Training for Fairytales – AVweb

Being aviation professionals, we need to train for what is possible, even if it seems unlikely. It’s the things you least expect that inevitably will happen. If you’re not ready for them, you’ll definitely struggle.

It was a quiet morning—the pondering kind. There weren’t many planes, maybe four, in my low-altitude sector of FL270 and below. I’m controlling the airspace southeast of KSEA and it’s a “Cleared direct destination” kind of day.

I’m thinking about breakfast and a walk around the facility when I hear the tell-tale click of a mic before a call. I don’t even sit up as I prepare to say “Approved as requested”.

But then I hear something I’ve only heard in fairytales and read about years ago in the 7110.65.

“Seattle Center, N13DZ, request climb to VFR-on-Top.”

Surely I didn’t hear that right. (But then again, don’t call me Shirley.) I key up and dumbly say, “N13DZ, say again?”

They say again, “N13DZ, requesting climb to VFR-on-Top.”

And there it is, the unicorn, the never-used clearance. I can count on one hand, with half my fingers, rounded down, how many times I’ve issued this clearance. Even then, it’s only been in simulation training.

I scramble for my ERIDS, Enroute Information Display System, off to my left. ERIDS is basically the Google for controllers who need to find strange airline callsigns, aircraft types, fixes, charts, airspace, and thank God, ATC procedures.

It didn’t take long to find the procedure. Fortunately, someone somewhere had the foresight to make uncommon clearances (like VFR-on-Top) quickly accessible for a time just like this. I did a quick scan and easily found the requirements and the phraseology I needed

1. The pilot requests VFR-on-Top. (Check)

2. You inform the pilot of the reported height of the meteorological top or that no top report is available. (Wilco)

3. Ensure separation from other aircraft by issuing alternate clearance instructions in case VFR-on-Top is not reached before lost separation. (No problem)

4. Reclear the aircraft to maintain VFR-on-Top when they report VFR-on-Top. (Got it)

Here we go…“N13DZ, climb to and report reach-ing VFR-on-Top. No tops reports. If not on top at one-six thousand, maintain one-six thousand and advise. Maintain VFR-on-Top.”

“N13DZ, roger. Maintain VFR-on-Top.”

“Maintain VFR-on-Top, N13DZ.”

Normally, when you do something for the first time it feels awkward and clunky, like a blind date. But despite being my first actual issuance, this clearance didn’t feel that way at all. It felt like meeting up with my cool cousin I hadn’t seen in 10 years. Why was that?

The answer: I’d done it before…in training.

Those few times I had practiced the procedure in simulation had somehow smoothed out what would have otherwise been a rough clearance. My training had blazed a trail for my brain to easily follow, even years later. If not for that training (on something I never expected to use) I may have botched the clearance, and anyone who knows IFR knows how important precision and clear communication is.

We have a kid on our crew who is an absolute rockstar air traffic controller, and I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. He was born to work traffic. His mom must have listened to LiveATC while he crawled around in diapers. He works busy traffic like some of us might stroll through the park on a sunny day, staring at puffy white clouds, smelling roses, and eating ice cream. He probably made it through training with less than two errors, and those were probably based on technicalities. He’s the best. And he knows it.

He has the kind of youthful arrogance that makes the old guys pull out their last few straggling hairs. His ego is so big that when he walks into a room people have to scoot over. If you could eat confidence, he would solve world hunger. But he isn’t condescending. He’s funny and a really nice guy. So trust me when I say that you either loved this kid or you loved to hate him. I lean both ways.

For the sake of the story, we’ll call him Percy.

One day, Percy was working a particularly busy arrival push and I was on his D-side (officially known as the “Radar Assistant” who acts an extra pair of eyes and coordinates with surrounding controllers). Our sector was FL240 and below. It was winter and the weather was complete garbage at the major airport we were feeding.

The airport had just closed one of the active runways for snow plowing, which cut the arrival rate in half. Arrivals were stacking up in holding patterns. En-route traffic was passing over and under all of his arrivals. He was ducking and dodging traffic left and right. It was a madhouse in the sector.

Of course, Percy being Percy, could have been chewing bubble gum while he worked. Cool as a cucumber he turned overflights away from arrivals, issued holding instructions, descents, etc. Generally saving hundreds of lives, one clearance at a time. It was just another Tuesday…until it happened.

He got an emergency call from a VFR pilot encountering IFR conditions. The Malibu was cruising at 9500, heading east to a little nearby airport. They were not on flight following so we weren’t paying attention to their VFR flight.

The weather was not the kind that in which anyone should be flying around VFR. Yet there they were, in the southeast corner of our air-space, squawking 7700, and on the edge of moderate precipitation.

“Center, N87LT declaring an emergency, we’re caught in a snow storm and we need to get out of here immediately.” The voice of the pilot was shaky and tight with fear.

When the Malibu declared the emergency, Percy froze like he’d glimpsed the snake hair of Medusa herself. A painful moment passed. I looked at Percy.

He held his PTT with his thumb poised for the call, but he didn’t move. His eyes darted between the emergency and the arrivals.

“Percy,” I said with urgency.

He shook himself, took a deep breath and went to work. “N87LT, Seattle Center. Radar contact. Suggest you fly heading one-tree-zero to exit the moderate precipitation.”

“One three zero, N87LT.” The pilot’s voice was still anxious.

I turned around and notified our supervisor of the situation so she could coordinate with the appropriate people in case the in-flight emergency turned into something worse. We pulled up our emergency check-list and went through the necessary steps.

I found three airports out in front of the Malibu that all had fairly decent weather where they could land. Percy advised the Malibu of each airport giving the pilot both the headings and the distances.

Percy turned his attention back to the arrivals and continued to work the rest of the sector. He did a good job managing the arrivals and dividing his attention between them and the Malibu, but he was obviously off balance.

It took about 15 miles of stressful flying before the Malibu broke out of the weather. They made it down to one of the nearby airports safely, without damage or issue.

Percy and I were both relieved from the sector by other controllers and walked out of the control room together. Percy’s normal confidence after a busy session was conspicuously missing.

“Was that your first emergency, Percy?” I asked.

“I’ve had a couple mechanical emergencies that weren’t serious. Nothing like that.” Percy said. He had a shaken look in his eyes.

“You did fine, Percy. Everything that needed doing got done.”

“Yeah.” His eyes were still unfocused like he was deep in his thoughts. “What if they had gone down?” He asked.

I paused to consider it. “We do everything we can to support an emergency and give them all the tools they need to safely land their airplane. That’s the job. There’s not much more we can do.” I gave him a pat on the back. “You did fine.”

Percy was pretty quiet for the next few days. He did his job as well as ever but it didn’t seem like we needed to make room for his ego anymore.

After another week, Percy was back to his normal confident self, but you could tell he’d learned something very valuable that day with the Malibu. Experience, above all else, is the greatest teacher.

There are some days in aviation when the stars align and the sky gods smile. Every frequency is five-by-five, clearances are simple and only take one call, visibility 10, skies clear … paradise. It’s on days like this when anything is possible. It was on a day like this that my pilot friend got a wakeup call.

He had recently received his IFR rating and, at the time, was just trying to build more hours and enjoy flying. He flew regular routes and got to know them very well. He knew the frequencies. He knew the clearances. He knew the approaches. He knew it all. My friend got complacent. He was asleep in his training and getting lazy in furthering his education.

One day he called me after a flight. He sounded like his girlfriend had left with his dog. And house. And car. “You’re never going to believe what happened today…”

“What happened?” I asked, going through 20 scenarios in my head that might have complicated his flight. Controllers consider all the possible problems, even in their personal lives.

I laughed. It’s not a common clearance, but neither is it terribly complicated, if you know what it entails. For those who don’t know, it’s basically permission to fly a block of altitudes at your discretion along your route of flight and conduct any approach you want at your destination airport.

“What went wrong?” He proceeded to tell me all about it. He was flying to his final destination, heading towards his last instrument approach of the flight. The weather was clear and a million. He was about 100 miles from the airport. The ILS he was planning to fly was set up for an easy straight in approach, no procedure turn and nothing unusual at all. He was flying level at 11,000.

The controller working the airspace seemed pretty busy. Very few pauses between transmissions. A lot of climb and decent clearances. My friend was getting pretty close to the airport now and wanted to ask for clearance to the IAF. He was waiting for his chance to call into the fray when the controller keyed up and gave him the cruise clearance. “N138B, cleared direct destination. Cruise 9000.”

He was blindsided by the clearance. Completely flat footed. He took it on the chin. TKO. His silence was met by an irritated and busy controller’s clipped second call. “N138B, Minneapolis Center.”

My friend shook out of his stupor. “N138B, go ahead.”

“N138B cleared direct destination. Cruise 9000.”

“N138B, direct destination, cruise 9000.”

At this point, my friend just read back the clearance to appease the controller, despite having no idea exactly what he needed to be doing. A very big mistake.

The controller went on with his business and my friend began racking his brain trying to remember what a cruise clearance entailed. He knew he was assigned 9000. That seemed clear, so he descended to 9000, but he was quickly approaching the IAF where he needed to start his approach.

Not sure what to do, my friend swallowed hard and called the controller to ask for the approach fix.

“Minneapolis Center, N138B. Request direct the IAF for ILS Runway 24.”

Center replied, “N138B, cruise 9000,” with emphasis on “cruise.”

Now, it should be said that my friend’s request for the IAF should have alerted the controller that maybe N138B wasn’t familiar with a cruise clearance. Even for controllers it’s not a common clearance. We’ll use it occasionally because it’s a quick clearance that’s both safely separated from terrain and allows the pilot to make an approach to the airport. But the controller didn’t recognize the confusion, and my friend was left high and dry.

With nothing else to do, and very little time to do it, my friend simply navigated towards the IAF for the ILS to execute the approach. He was sweating bullets the entire time. Any second he’d be getting that dreaded transmission, “Possible pilot deviation…”

After flying over the IAF, the controller advised him where to cancel his IFR and approved him to switch to advisory frequencies. He finished the approach, landed safely, canceled through Flight Service, and went on with his day. IFR cross-country complete.

We had a good talk about communicating clearance expectations and not worrying about interrupting a busy controller, especially in circumstances like his. He should have pressed for an explanation, explained he was training, and gotten a clear understanding of his expectations.

Would he sound like a rookie? Sure. Is he a rookie? Yes. But no self-respecting pilot should ever feel ashamed to ask for help, especially when you have little experience in a procedure. ATC is here for you.

This story originally appeared in IFR Magazine.