One of the Most Important Words in Aviation
Posted by Jeffrey on July 30th, 2009
If you guessed, “Unable!” You are right!
Occasionally, ATC may ask for something that you or your airplane are incapable of doing.
Here are a few examples:
- Your airplane isn’t capable of climbing/descending at a rate that ATC needs.
- Your airplane is going as fast/slow as it can already.
- ATC may ask you to take a vector that will put you in weather that you aren’t capable of flying in such as clouds or icing.
The CRJ-200 is an example of not being able to climb. On a hot day, with full load of passengers, bags, and fuel around 25,000 feet it can only climb at 500 feet per minute.
If ATC asks us to make a certain flight level in so many minutes, my response is usually, “Unable!”
End of story!
This puts the responsibility back onto the controller to sort out the situation. It is better to take a vector off-course instead of putting yourself into situation that causes a traffic alert or warning. You aren’t going to lose that much time.
Here is another real example.
We were flying through the Midwest. Thunderstorms everywhere. The center controller was very busy because of all the thunderstorms in the area which resulted in every one deviating. ATC ask if we could turn left for traffic. We said, “Unable because of weather but we would be happy to climb!”
If we had turned the direction they wanted us to, we would have flown right into a thunderstorm that was topping 45,000 feet. Not where I wanted to be.
Here is one more example.
One day my First Officer landed a little long. We were in Salt Lake City and had landed with a 5 knot quarterly tailwind.
Salt Lake City tower told us to take a certain high-speed exit. Well, we were approaching the exit at too high a speed.
Quickly I said over the radio, “Unable!” and continued to the next exit. This caused an inconvenience for ATC because they had taxied another airplane onto the runway and yet another airplane was on short final.
So they just taxied the airplane off the runway, we exited safely, and the other airplane landed safely.
So the next time ATC asks you to do something that you aren’t comfortable with, just say, “Unable!” Let them sort it out and you fly your airplane.
“Unable” is a magic, empowering word that we have to be able to use all the time.
To Your Flying Success…
Jeffrey
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December 13th, 2009 at 7:11 am
Unable. I like that.
They should adopt that expression for the office.
Next time some manager tells you that the “expectation is that you meet this commitment by the due date”….
…and you get to tell them “Unable!”.