Remaining Under Control

“But how will I know what to do?”

“What if I f*** it up?”

“They’re going to think I’m stupid…”

Welcome to an inside view of the typical microlight pilot’s brain when considering flying into controlled airspace, or, worse, an airport with an air traffic control service!

I hear this, and more, quite often. Many pilots who have trained in a more relaxed environment or from a farm strip are often immediately phased by the thought of flying into a ‘proper airport’, but there is really no need to worry.

Now at this point I could launch into a narrative about how the air traffic controllers are all human beings (really they are, I’ve met them) and won’t bite. That they don’t mind if you don’t get the phraseology exactly right or that they would rather you spoke to them than turned off the transponder and ghosted under the radar – that last bit was a metaphor but I just realised its a great pun too!

However, the simple fact is that people are afraid of change. And this is the real crux of the issue. No amount of coaching or coaxing can really change that. However, what might help is if you change your own perspective slightly.

I trained at Barton, which has an AFISO service and so I was very quickly used to asking for taxi, and being given a taxi route to follow, waiting to be authorised to enter the runway, as well as using very specific phraseology during my flight. But what happened when I first flew into an uncontrolled airfield with no radio service?

Guess what? I was terrified!

Who do I speak to? What do I say? How do I know if its ok to land? Which runway do I use?

My point is, that whatever you get used to when you are training, very quickly becomes the norm, and as soon as you try to do something different it can feel a little scary, but it needn’t be, its just different.

So what do I tell my students now when we’re flying into and out of Blackpool Airport? I tell them not to worry and to look at it like this. Having an ATC service makes your job a lot easier than when you’re landing at an uncontrolled airfield as you don’t need to decide which runway to use, which circuit pattern to fly, how to join or even if the runway is clear to land on.

You have a second pair of eyes and ears dedicating to making those decisions for you and then instructing you on what you need to do. Surely that has to reduce your workload and make it a lot easier than making those decisions yourself?

Try and frame it like this and it may not seem so daunting after all.