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Flying Lesson 21
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The object of today's flight lesson was to land and successfully taxi under the control tower's command. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton is our closest tower controlled airport so this is obviously the site for most of my towered airport experience. A requirement of the private pilot certificate is to successfully complete three full stop landings and taxi back to the runway under the watchful eye of the air traffic controllers. The communication over the radio has been a concern for me personally. I have been a bit nervous when it comes time to communicate with ATC. I have gone out and purchased another communication manual as well as two additional instructional videos to help me with this part of the process. My instructor has assured me multiple times that it's always the same whether it's this airport or any other tower controlled airport, the communication procedure will always remain the same. This has barely eased my anxiety to communicate by radio. The flight was mid-afternoon in great, fall weather (what a difference the weather can make).
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Most foliage has hit the ground at this point but the be honest... I really didn't care, I just want to focus on flying the airplane. My instructor basically did almost all the talking on the radio, explaining what he would say, how to say it, why he would say it, and when it should be said. We had prepared ourselves with all the necessary frequencies before departing on this flight. We armed ourselves with the approach frequency, the tower frequency, and ground control. The departure frequency at this aiport is the same as approach. This was something I had learned only a few minutes earlier. Up to this point I had been confused about who to contact and when. We had actually been to this airport early in my lessons for landing practice but I guess I was so concerend at that point with landing that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the radio communication so everything being said back and forth between us and the tower seemed new to me.
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Upon entering the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airspace in the downwind leg of runway 4, we were told by the tower that we had traffic at one o'clock. We are supposed to respond when we see the traffic. We looked and looked but there was no other planes in sight. After what seemed like a few minutes, we were advised once again that we had traffic at one o'clock. At this point I got a little nervous because we still couldn't see any traffic sharing the sky with us. The tower also instructed us to remain in an extended downwind which took us quite a ways from the airport. We finally did see a Cherokee and it made me more comfortable, to say the very least, once I was able to see him. We then had to respond that the traffic was in sight.
The rest of the the experience went exactly as planned. We landed and upon exiting the runway were told to switch to the ground control frequency. He then gave us our taxi instructions to the FBO, which by the way were initially confusing to me. The confusion however was cleared up after we did this more than once. Takeoff and the flight home went well but I must admit I went home with alot to think about. I didn't feel like I could hop back in the plane and go back over by myself at this point. I knew more practice would be necessary.
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