Flight Training - November 2013 - 6

RIGHT SEAT

By Ian J. Twombly
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LEARNING AVIATION MANNERS

stablishing 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

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.

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.
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

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

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.
Email Editor Ian J. Twombly at ian.twombly@aopa.
org; Twitter: ijtwombly; and visit Flight Training on
Facebook.

Publisher | Mark Baker

Senior VP, Media/Editor in Chief | Thomas B. Haines
Editor | Ian J. Twombly
Editor at Large | Thomas A. Horne
Managing Editor | Julie Summers Walker
Technical Editors | Mike Collins, Jill W. Tallman
Senior Editors | Dave Hirschman, Alton K. Marsh
Editorial and Production Assistant | Sylvia Horne
Administrative Assistant | Miriam E. Stoner
Contributors | Pete Bedell, Greg Brown, LeRoy Cook,
Budd Davisson, Rod Machado, Walter Miller, Dan
Namowitz, Wayne Phillips, Bob Schmelzer,
Jack Williams, Kathy Yodice

Design Director | Michael E. Kline
Art Directors | Elizabeth Z. Jones, Jill C. Benton
Senior Photographer | Mike Fizer
Photographer | Chris Rose

eMedia Managing Editor | Alyssa J. Miller
eMedia Editor | Sarah Deener
eMedia Associate Editors | Jim Moore, Benet Wilson

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Flight Training - November 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - November 2013