My life, their hands

So after my whinge about ATC, it got me thinking about all the other people I rely on to get me into the air. Literally my life in their hands, as it were. So here’s a list. It’s not exhaustive, I’ve probably forgotten someone. Don’t get offended.

Bob – Obviously this goes without saying. I’ve extensively covered his role in this whole malarkey. He often goes above and beyond the line of duty. Last week he managed to make it back from Montreal in a stupidly short space of time, in order to make our lesson.

Dispatch – contrary to the belief of some student pilots, the planes don’t magically appear on the apron each morning. I rely on these guys to make sure my plane is in good working order and has enough fuel in it. They also manage all the bookings and other related miscellaneous phone calls. On top of that most of them are working towards commercial pilot status themselves. I have them on my list of “people-who-you-shouldn’t-piss-off”

ATC – yes we may have our differences but they are kind of important as well. I have a healthy amount of respect for them. I fully appreciate what the hell they are trying to deal with. They have commercial airlines, who just want to be on their way with as little delay as possible. Medevac flights who need to be with the patient as soon as humanly possible, sightseeing tours who just want to spend hour after hour circling the big pointy thing. Then they have us little Cessnas zipping in between all the aforementioned traffic like annoying little gnats. On top of that you have to factor in the fact that most of us annoying little gnats have very little clue as to what we are actually doing. They are certainly on my list of “people-who-you-shouldn’t-piss-off”, because if I exit their control zone, technically they don’t have to let me back in!

The fine people from the Toronto Port Authority – there may be a hint of sarcasm lurking around here. Obviously I’m grateful to the ferry operator for getting me there and occasionally the operators are nice enough to hold the ferry when they see the gang from ground school doing the 9:30 death run to catch the ferry. But the guys managing the vehicle traffic are another matter. You see for an airport that advertises the fact that you can “walk to the city centre”, it has no fricken pedestrian access whatsoever. The most dangerous part of my flight isn’t the takeoff or the landing or even spin recovery it is playing chicken with the lineup of Beck Taxis on my way in/out. You see the security people are very good at controlling the various lines of traffic. They stop one and then get another one going no matter who might be in its path. I’m one step away from telling them exactly what I think of them. They are on my list of “people-whom-I-would-happily-push-into-Lake-Ontario”

RTH – 10 minutes spent over a cup of tea discussing the day’s flying conditions really helps set me up for a lesson. When we go flying together, I get a right hand seat view of various maneuvers. We have plans for me to practice a lot of my nav stuff when flying together as well.

 All of the above at some point literally have my life in their hands.

 Overall I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about me doing something stupid; there are plenty of people who could quite happily kill me without too much effort!