I was back in the TB9 on Saturday and it was good. I didn't forget how quickly things can happen in this airplane by comparison with the Grob, but I still managed to embarrass myself nonetheless.
It was just a flight to get me back in the air again so there wasn't any overly serious training going on. We left Weston, called them up and the zone boundary and they handed us to Dublin. So, in my best authoritative, professional pilot tone, I called them:
Dublin, Alpha Bravo Charlie, out of Weston, overhead Kilcock at 15 hundred feet, routing to Navan for a Navex and back to Weston. Information only.
Dublin replied "Alpha Bravo Charlie, call returning to Weston".
I turned to my instructor, "did you hear that man, I actually sounded like I knew what I was doing". "Well, ya certainly scared the crap out of me" he laughed.
Pride goeth before a fall. I called up Weston on the way back.
"Weston,Alpha Bravo Charlie"
"Alpha Bravo Charlie, standby"
Grand, he's busy, we'll pick up the patter in a minute, I thought.
"Alpha Bravo Charlie, join overhead for a left-hand downwind for 2-5, QNH 1004"
Now, I heard all that. I registered all that but what came out was:
"Join, for downwind lefthand 2-5 (now realising I'd buggered it up, I went the whole hog) ahhh overhead for down wind, Alpha Bravo Charlie"
Basically, it was classic conditioned-response situation. In telling me to standby, I decided that he'd ask me to pass my message, not give me a set of instructions. I went from sounding like a 737 driver to sounding like I'd never pressed the PTT button before. Slightly embarrassing.
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