A typical flying day (part 5)

So we are on the runway, slowed down and waiting for ATC to tell us where to get off.

ATC wait until they are reasonably sure that we’ve landed and are not just pogo-sticking our way down the runway. They look for subtle clues like the formation of a small crater on impact, that kind of thing. They then give you exit instructions. Taxiways are given letters, just like everything else in flying! So you might get told to “Exit Charlie, contact ground 112 decimal* seven”. If ATC use the word “Expedite” then it means you are about to have a Dash 8 land on top of you. You’ll notice the impact, they possibly won’t.

You exit the runway and contact ground as requested.  They give you permission to taxi back to the apron outside the flight school. Again you keep a sharp lookout for other planes, baggage trucks, wildlife, homeless people and anything else that might mess up the paintwork.  You also need to keep a sharp eye out for a guy waving his arms at you. This is called marshaling and is apparently meant to aid you in your quest not to hit anything. For me the reaction is usually “why is there someone waving their arms at me? What does that mean again**?  Are you sure I can fit through there? I wouldn’t stand that close in front of me if I were you.”

Eventually you come to a stop and reach the final section of your checklist which culminates in the “Mixture – ICO***” line. At this point I breathe a sigh of relief as the engine coughs to a stop. The relief is from another flight successfully completed with myself, Bob and the plane intact. After gathering my belongings and putting them to one side, Bob and I manhandle the plane into a decent parking position and chock it if needed. Then it is inside for the most painful part, paying!!!

I fill in the flight sheet, work out the numbers (billing is done in decimals of an hour but as there are 60 not 100 minutes in an hour, you have to work out the fractions) and hand over the credit card.
While I’m doing this Bob’ll be writing his usual extended essay**** in my PTR and then I’ll join him for the debrief. Bob often has a much more optimistic view of how the lesson went than I do. I am well aware of the fact that I’m my own biggest critic and to be honest it often takes a while to sink in. My best lesson reflections actually tend to come from writing blog posts about them several days later.

And that’s pretty much it ladies and gents. Other than my trip home and quest to replace the three gallons of fluids that I lost during the workout that is an average hour in the air. We’re done!
 


* yep pilots actually say “decimal” – we’re just that cool

** See my brain is strangely resistant to retaining anything to do with marshaling signals. Basically the funnier I find something the less likely I am to be able to remember it

*** ICO = Idle Cut Off – it basically cuts the fuel and thereby stops the engine. You shouldn’t do that in the air.

**** Despite the teasing he may endure because of it, I really like the fact that Bob writes proper lesson summaries. I’ve seen the three word lesson write ups the other instructors give. I like the fact that my PTR reads as a proper progression of my skills. Even if it has taken up the proportions of an epic novel