This is sort of from memory:
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Back in the day, nobody used headsets. You had to pick up a microphone, hold it to your lips and then push the button. So anyway, it was a gusty day at the airport, with a goodly crosswind component. A Cessna 150 was having problems with the wind, so at the last moment, the pilot began to go around. Almost by reflex, the pilot realigned the nose of the airplane with the runway's centerline.
While adding power and removing carb heat and retracting flaps, the little Cessna took on an alarming amount of wind drift. The tower controller noticed that the Cessna was on a track to collide with the tower. He keyed his mike and said: "Cessna 34 Bravo, what is your intention?"
The pilot replied: "If I don't have to keep talking on this here radio, I'd like to avoid hitting the tower. 34 Bravo."
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2 comments:
ROTF... Yeah, AVIATE, navigate, THEN communicate...
I have had that happen a few times in the tower. Once, a student solo in a Skyhawk went around, and made a beeline right for us. Everybody in the cab took a collective step back, with one eye locked on the stairwell. "Cessna," I said, "no need to respond, but turn right immediately." He swerved and missed us.
Another time, we were low IFR, and a Piper Malibu was having a shitty time tracking the ILS. A couple of times, I advised him he was right of course, and seemed to correct. Well, not enough.... He popped out of the 200-and-change foot ceiling a couple hundred yards right of the runway and flew directly over the airline terminal ramp, pointed straight at us.
Maybe he was looking at the runway off his left and figuring out how to salvage his approach, and wasn't looking at the big tower-shaped thing directly ahead of him. Again, we all took a collective step back as the guy kept trucking at us. "Malibu," I said, "go around, climb immediately to 2000, and fly heading 270." I still remember the sight of his wheels retracting into their wells as he passed up and over us.
Good times....
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