When right is left
Controllers are people too…
By Christopher Freeze
In my experience, air traffic controllers do a great job of keeping the dots on the radar screen from touching, even on days when the skies are filled with airplanes.
WHAT HAPPENED
With the Learjet to my right, the instructions made no sense, as the turn to the right would put us directly into the oncoming Learjet’s path.
Did you learn something valuable on a flight that didn’t go as expected? Share your “Flight Lesson” with us at [email protected] (subject line: Flight Lesson) for a chance to be published in an upcoming issue of Flight Training.
This was not one of those days—a major storm system had passed through the region, and cloud ceilings prevented VFR flights to the local practice area. Besides, it was time for one of my clients, a low-time high school student, to have his first “let’s actually learn how to land the airplane” flight, after becoming proficient in basic high-air maneuvers.
Despite the so-so Sunday afternoon weather, the traffic pattern over my local airport, Leesburg Executive Airport (JYO) in northern Virginia, was handling lots of arriving IFR traffic, returning from weekend getaways.
Taking off into the busy skies, my student and I, in our Cessna 172, were getting bounced back and forth between the left and right traffic pattern at our single-runway field, as aircraft arriving from the west entered to land on Runway 35.
About an hour into the lesson, my student was starting to make decent, unassisted (but highly coached) landings, even with the flip-flops in traffic pattern direction. Typically, such changes are of no concern—that is, until the controller himself confuses left and right.
While on the right downwind leg, we neared the point abeam the runway number when the controller asked if we see the Learjet on a several-miles-out left base.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“I need you to make a right 270-degree turn to follow him in.”
With the Learjet to my right, the instructions made no sense, as the turn to the right would put us directly into the oncoming Learjet’s path.
Recognizing the controller’s apparent error, I countered with a “Thanks, but no thanks,” to which he doubled down on the instruction.
“Nah, you should be fine. You have room,” he said.
“Unable. I’ll extend the downwind and turn base behind.”
This plan had its own issues, as Leesburg is wedged under Washington Dulles International Airport’s Class B airspace—within glide distance on the left and ahead of the airplane. Fortunately, with the knowledge there were no aircraft behind us in the pattern, my student remembered one of the reasons I taught him the slow flight maneuver. He extended the Cessna’s flaps, pushed in the throttle to maintain altitude, and pitched up slightly to reduce the airspeed. The Learjet pulled ahead and down toward landing.
“You know what. Never mind,” the controller said. “Turn behind the Lear, you’re number two—cleared for the option, Runway 35.”
I read back the clearance for my student, who started in on his delayed approach and landing. On that flight, my student got a real-world example of FAR 91.3(a): “The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.”
