to final. Mm hmm. I think you're right. Yeah, it was a second, the female ATC, the second one. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, and then the soup is probably the one calling the tower with the emergency info to pull the crash phone. Mm hmm. They just want to be able to relay anything pertinent to to emergency personnel on the ground about what might be happening. What are the, you know, because they have a general idea of, Hey, if this is a, let's say a flap problem and now we're landing fast, you know, they, they generally have an idea of what to expect, what things to look for, are the breaks going to be hot, you know, that kind of thing. Mm hmm. So they just want to kind of have some situational awareness on what exactly is going on. The trim. It took forever for me to be on board with using the electric trim on the yoke. Really? Yes, I did not like that. I wanted to reach down and turn the wheel. Uh huh. I loved turning the wheel. It takes forever to make it do this. It does, but I, that's why I liked it. Okay. Because you could give it a really good crank and not a whole lot would happen. So you could really fine tune it. Okay. With the wheel. I didn't like the electric trim. So I would have been like, huh, we're fine. That's a good kind of way to talk about the flying side on this. It would certainly be a task saturation for the pilot flying to not be able to use those and to put your hand down and start moving this very sensitive wheel that takes a lot of spins because on electric you can hear it spinning. It spins very fast. Yeah. It does what it wants to, it does what you're telling it to do very quickly versus your hand like rolling it and it could take forever. So there was a lot going on for the flying pilot in this scenario. I don't think the King Air was quite as bad as the 737. Can you explain to people a little bit just what we're talking about with trim? Yeah. So an elevator, somebody's going to be screaming at me because I'm not saying the aerodynamics correctly, but the elevator in the back of the airplane on the tail pitches up and down and that determines which way the nose goes up or down. If you're in level flight and you require pressure to keep it in, I'm just using level flight as an example, there's a little tab on the back of the elevator that moves in the direction that reduces the need for that extra pressure to hold that pitch attitude and hold the elevator in the spot that it needs to be to resume that power setting and that speed to keep you level in flight. It just takes off. So a perfectly trimmed airplane can be flown hands free. It doesn't require any input from the pilot to hold it there. No autopilot. Yeah, just hand-filling the airplane. The pressure is taken off of the flight controls. Okay, so if that doesn't exist and you have pressure constantly on the controls to maintain a heading, altitude, airspeed, whatever, and you take pressure off the controls with your hand, you remove pressure, the plane will immediately try to go back to neutral. It wants to be at neutral. Yes. And so whatever that is, could be pitched up, could be pitched down. Yeah. So you, they realized it quickly. It sounds, and that's one of my points in there that seems like they got a grasp of what was happening very quickly and immediately reverted to manual because they figured out that that worked right away, which could have been, for some pilots that may take a couple extra minutes. You're kind of in disbelief like, why isn't this working? Something doesn't feel right. But they're also used to in that airplane and I've never flown this one. We don't have a trim wheel on my plane. It's all electric. There's nothing. We have no wheel. Hmm. That's sad. I wonder if there was a ceremony. When they touch their electric trim wheel and as you did in the King Air, you can hear and see the thing spinning. Oh, yeah. So they knew right away. If I lost electric trim, I just wouldn't get that relief of pressure. Right. I don't see or hear any spinning. I don't see this wheel. Right. Right. So in the King Air, if you had the autopilot on and one of the pilots got up to go to the back to the lab and you're up there by yourself for the first time ever and you're at 26,000 feet. And as that pilot who might be a heavier person is walking to the back of the plane, the wheel starts going to because the CG is changing. And I'm up there looking at the wheel like, oh my gosh, what is happening? Because you could slide a pallet of bricks in the Chinook front to back. And it won't do anything. You would never notice it. All right. We also have lift happening on both ends. That's all. Right. It just was very startling the first time. Why is it moving? Um, all right. So the HEC parts we kind of talked about already. They declare an emergency sort of in the background. When, and like you said, when the supervisor calls the tower and says we have an airplane returning, even if you don't use any buzzwords like control flight control failure or even say emergency, the tower is going to hear that information and just assume the worst. This is the right. They're going to put the trucks in position. I like the funny note about the disappointment in their voice when you said everything's fine. Yeah, we're fine here. Yeah. Wait, you're not going to hit the ground and be on fire. Hmm. They, I think they get bored, you know, it's. Aviation, especially commercial is generally so not uneventful. There isn't a lot for them to do, but why is this a little bit concerning in a 737? So there's some history, uh, recently in the last five or six years, the 737 had some issues. Uncommanded trim, the electric trim is moving in a direction that was not instructed to move by the pilots. And it resulted in a few tragedies that I can, I have to believe that every pilot, as soon as they have a trim issue, this somehow goes through their minds. Yeah. Right. Even though this is different, this wasn't uncommanded. It was just a loss of the electric trims and now you're using manual, but still it's, it's tertiary to, to what's happening historically in the plane. But in this case, it was handled very quickly. Everything worked well. Um, I like how you mentioned, Aviate Navigate Communicate. Let's talk about the communication piece. You're in the back. You're a passenger. Huh. They powered the power came back. We're turning around. Hmm. See now, hold on a minute. I'm a passenger or you're a passenger or a listener to the show is a passenger. But the other 99% of passengers, they're watching a movie. They have no idea. They have no idea. And they're mad when the PA happens because the PA interrupts your movie. Stop pauses their movie. I can't see. There are people on that plane who when you turned around and came and landed again, could have believed. Huh. That was fast. He wouldn't have said anything. We made it to Orlando already. I didn't even get the finish by movie. What would you want to hear as a passenger? Hmm. I don't know. Uh, yeah, we have a benign technical problem that doesn't allow us to continue this flight. Uh, and we're going to return to the field uneventfully. I like that. You used a couple. You toned the temperature down a little bit uneventful benign. Yes. Uh, yeah. One of the responsibilities of a captain is to come up with PAs that don't alarm the passengers, but give them enough information to understand. We are turning around. Everything's fine. We're going to land the airplane back where we came from. Everybody take your seats. Make sure your seat belts on. Flight attendants prepare the cabin for landing. Now there was probably already a conversation with the flight attendants. They got more details. Hey, everything's fine. We're working on an issue. We're going to have to go back and land and get it checked out. All right. And the flight attendants main concern is when we get down, do we have to do anything different? Are we evacuating? Is there a chance of a higher than normal crash rate in this, this landing? Do we have to brace all that type of stuff? It's talked about real quick between the pilot and the elite flight attendant that's communicated. And in this case, it was probably very quick. It's going to be an eventful. It's going to be a normal landing. We won't be evacuating. You'll see fire trucks. When I make my PA, I'm going to let everybody know there's a possibility. There's going to be fire trucks on the runway. That passengers definitely don't like that. Yes. Surprise. Yes. I think that's very important to mention. It's possible that they didn't know they were going to be out there because ATC kind of did this on their own. They never requested the trucks and she said that in the audio. So, you know, when they break out or they turn funnel like, huh, are those for us? Yeah. I have had that question before. Okay. From a pilot. What did you say? Out of an abundance of caution. Yes. Okay. Those are for you. Kind of alluded to on the audio is one last thing I want to mention is moving other airplanes out of the way. You're definitely new to the sequence. You're a departure that became an arrival at busier airports like this one that could cause a sequencing issue. And someone has to create space for that. There was no plan for you to be in the sequence and a lot of airports don't have parallel runways to sheen off extra traffic. So, and we didn't hear any of that, but it's whoever was on final could have very well taken somebody out and said, Hey, instead of giving him to me, you keep him follow this airplane reduces one more transmission or one more radio swap. I don't know. Big takeaway for me was the pilots did exactly what they're supposed to do. Fly the plane, get it under control. They commonly communicated with ATC and ATC didn't jump on them with a bunch of questions. Hey, when you have time, soul and feel on board because they got some desk jockey back there begging them for it. Yep. Oh my gosh. How many people are on board? Yeah. Yeah. And they took care of the emergency took care of the all the checklist. Now, F.O. who's pilot monitoring from GICO is back on the radios and got down and it was probably never mentioned again. Any other time in the tower was just done. That was it. Uneventful. Yep. Yeah. Well done everyone. Agreed. Anything else? I don't think so. Okay. Nope. Thank you hotel tango Bravo. Wonderful job with the audio and great job flying the airplane and I think you should get cookies and maybe a bonus for that. I do too. I think that also you guys did so good. All right, moving on. Baby back time. Baby back. All right, there are two of these. Which one do you want? This is number one. She's from Supercaster Romeo Kila. Hello, R.H. and A.G. while flying south to visit family at the world's largest retirement community. We flew in to the between the lakes Delta just Northwest of the Mickey Mouse Bravo. I was on an IFR flight plan and in IMC. No. In Florida? Yeah. No, that can't be right. These these sectors are usually very busy and I was on with spotted cat approach. Okay. I was coming up on the initial approach fix. When I was abruptly switched over to Mickey Mouse approach upon switching the new frequency was very busy and I was having a hard time getting recognized as the final approach fix was rapidly approaching. I felt like the kid in the back of the classroom frantically waving his arms to get the teacher's attention. All this was happening still in IMC and I could feel the heat of the helmet fire getting hotter and higher. That's two helmet fires in this show. Maybe three that the last contributor wasn't willing to admit to. Oh, cool. You get to fly and talk on the radios and I get to do all the other stuff. Thanks. Totally the harder job. Hey, hold on. I've said that before. Yeah. And when I'm asked at the beginning of a trip, which leg do you want? I like to warm up being the pilot monitoring because it's way harder than flying the plane. I could get an idea of the person I'm flying with and get back in the swing of things because I don't get a lot of touches on the plane. So yeah, it's definitely the harder job. Go ahead. Sorry. Yes, it is. I finally got the controllers attention and was cleared for the RNAV-13 approach after the final approach fix. Huh. Yeah. Then for fun as I reached another fix, expecting a handoff to tower the controller. That should have already happened. We're like way behind with. Yeah, I'm so I'm behind. So, okay. Approach A didn't clear for the approach. Should have. Approach B cleared you for the approach inside the final approach fix. After you should have already been given to the tower. And then controller B then switches you to the tower way close to the runway. That's where we're at. Okay, then for fun as I reached an intermediate or some. Maybe the like the inner marker or something. Yeah, yeah. Expecting a handoff to tower the controller keyed up and said everybody stand by. Hmm. Now the helmet is fully engulfed and I am trying to process what is happening and how to proceed. Do I wait to hear from approach? Do I contact the tower on my own? Do I go missed? Or is this a lost comm scenario? Hmm. It was probably another minute which felt like five that approach keyed up and told me to switch to tower. And we proceeded in bound to land. We broke out 200 feet above minimums and the helmet fire was quickly extinguished. What should I have done if approach remained silent? Really appreciate the show and look forward to meeting up with you again at Osh. Hmm. This is a good one. This is a good one. This just happened yesterday to me while training my trainee. Okay. We were very busy. Told the plane to contact tower. You're on radar. They're working. Yes, we're on radar. They're working final. Hmm. And West. It is busy. And it's complicated and they are down the tubes. Hmm. I'm mildly down the tubes. Trying to track this chaos. Yes. Hmm. But he's doing good for what the scenario is he's doing good. He switches up an aircraft that is that has visual on the plane in front of them and has acknowledged that they are following that plane. One of them was a touch and go. Hmm. The second plane was a touch and go. Okay. So the plane that's following the proceeding is doing the touch and go. Hmm. I don't think they ever acknowledge the switch to the tower. We never heard them say that. But they never went to the tower. Hmm. Hmm. At the closest while they still had this plane in sight. Separation between them was reduced to 0.36 miles. Okay. You have my attention. That's more like a that's. And the trainee I loved his response when he broke him out. He said. He keys up. He says are you still on approach the guy says yeah you never switched this. He said I did switch you turn right heading three to zero. I'm going to break you out and take you back around. He goes did you have the guy in sight. He said yeah we had him in sight. He goes I don't know how you thought that was going to work. I'm not a pilot or anything. But that wasn't going to work. When they were originally told to follow them how much space was between them. Miles. Right and they reduced it down to nothing. Okay. The tower needs 3000 feet on the runway between these two planes. It's to skyhawks or whatever it is. Yeah. To both arrivals but the second one is becoming a touch and go. Yes. Right. Okay. Get off the runway. Right. So let's just say they were both arrivals and you did need 3000 feet 0.36 Miles is 1900 feet. Oh fantastic. Yeah. We already are below the separation required. This isn't Oshkosh we're we don't have orange dots on the runway. There's none of that. Okay. There's no green dot. You're not getting a dot. And so the trainee was upset. Like how did you think that was going to work. I think they had a right to be upset. The pilot never responded to that question. But we brought him back around. But anyway. I think in this scenario all that being said is that if you feel like you missed a switch or you should have been switched to the tower just call the tower. Yeah. If you're inside the final approach fix call the tower. The tower is expecting to be talking to you anyway. Right. Call the tower and say hey I may have missed a switch from approach. Is this where I should be. And they're going to say yes. Yes. They're going to clarify themselves and clear to land. Do you have the traffic point three six miles ahead of you in sight. Are you a formation. Are they lost comms in the scenario. I do want to address that question. Yeah. Go ahead. Go now ask you. Oh you want me to answer that. Yeah. No. Okay. I agree. I don't think so. No. I don't think so. No. Lost comms is not the same as being in the wrong calm. Yes. The wrong calm. I love that. If that's not the show title today, I don't know what is going to be. I'm writing it down. Wrong comes. I wrote it down. That is 90, at least 90%, 95, I might be willing to say. The cause of loss comes. Yes. Is wrong comes. Mm-hmm. You're in frequency land somewhere. Wrong comes. Romantic comedies. Wrong comes. I would not go missed. I am not lost comes. I would do exactly what AG said. You have to have the situation awareness and the confidence to know. If nobody was busy and everything went as it was supposed to right here, how would I have ever arrived at this point in space on a glide slope this close to the runway? Had it not all been worked out and cleared? I didn't get here by accident. I got an approach clearance. I'm talking to the wrong person. Switch over. But you have to have the confidence to do that. You're not going to get taught that by an instructor. You have to use a little bit of PIC authority here. Think through it. You could go to the approach and say, do you want me over at tower? They're going to be like, why are you still with me? Because they thought they switched you. Right. And that very well could have happened. They thought they switched you just like your case. Mm-hmm. Are you still here? Oh, perfect. Now I can make fun of you for being so close to this other airplane. But don't be afraid to just make a decision. Call. Worst case, tower says, nope. They messed up. Contact departure. Climb and maintain. And they put you on this. They're going to send you around, probably. And they send you around. Yeah. But make sure you're talking to the right person. Mm-hmm. Do we answer all those? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So the last question you had, what should I have done if approach remains silent? Just switch over. The end. Switch over. Get somebody to talk to. Find somebody to say hello. Yes. OK. Number two from Supercaster, Julie Cera. Howdy from the overly warm intergalactic Bravo because I have been back and forth to London so much lately. No RH flight yet. How do you know? Hmm. It has been a bit since I've been able to fly myself. I took advantage of a recent nice day to take a trip past to keep it weird, Charlie, to a nice sized but pretty sleepy towered Delta. There was a 5,000 foot overcast layer that extended all the way to my destination. So I filed an I-am-far flight plan. Crowd noise. I like that. Excellent. As I got closer, I was switched to the Yee-Ha Center, which I noted on the approach chart for the approach I expected was approach control when a local approach was not open. Huh. OK. The center works you if the local Traycon isn't open. Is that what you're saying here? I know this isn't a rule for having an alternate being required, but for me, I would go ahead and have one. I picked up the destination weather and the ATIS was advertising the visual to 1-8. I contacted the center and requested the RNAV to 1-8. OK. They're advertising the visual. You requested the RNAV. I was told they were unable to assign the RNAV due to heavy traffic. Clearly, they weren't referring to the destination traffic, which was minimal. And there wasn't an unusual amount of traffic in the area, but an approach controller can deny you non-visual approach to the active runway on an I-am-far flight plan, question mark. Let's answer that. Hmm. It is possible that their All-Away does not allow them to set you up for an approach that's not being advertised in the weather. So if they're on visuals, that may be their All-Away. We're a center controller. We're not going to make you do anything crazy. Like, say, cleared to this fix, cleared for the approach. Right. Anything crazy, like basic air traffic functions? Would it be a fun show if we didn't make fun of center? We'll just stop at separation and pass that. It's just that's what you get. So maybe their hands were tied, but I'll leave it at that. OK. All right. I think that's somewhat fair. Next, they continue. I'm not familiar with the area and had difficulty finding the airport and always prefer an RNAV or ILS when going to a new airport. I love that philosophy, that approach to a new airport, especially at night. I don't think we're at nighttime in this scenario here. But that's never a bad idea. Do an approach, have it loaded up. It's almost like a second set of eyes backing up. You've got the right lateral and vertical guidance if it's there, use it. I would say always have that. Just always have an approach set up. And then when you get there and ATC tells you clear direct this random fix, you might know what it is. It might be on the approach you have loaded. If it's not, ask. Let's say you have the ILS loaded up and they say clear direct to brand and you're like, you don't have that. You say, is that on the ILS or the RNAV? Because I have the RNAV. Just tell them I have the RNAV pulled up. They'll say clear direct and early. They'll give you the name that makes it all easy. Yes. I could have just said I don't have the airport in sight and request vectors to final, but that seems to require a higher control workload rather than less question mark. Yes. Be careful in that application of not seeing the airport. If it's nighttime, you might get away with that, but if it's daytime and it's like airport, 12 o'clock, seven miles, and you're at three or 4,000 feet. Yeah, every other plane for the entire day has been seen it. Right. If you're playing us to do the approach, ask early or ask for a fix on a straight in something that you can aim your airplane towards with less workload. I would be careful about, especially if you actually see it saying you don't have it in sight. Right. I think what you just said is super important. You can relieve burden off the controller who may not be super familiar with these approaches and the fixes by saying, hey, can I just go direct to this initial approach fix for the RNAV to pick up the visual? Yeah, and there's probably nothing in the LOA that prevents that from happening. They're still under control of you. Right. Radar-wise, and you've indicated that you're going to eventually work yourself towards where they're supposed to by LOA on the visual advertised approach. I like that. Yeah. Then they don't have to go look up the approach. Yep. Yeah, tell them where it is. Hey, it's an 10-mile final. Okay. Yeah, or can I go direct to a 10-mile final? Yeah. A ton. I have approved that countless times. Purple Box asks for stuff like that all the time. Can we go to a seven-mile final? Clear direct to a seven-mile final. Report to field in sight. Now, some bean counters in the back say, and that's not legal. It's not legal clearance. It's not what I fixed used for navigation. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Shhh. Let us work our approach. That's just a factor. Yeah. Not going to hit anything. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I will fight that all day long. As it turns out, they continue. They vectored me at one point, and I ended up heading towards the initial approach fix for the RNAV approach, and they eventually asked if I wanted the RNAV. Oh, nice. But the interaction seemed unusual, so curious if this was a common thing. All right. It sounds like they might have picked up the phone and called the tower, too, and said, hey, they want the RNAV. Can I get that to them? Yes. Okay. So now it sounds like they're doing you a favor. Come back. Are you sure you don't want the RNAV now? I don't know. I don't know. There's much more to that interaction than that. I'm not... Let me read... I want to read this again. Clearly, they weren't referring to... Request the RNAV when I was told they were unable to assign the RNAV due to heavy traffic. Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. This could be something with... This isn't their airspace normally. They don't have the final depicted. Hmm. That's a possibility. That could be... They don't have it, so they can't vector to final. Hmm. The final... The fix that's on a 10 or 15 mile final straight in is a conflict with traffic they have. That could be not a lie. There's heavy traffic out there. If I take you out way over there, instead of a normal five or six mile base turn, you're in a whole different part of my problem and I can't do that right now. That was gone or that problem had gone away mid interaction. A center controller scope, if they're working down to the surface, is probably looking at two or three times the airspace that AG is looking at on his scope. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they don't have the same maps. They don't have the same... It would be very difficult to work an approach when you're looking at 200 miles of airspace. So you're right. I think that could play a part of that. So... The other thing that could be happening here is... I'm going to guess this was at night. If approach control is closed. Okay. The center is working this airspace. Hmm. And maybe this controller hasn't worked a mid in a while. Hmm. They're not used to working this airspace anyway. It's like flying somebody else's plane that's set up different. Hmm. Everything's just a little bit off. Hmm. It isn't the thing that you would want in some kind of emergency because it doesn't feel... You don't feel at home there. So that's sort of the feeling I'm trying to convey to you about how this controller could be feeling it just about working this set up in general. Hmm. It's just not normal. So they don't want to take on extra stuff. And then by the time you got there, it's like, okay, well, it's not that bad. I probably could just give them an R and F clearance. I like that. Anytime you hear a center controller working you down to the surface and I'm not making fun of them right now, just be aware that they are limited in what they can do. Right. Yeah. I mean, and they're zoomed out to half the country. Too far. Yeah. So it looks weird to... It looks bad to them. You know, planes look really close that aren't close. I feel this on the mid when I'm on that tiny screen upstairs. Hmm. So planes that are six miles apart, seven miles apart and their data tags are overlapping. Like, I don't like how that looks. And then I look out the window and they're forever apart. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, yeah. Can you apply visual separation from the tower on the mid when you're walking over there? I would love if that was true because... I think you can. Why couldn't you? I think you can. Now, I think it's a tough sell. I think it's a tough sell to say working approach, providing visual for these planes that are 20 miles away. So switching both to tower so the QAQC person's like, oh, they're in the tower now. Right. It's all good. There should be a provision for radar controllers working the mid from the tower, looking out the window to be able to provide visual for a radar function. Agreed. Yeah, I could see you both. All right. And you're both on my frequency. Thank you, Juliet. Sarah, hopefully we answered your question. That might have the waters too much. Thanks for the feedback and supporting the show. All right. We do our best to respond to support feedback and let you know if you'll be on an upcoming show. Anything to add, Ag, before the chat. I do not. Closing out episode 421 of opposing bases air traffic talk from your hotel and Alpha Golf. Goodbye, everyone. Drop opposing bases is a listener supported ad free weekly podcast. The views expressed on the show do not reflect the opinions or official positions of the FAA or Penguin Airlines. Episodes are for entertainment purposes only and are not intended to replace flight instruction to get on time access, bonus content and full archive access. Join the crew at opposing bases dot supercast.com. Yeah.