My name is Rui Cabral and like all student pilots (The Honest Group) I had my frustrated, but funny moments in the cockpit.
One night I flew from Tamiami Executive (TMB) to Naples (APF) it was my second night "X Country" and unfamiliar with procedures and radio communications...
84SP : Naples Tower, 84SP 5 Miles from the airport.
APF TWR : 84SP, confirm you have Hotel.
84SP : Naples Tower, ahhh.... No I won't need a Hotel Room.. ahh.. I am returning to Miami later. Thank You !
Tower Dude was laughing too hard to respond. The next call went like this :
APF TWR (Still Laughing) : Lear 97N, Clear to Land RWY 32.
LEAR 97N : Clear to land, RWY 32. Sir, we will need a Hotel Room.
This happened in one of my first flights with my instructor Sanchez...
72RA : Tamiami Ground, 972RA on spot 6 , inbound from SW, with Information Yakee..
TMB Ground : 972RA, Please confirm your position ..
Got him confuse & embarrassed myself pretty bad... You should see the face of my instructor Sanchez.
72RA : Tamiami Ground, correcting.. 972RA on spot 6 for a SW departure with information Yankee.
One nice afternoon I decided to practice some Touch & Go...
72RA : Tamiami Ground, 972RA on spot 7 , will be flying in the Pattern, with information Oscar.
TMB Ground : 972RA, Taxi to RWY 9L ..
72RA : 972RA taxing to RWY 9L..
After finished all my checks, I called Tamiami Tower.. It went something like that :.
72RA : Tamiami Tower, 972 RA on RWY Niner .. ahhhhh Niner .... ahhhh Niner Lima, ready to take off.
TMB Tower : 972RA, You are on RWY Niner Left, Clear to take off..
My first X Country to Naples (APF)....
84SP : Naples Tower, 484SP 10 Miles SW inbound with information Golf.
APF TWR : 84SP, Report on Court House.
Got Confused, anyway.. this is not like I can stop on the corner and ask for directions to The Court House ... By this time I was almost on top of the Airport at 2,000ft flying at 120 Kts (Tail Wind was helping a lot)
484SP : Naples Tower, I am a student pilot and I am not familiar with the area.
APF Tower : 84SP start your downwind, stay with me with me in this frequency, I will call your base.
By this time (Did I mentioned that was a bad windy day ? well.. It was ) the easiest thing to do was say "Roger" and so I did it.
APF Tower: 84SP, Turn Base
484SP : Naples Tower, 84SP turning base, clear to land..
APF Tower: 484SP, Not yet. You still have one turn to go. It's called Final
484SP : Roger.
It was so many things in my mind that I forgot to check the ATIS for APF. The only think I knew was that was windy, there were birds coming in my direction and it was a cross wind. Got my landing approval and brought my raft (In my opinion call a C172 ship is kind of funny) to the ground.
APF Tower: 484SP, Turn right in the first intersection.
Too busy fighting with the wind and trying to stop the plane.. Passed First, Second finally turned Right in a HUGE intersection (RUNWAY).
APF Tower: 484SP, Who cleared you to turn on the RWY ? Stop your plane immediately ... go to the right, park on the grass. Contact Ground on xxx.xx
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