Radio Ga Ga

“Delta Alpha hold position” was not what I had expected to hear as I rolled down the taxiway towards the threshold of runway 26L.

“Hold position Golf Delta Alpha” I replied and applied the brakes and waited.

I was racking my brains at this point trying to figure out why I was being held, having just heard the radio instruct “take off at your discretion” only moments earlier.

Adding to my confusion, the tower came back to me shortly after this exchange and asked me to confirm I was ready for departure, which I was, and had already advised them of this previously. The tower then informed me to take off at my discretion.

Clearing my head, I returned to the task in hand and guided Delta Alpha onto the runway, checked my young passenger was ok and applied full power to commence our local flight.

The flight itself was lovely if a little windy.  I’d already elected to change aircraft from the Eurostar to the C42 as the 90 degree crosswind was right on the limits and the C42 has a higher demonstrated crosswind capability, so the wind came as little surprise to me.

Our short afternoon flight involved overflying Heywood to have a look at the 40s day celebrations from the air then a trip over the moors to gain some altitude and practice 60 degree banked turns (my youngest loves those) and also a couple of PFLs as it had been a while since I’d done any.

Returning to Barton I was happy to see the circuit was not too busy and that the wind had come around to 290 which is more towards the runway heading as well as losing a few knots in the process. One decent crosswind landing later and shutdown checks complete I was ready to go and get some cool refreshment from Runway 26 (the café at Barton, not the 800 metres of grass).

After bumping into Rory On Air and having a quick chat about his plans to fly to Kenyon Hall Farm for the LAC mid-summer fly in I was told I needed to go and speak to the tower, which is where this story began.

What had actually happened was I had called ‘ready for departure’ right at the same time as the tower was transmitting to a helicopter (that I couldn’t see).  The tower hadn’t heard my call (hence asking me to confirm I was ready for departure) and I had no knowledge of the helicopter.

On completing my call and releasing the PTT I heard a bit of transmission noise and then ‘take off your discretion’. Seeing no other aircraft in front of me, and having not heard the callsign (because I assumed someone had stepped on the towers transmission), I assumed the call was for me and replied ‘taking off’ and started to roll.

The result? A completely unintentional and avoidable runway incursion.

So, what should I have done in this situation? Simple really, I should have asked the tower to confirm that the instruction to ‘take off your discretion’ was for me as I had not heard the callsign.

Fortunately the guys in the tower were very understanding when I had a chat with them afterwards. There was no conflict and they had intended to line me up next anyway, but it goes to show the importance of being absolutely clear on the radio and ensuring that instructions from the tower are indeed for you.

I wont be making that mistake again.

As a result the airport have paperwork to do as does the club that I hire from and all this could have been avoided had I simply confirmed the callsign before starting to position for take off.

I consider myself a conscientious diligent pilot and so I’ve written this post so that others may learn from my mistake.  I hope I have highlighted the importance of clear and accurate radio calls as something extremely simple can lead to confusion very very easily.

Happy flying all.