I've been working with sounds of late and will work them into this part of my site. If you hear an airplane flying over, you will be able to hear actual radio transmissions I made to complete a short flight.

This is 146 just out of the hangar.

Airplanes flying off to the wild blue yonder looks simple but in the real world there is a lot of effort in getting an airplane up in the air. This is the procedure I go through whenever I take a passenger up for a flight. Of course when I have no passenger I leave out the "Passenger Briefing" checklist.

After I roll 146 out of the hangar I do a complete preflight. If I know fuel will be needed I generally call for the fuel truck using my handheld radio before I start the preflight as it sometimes takes the fuel truck a few minutes to arrive to fuel the plane. Much like the passenger briefings on commercial flights, I go through one too. My passenger briefing is a little different. I like to go over this information before you get into the airplane.

I do want to make a couple of assumptions here. One, the weather is ok (I've probably been watching it for the last couple of days) and two, there are no notices to airmen that affect us and where we want to go ( I call the FAA service station to check). To get the local Airport Terminal Information System (ATIS) information I generally use my hand held radio. I could use the radio in the airplane but at this point I've not started up the airplane. Many general aviation airports do not provide this information, but because my airport has a tower it is not only provided but required before permission to taxi is granted for takeoff.

To start the airplane I have this "Before Starting" checklist. Once the engine is running and we're ready to go, we need to call "ground control" on the ground frequency (121.7 MH) to request permission to taxi to the run up area. The run up area is at the end of the runway where we will be taxiing onto the runway. Down at the run up area I have another checklist, the "Before Takeoff" checklist to go through. While I'm doing this I generally switch to the tower frequency to get an idea what's going on.

At the "Hold Short" line I call the tower to indicate my readiness to take off. Once the landing traffic has cleared the threshold of the runway, the tower calls me to position my airplane on the runway. Finally I'm given permission to take off.

To take off I push the throttle in all the way and we're rolling to take off. Because the airport is within Class "Delta" airspace I have to keep the radio tuned to the tower frequency. Generally the tower will call me to inform me that I can change frequency but they don't have to do that. The biggest reason to change frequency would be to contact Flight Service to inform them that I have taken off and to activate my flight plan. Because this is a local flight and I have not filed a flight plan I would not have to do this in this case.

So, this is what it is all about. Simply flying around to look at the area or going to someplace far off, you get a great view of the countryside that you cannot get from the ground.

Sooner or later eventually have to land. The first requirement is to get the current ATIS information. Once I have this information and am near the class "D" surface space I can call the tower on a frequency of 125.3 MH to inform them I would like to land and that I have the current ATIS information. If the tower is really busy the ATIS information will give instructions to call the tower on 128.75 which is monitored by another coltroller to ease the workload on the controller monitoring 125.3 MH.

At this point I head directly for the tower on a forty-five degree angle to 21 Left and position the airplane at 6000 ft. MSL. When I am two miles from the airport I give them a call to let them know I've arrive at the checkpoint to call. The controller's response to my call is more instructions....sigh. This is really a pretty busy time sot it's not a good time to chat. I'm to call the tower again once I am on the downwind and abeam the tower. So I give the tower a call.

I'm heading for the spot where I pull the carburator heat, back off on the power and put in 10 degrees of flaps but before I do I need to let the controller that I now see my traffic that is on final.

Right now I'm pretty busy. I'm cleared to land and doing a lot of things to get the airplane on the ground in a timely manner. Once I get on the ground the tower directs me to turn off the runway at exit "Charlie Four" and to contact ground control.

At this point I'm off the runway and have switched to ground control (121.7). I don't want to jump right in there and request a taxi to my hangar as even though the frequency is quiet I might be in the middle of someone talking to ground so I wait a couple of minutes before calling to request taxiing to my hangar.