Apologies to ESSA controller

[Carl Jarvholm]

My very first time on the network, and I had it all planned out, every single line that would leave my mouth during the flight.

it starts off well. The only thing I f:ed up was not reading back the departure i was cleared for. Push and start goes well and I’m standing with engines running and preparing for taxi. I then see a message from controll in the text box saying ”tune unicom at 122.8”, and I’m like ” sure, it’s late, he’s probably logging off”, because the time was around 10pm which I’ve heard is a normal time to end things.

So I taxi out to taxiway Y. Two huge mistakes. The controller asks me to tune back to the departure frequency through text, and shock horror I had misunderstood the message about unicom, that was meant for another plane that was on text only, I hadn’t read the callsign at the beginning of the message. And he was asking me very politely why I had just started taxiing without permission.

And the second huge mistake was that i was taxiing towards the wrong runway. I have flown from ESSA many times and never mixed the runways up, but i guess i was nervous because of my inexperience on the network. 
 

The controller was extremely nice and polite about this and he gave me directions to the departure runway… which off course I misinterpreted too and he had to give me new directions.

Karl, if you’re reading this I’m so so sorry for all of this and I feel like I didn’t apologise enough for it.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Happens during "first flights". I am sure the controller did not mind it too much, especially as he stayed polite and patient.

Did you include RMK/NEWBIE in your flightplan "remark field"? This gives us ATCOs a hint that we may have to be a bit more patient and forgiving, because you are not trolling us, but you are just bloody nervous 🙂

[Carl Jarvholm]

1 hour ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

Happens during "first flights". I am sure the controller did not mind it too much, especially as he stayed polite and patient.

Did you include RMK/NEWBIE in your flightplan "remark field"? This gives us ATCOs a hint that we may have to be a bit more patient and forgiving, because you are not trolling us, but you are just bloody nervous 🙂

Yep! I wrote NEWBIE in the remarks.

I was also the only plane in the area when everything started to go wrong so I didn’t disrupt any traffic at least.

I was bloody nervous indeed.

Edited September 26, 2022 at 11:50 AM by Carl Jarvholm
Forgot to add something

[Andreas Fuchs]

All cool! ATCOs are used to that and if newbies react accordingly, all is good.

[Michael Flemming Hansen]

A little pro-tip, that I know works on xPilot. When there is a text message from the ATC specifically to you, it will be highlighted in a different color. On xPilot the standard text is grey'ish and as I recall, the messages specifically for one self, are blue'ish.

Cheers,

Michael

[Robert Shearman Jr]

On 9/26/2022 at 7:48 AM, Carl Jarvholm said:

I wrote NEWBIE in the remarks.

I was also the only plane in the area when everything started to go wrong so I didn’t disrupt any traffic at least.

Congrats --- you're doing it right.  😄