There are different levels of radio service available to pilots flying in the UK: Air/Ground Radio, Flight Information Service and Air Traffic Control. If you fly into Military Air Traffic Zones, things work somewhat differently. I’ve spent quite some time speaking on the radio and am considered quite experienced. Here are my explanations of the different type of services along with real interactions which I have had.

Air/Ground Radio

Airfields with A/G Radio offer an information service with a radio operator who are not licensed and not under close CAA supervision. They identify themselves by saying the airfield name followed by the word radio. It could be trained staff sitting in a tower at an unlicensed airfield. It could just be just some guy on a mobile radio with no other support. They will offer a basic information service and report known traffic to you.

“Enstone, this is November 666 Echo X-ray.”

No response. I frowned and after a few minutes, I called again.

“Enstone Radio, this is November 666 Echo X-ray, requesting radio check.”

This had been a fun trip but a chaotic last day on the island and we were late leaving. And now that finally everyone is bundled up into the plane and ready to go, the youngster on the radio isn’t responding. Technically, I didn’t have to request permission to start my engine but it’s generally the polite thing to do.

The last time we spent the weekend here, the guy on the radio called me just as I was entering the runway to let my know my son had left his bookbag in the cafeteria. Service like that is invaluable, I didn’t like to risk upsetting anyone. Better to wait until he responded. Still, it was frustrating to be sitting here waiting on someone who’d walked away from the mike.

I called a third time, no response. Had he gone for a cup of tea or what? Cliff frowned at me and I shrugged. I decided to try once more. This fourth call elicited a response: a confused voice came back over the radio.

“Um, are you talking to me?”

I winced. Who was playing with the radio, for god’s sake? That’s when Cliff’s mum piped up from the back seat.

“I don’t understand why you are saying Enstone Radio,” she said.

I started to snap back an answer when it sunk in. We were at Bembridge. Bembridge on the Isle of Wight. I’d been flying in and out of Enstone in Oxfordshire the previous week and we’d be landing there later today but right now? We weren’t there. I shouldn’t be trying to talk to them.

I keyed the mike, abashed. “Bembridge, this is November 666 Echo X-ray, requesting, uh … geography check.”

I could hear the relieved laughter as he responded. “November 666 Echo X-ray, confirmed, you are parked just outside of my window.”

“Thanks for that. Request start.”

“Nothing to affect,” he told me and we were finally on our way.

Flight Information Service

Airfields with FIS are an information air traffic support unit staffed by licensed Flight Information Service officers. They identify themselves by saying the airfield name followed by the word Information. Their function is to assist pilots to operate safely by offering a traffic service and helping with information regarding weather and aerodrome details.

The tricky thing about Information stations is how they let you know what you should be doing without ever actually telling you what to do.

“Shobdon, this is November 666 Echo X-ray, inbound to you.”

“November 666 Echo X-ray, this is Shobdon Information, go ahead.”

“November 666 Echo X-ray is a PA32 inbound to you, I’m looking to join the circuit downwind for runway 09, right hand.”

The response was immediate. “November 666 Echo X-ray we have three in the circuit, recommend an overhead join.”

I had already descended to 1,300 feet, too low for the manoeuvre that he was referring to. He wanted me to fly across the middle of the runway and then descend on the “dead side”, out of the way of the other traffic.

I couldn’t see the point, I was perfectly set up to simply turn right and join the circuit in another mile rather than cross over and turn left on the other side. And I certainly couldn’t do it from this height, it would be the equivalent of running across a road full of traffic.

He repeated the call, enunciating his words very clearly. “November 666 Echo X-ray, recommend an overhead join.”

I continued towards the airfield, frustrated and confused. The advice that the Officer was giving me didn’t make sense. But he was in a better position than I was to gauge the situation. I sighed and admitted it wouldn’t make that much difference to me. I might as well do it.

“November 666 Echo X-ray is climbing to 2,300 feet for overhead join.”

As I made the call, it suddenly clicked. I was turned around and in completely the wrong place. I said Runway 09 but I was heading for the join for Runway 27, that is, the same runway going the opposite direction. I couldn’t possibly join downwind for Runway 09 from my present position which is why he wanted me up and out of the way of his traffic.

I went overhead and joined downwind in a sensible manner, going the right way … much to the relief of Shobdon Information who were trying really hard not to tell me what to do.

Air Traffic Control

Airfields with an ATC service have an active control tower staffed by air traffic controllers and are under close CAA supervision. Only ATC are authorised to issue clearances. They identify themselves by saying the airfield name followed by their function (Ground, Tower, Approach, Director, Radar). They offer a variety of services including control, flight information and traffic.

The flight from Guernsey to Alderney was only notable in its simplicity: it took longer to get everyone into the plane than it did to make the journey. Only as we landed did it get hectic.

“Backtrack and exit at Alpha.”

I always feel a faint Top Gun thrill at phrases like that which sound so complicated but are really straight-forward: permission to turn around and head back up the runway to the taxi-way marked with an A.

“Wilco,” I said with a knowing nod.

Except that having spun the plane around, I couldn’t find Alpha. There was a bit of a turn-in on my right which might be Alpha but there was no sign and it was really just a trail disappearing into the grass. With the wet weather I was worried about taking a wrong turn and getting stuck in the mud. It had happened before. I grabbed for my plate with a map of the airfield to try to work out where Alpha was.

“Turn right,” said an impatient voice on the radio. “And expedite, I’ve got another one coming in.” Two planes at the airfield at once, this must be a veritable traffic jam by Alderney standards. I bit my lip and turned the plane right onto the grass and paused.

“Carry on,” said the voice again. “Straight ahead, between the two markers. I take it you’ve never been here before?”

“Affirmative,” I said in my best professional pilot voice. Followed by “Sorry,” blowing away any semblance of radio competence.

“Just carry on straight. And expedite!”

I trundled forwards and made my way to where I could see other parked aircraft, hoping I was in the right place. The voice interrupted me.

“Pull forward to the blue markers, then face south and then west.”

I frowned as I pulled forward; was he trying to make it difficult?

“Which way is south,” I hissed at Cliff as I fumbled to get the map out again.

“Turn left,” he said. I turned then tried to picture a map in my head. If I am facing south then I’m looking towards Texas. California is west and on my right. Got it! I opened my eyes and looked around. “So west is to the right now, right?”

Cliff sighed at me. “Just use the Directional Indicator?”

I blushed. I used it all the time in the air but on the ground? Hadn’t occurred to me. I turned the plane until the big arrow on the DI pointed west.

“Just park there,” said the voice. The other plane landed and radio silence descended. It would probably be at least an hour before they see any further traffic. I shut the engine down.

Military Air Traffic Zones

It goes without saying that you should be unfailingly polite to any controller who has fighter jets to back him up. In the UK, the pilot should contact the controller either 15 nautical miles or 5 minutes flying time from a military boundary, whichever is sooner, requesting penetration. To enter the central area (Aerodrome Traffic Zone) you must receive permission and comply with the controller’s instructions.

My first run-in with the military was actually in France.

We had landed at an airfield for refuelling but they were having technical difficulties and informed us that they would not be able to offer fuel for the rest of the day. A quick glance at book showed us another airfield on route that listed AVGAS 100L and so we jumped into the plane and went straight there, plotting the route as we went.

“Cognac, this is November 666 Echo X-ray.”

“November 666 Echo X-ray, pass your message.”

I focused on making the perfect call. “November 666 Echo X-ray is a PA32 inbound to you, currently 20 miles to your northwest at 4,000 feet, request airfield information and joining instructions.”

There was a brief pause.

“November 666 Echo X-ray can you state your intentions?”

I was surprised by the question. “November 666 Echo X-ray is a PA 32 inbound to you for refuelling.”

“November 666 Echo X-ray are you aware that this is a military airfield?” Military airfield. Not for civilian use. Oops.

“Oh. Uh, no. Negative. I was not aware.”

“November 666 Echo X-ray I say again, can you state your intentions?”

I bit my lip but silence seemed likely to get a missile aimed in my direction.

“Er, I intend to ask your advice on where we could go for refuelling in the local area?”

The controller chuckled and agreed. He checked that it was not an emergency before recommending that I fly direct to Angoulême and even offered me a heading and a flight information service directly to the airfield. Anything, I guess, to keep me out of his zone.

Using the radio professionally has become an essential requirement in the modern aviation environment. Radio provides the interface between you and others, especially the Air Traffic Service Unit (ATSU) whose frequency you are using. You will make life more comfortable for yourself (and others) if you can use the radio efficiently.

When I first started my PPL, I was told that I had a real knack for using the radio. Getting my radio licence was the easiest part of the entire training. Little did I know that in the meantime, I would manage to mess up speaking to every different type of Air Traffic Service Unit in existence.

This was originally posted in November of 2008. My radio skills have not improved since then.

Read more about my flying experiences in my ebook: You Fly Like a Woman

This is another excerpt from my essays about learning to fly at Velez-Malaga airfield in Axarquía, Spain. The events took place shortly before I did my first solo flight away from the airfield. The cross country navigation exercise is required to get your private pilot’s licence. It is effectively the first time the pilot is left alone with their plane, dependent on their skills both in flight and on the ground. My instructor had a list of prerequisites: the horizon needed to be clear, the wind calm, and my practised forced landings needed to be perfect. If, god forbid, I had an engine failure, I had to be able to bring the plane down. I still have the sequence written down on a sheet in my clipboard, long after passing the tests.

Weekends in the summer are busy at Axarquía. Broad-shouldered young men with their hair clipped short invade the airfield. They fly the banner planes, advertising discotheques and cheap restaurants across the beaches of the Costa del Sol.

There was no point in my doing anything until they were out of the way, so I studied engine failures. This was exactly the type of information I’d signed up for in the first place: a get-out-of-jail-free card if things really went wrong. Only once I’d begun did I realise: it didn’t help just to know how to deal with engine failure. I had to be able to do it under stress.

I recited the steps on the ground, trying to train my brain, so that the reactions would be automatic. If the engine cuts out, there’s no time to panic, no time to think about what my priorities should be.

I studied the theory in the shade of the fig tree, just a sequence of words. To bring it to life, I paced around the parked planes on the apron, reciting the steps.

Get the plane trimmed for glide. Work out the wind direction, look around for a field, choose a landing spot, fast fast fast. And only now – set up with a worst case plan, only now do I get to be optimistic and try to find the mechanical issue. There’s still time to restart the engines. Check the magnetos, the oil, the fuel, is there any chance I can turn this brick back into a plane? If not, continue the landing, don’t lose focus on my field. Tell someone where you are.

I turned towards the abandoned tower and made my radio call:

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
Golf Papa Echo is experiencing an engine failure.
Landing in a field 6 miles NW of Torre del Mar with 2 souls on board.

A young pilot at the fuel pump glanced over at me and then shrugged: crazy foreign lady. The banner pilots had never seen me fly. I retreated when they arrived, watching jealously from the distance. They never speak, they shout, laughing and clipping each other on the shoulders. Over the radio it continued–jokes, maybe insults. The Spanish was too fast and too dialectal for me to follow. They scared me: the energy, the easy-going laughter, as comfortable with the planes as an old bicycle kept in the garage. The airport holds no secrets for them, the aircraft is not a mystery. It’s a culture I would never belong to, even if I spoke the language, even if I was the same age. I think they must have been born in the cockpit.

I returned to my practice.

Having explained my dilemma to the outside world, I need to focus on the landing. It’s just another landing, don’t panic. Don’t get distracted by discussing the issue with the air traffic controller. Don’t. Land the plane. Now that I’m sure there’s no chance of restarting the engine, I need to shut it down, minimise the risk of fire. And then it’s down in a graceful glide towards my field, until the instructor says “Go Around” and I put the engine back on and pull away.

The first time that my instructor pulled the power off, I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. The engine sputtered. The nose tilted down. He looked back at me. “Engine failure,” he said in a dead-pan voice.

Shit, shit, shit.

I mimicked a radio call, told an invisible someone that I’m in trouble. He shook his head as I became aware that the Cessna was going ever-so-slowly. Too slow, we were at risk of stalling: the nose tipping up, the plane preparing to plummet to the ground. Instinctively I reached for the throttle – more power! – and the instructor smacked my hand away. Right, engine failure.

Finally I put the plane into a gentle glide, losing height but in a controlled manner, moving forward. I stared out my left window, searching for a nice stretch of field to land in, something long and flat and runway shaped. I had still not found anything like that when my instructor finally told me to put the power on and climb away.

“There just wasn’t anywhere I could have landed,” I complained. It wasn’t my fault! He’d picked a stupid location to simulate an engine failure. He let me rant as we flew across the valley.

“OK, then, let’s try one now.” The engine roar dwindled to a low rumble. “Don’t worry about anything else, just get into a glide and find a field.”

Again, I couldn’t see where I could possibly land. There were no flat fields, nothing even vaguely appropriate. I started pointing at locations to try to get some input. “I can’t land on the side of a mountain so I need to look in the valleys. There’s the dark green patch there, there’s trees everywhere. That lighter patch there isn’t long enough and the field next to it has furrows or something, that’s no good and look, fences, why do they all put up fences, and buildings, buildings everywhere!” I shook with frustration. “There’s just no where to land here!”

“I guess we’re going to die,” he said and put the power back onto full. He took control and circled the area. “You don’t have a lot of choice, your engine is dead. You aren’t looking for the perfect landing spot, you are taking what you can get. You need to pick the best out of a bad lot. That’s the nature of an emergency.” He pointed out to me the tiny area of flat land that he would have chosen. Well, it was easy for him, he was good at it. But I understood also that he made decisions quickly. Meanwhile, I kept hemming and hawing about where to go and whether that spot was just right until it was too late.

I had a feeling there was a life lesson there. But I didn’t have time to ponder it, the instructor was climbing away again and I knew what that meant, another PFL. This time, however, I kept an eye on the field he’d pointed at and chose it for my landing point. His grin told me that he knew I was cheating but I didn’t care. The main thing was to get the plane on the ground, right?

We did this day after day, circling the low ground. “Where now, Sylvia?”

Finally I began to recognise the possibilities, to see the best out of a bad lot and set up the plane to make the landing. “That field, there,” after a quick glance out the window and then a gentle turn and concentrating on the plane rather than staring out at the unfriendly landscape. And then came the day when I was descending, totally focused, perfectly lined up for my make-shift runway. It was perfect.

“Go around.” My instructor was cutting me off but I knew I had everything right. I glanced at him in confusion as I put the power back on.

“That was perfect,” he said. “But we’re not actually trying to land, just to prove that you could, if you needed to.”

I was so focused on the approach that I’d forgotten we weren’t playing for keeps. I had set up the landing and I knew I was going to make it. His interruption took me by surprise. I wanted to land it in this godforsaken middle of nowhere, so confident that I had it right.

I scarcely had time to ponder what this meant, this new view of my own ability. He interrupted me yet again. “Let’s do your solo navigation tomorrow.”

I said nothing for a moment, pretending an extended interest in the horizon in front of me. But I knew he was right. I was ready.

After my first solo, that wondrous moment of suddenly feeling in control of the plane and realising that I could fly, dammit! I kicked into high gear.

There was only one week of the course left.

Desperate to catch up, I got up earlier and earlier, leaving my seven-year-old son fast asleep for the childminder to take to school, getting to the airfield as early as Oliver would meet me.

The weather turned bad. Oh, it was still sunny and hot but a grey haze descended over the horizon and the wind picked up, gusting along the runway. I needed more general handling practice before I could do my cross country solo but Oliver didn’t want me out in questionable conditions, struggling with the plane and the wind and losing my newfound confidence.

I sat at the airfield every day, hopeful to get a chance to fly. I even begged Oliver to meet me on Saturday, promising Connor a special day out, the chance to see where Mommy had been all week.

Connor loved the airfield. But the planes (and the fact that his Mommy was flying one of them!) interested him not at all. He’d met the 5-year-old daughter of the airfield manageress. The girl had been exploring the airfield ever since she’d learned to toddle and she was thrilled to show the older boy all the nooks and crannies. They climbed up the disused tower, poked around the old equipment, pointed at the enemy aircraft (my Cessna, still doing circuits) and shouted ratatatatatatata in an attempt to defend Spain. As the sun rose and the temperatures grew, she showed him where the garden hose was and dragged a small plastic pool out of a hangar. They filled it up and splashed, not bothering to take off their clothes, just happy for the cool water.

The summer heat was not so easily chased away from my point of view. We managed an hour in the morning but then the afternoon was unflyable again: the horizon lost in a grey murk of sea meshing into sky. “No good,” said Oliver, shaking his head sadly. “You won’t learn general handling without a horizon – it’s pointless. You can do another round of circuits, if you want.” I didn’t want, but it was better than not flying at all. I gradually became more despondent.

I did what I could, I finished the ground work, practised navigation, took the written exams. But to finish the PPL I had to prove myself in the air and time had run out. A week after my first solo, I still hadn’t left the airfield on my own and some days I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to.

On my final day, the sea was covered with whitecaps from the gusty winds. Oliver kept checking the wind sock and shaking his head. The others had done their time, the plane was free for me but we couldn’t do the general handling practice that I needed. Instead, I spent hours sitting at the big table by the bar, road maps of Spain in front of me, working out routes and windspeeds and time so that I could navigate my way around the local area.

When the examiner arrived, he was introduced to the other students and test flights were organised. I stayed out of the way.

That afternoon, we gathered in the bar, sitting at the low tables pushed against the wall. A group of old men sat in a row at the dining table, sipping small glasses of beer and watching the television. Occasionally one would comment, a brief sentence in a thick Andalucian accent. The others grumbled their assent and then silence fell back on the men until the next news story.

Oliver gave a chirpy “Hello!” every time he walked into the room, the mens’ heads all bobbed in a sort of soundless acknowledgement that he existed.

That had been the extent of our interaction until that day. We were collapsed along the long sofa, escaping the heat and nursing our water, when one of the men made an abrupt sound. Juan moved faster than I have ever seen, grabbing the remote from behind the bar to turn up the television. The images immediately took our attention: Wreckage of a small plane near a riverbed. The surroundings looked oddly familiar. Cliff translated the key facts into English for the others: A Cessna 172 had crashed the previous Friday, four dead, including an 8 year old girl. The reporter was standing with the airfield behind him – the plane I was flying showing in the corner of the shot.

Juan’s bloodshot eyes focused on Cliff. “One of ours,” he said in Spanish.

“One of your planes?”

“One of our pilots.”

No one knew the details yet –the instructor had taken his brother, his brother’s girlfriend and his girlfriend’s eight-year-old daughter for a local area flight. There was a loud sound and then plane plummeted to the ground, landing on private land no more than 50 metres from the airfield. Four fatalities.

We were silent, staring at the television long after the newscaster had moved on to other stories.

“This will not be good for Axarquia,” said Juan. I think it was the longest statement I had ever heard him make.

Meanwhile, Lee and Oliver planned their flights to England. All the other students had flown with the examiner and passed: they were now pilots. I struggled not to feel resentful. Oliver tried to cheer me up by having me trace their route over the map – across Spain for the first day’s flight and an overnight stay at San Sebastian. Then they would follow the coast of the Bay of Biscay until they reached Cherbourg in France. The last leg was the easiest but also included the dangerous water crossing: straight across the English Channel, past the Isle of Wight and then straight inland to Oxford. It sounded like a fascinating journey but it also meant the end of my “free” lessons tagging onto the others’ course. I knew the instructors were needed in England and everyone else had finished, but I was frustrated that I had come so close and yet still not good enough.

“You just need to come to Oxford,” Lee told me. “It’ll be good for you. You’re getting too used to radio silence. The south of England will wake you up for sure.” I stared down at my meteorology book. I was taking the written exam in an hour – at least my ground school would be finished. It didn’t seem much consolation.

And then, there was a phone call. “Change of plans,” Oliver called out as he breezed into the study room. Lee was going over the wind charts with me one more time. “We’re taking Papa Golf home together, Lee. Charlie Oscar is staying here.”

Lee yawned. “It is? Cool, you can fly Papa Golf and I’ll sleep.”

Oliver turned to me. “Yeah, we’re going to leave it here and I’m coming back next week. My sister’s got a place on the coast and she said she’ll put me up. I won’t have a car, you will have to pick me up every morning.”

“I will?” I didn’t follow.

“You will. Bright and early, every morning. We only have a fortnight, then I really have to take the plane back.”

I glanced down at the wind chart in my hand, as if it had answers. It suddenly seemed almost comprehensible compared to the conversation at hand. I looked up into Oliver’s bright smile.

“We’ve got two weeks get you flying.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again.

“I need to go home and sort out the paperwork and deal with some personal stuff. Then I’m coming back and we’ll do nothing but fly. We’ve got two weeks, then Tom wants the plane back. Preferably with you in it – ready to take your checkride. Think we can do it?”

“Two weeks.” After the stress of not being able to fit enough hours in, two weeks sounded like a lifetime – especially as I wouldn’t have to wait for my turn to use the Cessna each day.

“Yeah,” I said, finally answering his smile with one of my own. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

“Cool,” said Oliver. “But you have to finish your meteorology paper first. Focus!”

I focused.

Although I’ve never had an issue with flying or even heights, I found myself terrified of the plane. I was deeply afraid of being in control … or specifically of losing control of the aircraft and plunging to my death. Fortunately, my instructor and my partner were both very patient and their support was unwavering. Eventually, however, I had to make it through my first solo flight, alone.

“Seriously,” Oliver said for the 15th time. “You’ll be fine. I wouldn’t tell you to go out there alone if I didn’t think you could do it.

I stood on the tarmac, staring hatefully at the plane. I didn’t like it, it didn’t like me. The night before I had checked my log book to see if I could argue my way out of this based on inexperience. I had logged 25 hours in the plane, with 60 take-offs and landings. Everyone else had long since done their first solo: taking the plane once around the circuit and then landing again. They’d been out alone with the plane plenty of times, even flying out over the coast and back. Everyone but me.

“What if I get lost?”

“In the circuit?” Oliver rolled his eyes.

“What if I miss a turn or something and then end up in Malaga airspace and they send over the police helicopters and shoot at me with long range rifles to get me out of the way?”

“Get in the plane, Sylvia.” He held up his hand to forestall any further arguments. “You’ll be fine. I promise you. I’ll be on the radio so you can talk to me if you need to.”

I pulled myself into the cockpit and sat in the left seat, staring at the instruments. Then, for the first time, I leant over the right seat and checked the door was latched shut. I was going up alone.

I knew it was time. The instructors were only going to be in Spain for another week. Cliff had given up on asking me when I was going to do my solo, instead he took it up directly with Oliver. I heard them whispering my name, glancing in my direction and talking about confidence. Oliver wouldn’t send me up if he didn’t think I was competent, I knew that. I’d been flying this plane every day and I knew how the circuit worked. Just yesterday, I’d told Cliff how Oliver was leaning over, watching a helicopter fly past while I was downwind. I smacked Oliver’s thigh, complaining he was supposed to be watching over me! But instead he told me the make of the helicopter and how he would love to fly it. He knew I had control of the aircraft. He knew I could do it.

It was only me holding myself back now.

I got out my checklist and started the engine. Just one circuit. Just one and then I could go home and hide under the duvet. I taxied out, did the longest power checks I could possibly justify, and then pulled onto the runway and stopped. I could barely hear the engine over the pounding of the blood in my head.

Axarquia is a quiet little airfield, it doesn’t see much traffic. But still, I knew that the one place I could not stop was here, blocking the runway. I keyed the mike. “Rolling,” I whispered. I clenched the controls, knuckles white with effort. I took a deep breath and started talking to myself. For reasons that I will never understand, my personal pep-talk came out in badly metered rhyme.

“OK, Sylvia, do it. Full power, do it now, watch that airspeed, you know how. One-two-three-four, you been flying all week, what’s a little bit more? 500 feet, that’s what he says, then a gentle turn like you do best.”

I went into the turn, taking deep breaths. I could feel the panic welling in my throat. I was in control of a fucking plane in the fucking air with no one there to stop me from crashing it into the side of a mountain. Like the one looming up right in front of me. I went back to my odd chanting. “1,000 feet, make that turn, feel the beat, feel the burn. You’re downwind now, need a radio call, you remember how, you remember it all.” I swallowed hard. It was time for my downwind call. “Golf Papa Echo, downwind for runway zero nine to land.”

I let go of the button as the cold realisation struck me that I’d been pressing it all along. I’d broadcasted every word of my impromptu doggerel to the crowded instruction room, where they stood huddled around the radio in case I made a call for help.

My embarrassment was cut off by the fact that I was still heading downwind and hadn’t done my next set of checks. I didn’t care what I had to do to get through this, I honestly didn’t. Still, I wiggled my finger to ensure that I wasn’t still broadcasting to the field radio.

The downwind checks were encapsulated in an mnemonic called BUMPFFICH which worked almost as well as my nerve-easing chant. Brakes, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop, Fuel, Flaps, Instruments, Carb-heat, Hatches and Harnesses. I made the adjustments to the plane as needed. I took another deep breath. I had plenty of time, I knew exactly where I was, everything was fine. More than fine, everything was perfect.

I turned the plane again and began my descent. This was the tricky bit: I needed to descend into the valley without reacting to the olive-tree covered hills which seemed so desperately close. I turned again onto final, the runway straight in front of me.

That’s when it struck me. I was flying. I wasn’t just along for the ride. I wasn’t going through the motions as someone told me what to. I was alone in this plane, reliant on no one but myself and I was flying it. And dammit, I was flying it well.

I pressed the lever for a final level of flaps and called in. “Golf Papa Echo, final to land, zero nine.”

I was calm and confident. I’d done the circuit, this was a good approach and I was ready to land the plane. I felt focused and centred. Hold it up up up right over the trees, watch that airspeed, look at the numbers and then let the plane sink down towards the ground and hooooold it steady. My arms shook with concentration. I felt the rear wheels touch first and then gently, the nose wheel sunk onto the tarmac. I pressed my feet hard on the pedals to stop the plane. I’d done it.

“What was that supposed to be, rap?” It was Lee, the other instructor, who had run out to the apron to be the first to speak to me. lauging even as he hugged me. Oliver waited by the tower, clapping his hands in applause as I climbed out of the cockpit which a huge smile on my face.

“Best circuit I’ve ever seen you do,” he said. He patted me on the shoulder. “Seriously, that was great. Really awesome. Come inside for a break, have a glass of water. Then I want to see you do that six more times.”

I have been collecting my essays, articles and blog-posts into a single volume to see if it would read well as a book. This is part of the introduction: how I ended up studying for my Private Pilot’s Licence out of a grudge rather than actual interest. It didn’t take long before I was hooked!

When I was small, we lived in Inglewood, spitting distance from Hollywood. In the movies, I would have jumped into the Cessna and flown my heart out until I became the best pilot of the group. Then the other students would have begged me to help them improve their skills and the RAF airman would have declared his undying astonishment at my natural flying abilities and then I would have flown the little 6-seater plane into the sunset.

That’s not quite how it happened. From the beginning, I lagged behind the other students. I forced myself back into the plane but the fear stayed with me.

In the afternoons, when a combination of heat and gusting wind made in-the-air instruction impossible, Oliver and his companions told horror stories of their worst students: a teenager who played “Ace Pilot” video games and was sure he knew it all, a young student whose mum insisted he couldn’t get in the plane unless she could sit in the back and a business man who regularly fell asleep at the controls.

It was clear that despite my misgivings, there were actually people who were less suited to flying than I was. And so I felt more comfortable with my role: The instructors saw me as a challenge. They were used to fixing mistakes, it was their job to remain on guard and ready to take control. They weren’t going to allow me to kill myself. This gave me enough peace of mind to continue.

We fell into a routine. I didn’t like the early flights; I’ve never been a morning person. I arrived with the others and retreated to the dark bar where Juan wordlessly handed me a café solo. By lunchtime the place would be full of ancient aviators sitting at the oak table, watching the Spanish news on at full blast but at this time of the morning it was quiet. By the time it was my turn to fly, taking whichever Cessna came free first, I felt awake and almost competent. Often the previous occupant had seen to the fuel for me, so I simply walked around the plane to make sure the wings were still attached and then hopped in with Oliver for my hour in the air.

I had a detailed checklist which I referred to for my every move. It somehow felt like cheating, I should be memorising the steps. But Oliver assured me that no, every competent pilot used a list and mentally checked off each items, even the man who flew the Concorde. So I got out the laminated sheet and went through the steps needed to get started.

Check the meter on the passenger side of the plane – the Hobbs they called it but it had nothing to do with Calvin and – note the starting number. At the end of the flight, I would note the new number and work out the elapsed time: this allowed me to track my flight time for my logbook. Make sure the control wheel lock isn’t attached (that would be embarrassing) and check that I have the ignition key with me. Verify that the radio is switched off and then turn the master switch on. Check the fuel quantity. Check the doors are closed and seatbelts on. Put my feet firmly on the brakes (readjust stolen cushion as appropriate) and tug the flight controls to make sure they are moving freely, extra points for knocking the too-tall instructor in the knees in the process. Set the fuel tank selector to both and set the trim to the Takeoff setting. Now take a deep breath and think about starting the engine.

I loved the list and I especially loved the fact that no one was going to take it away from me and give me a pop quiz. Everything that needed to be done inside the plane was itemised up to the point of taking off from the runway.

My heart still skipped a beat as we pulled away from the ground but these days I had no time for peering out of windows. Oliver gave me non-stop instructions, taking us out to sea for general handling or circling the airfield for circuits.

By the end of the hour, my arms ached and my head felt full of cotton wool. Once everyone was on the ground, we sat in the small wooden chairs which had small tablets attached to make for simple desks. I regularly fought off juvenile urges to carve my initials into the laminate and throw spitballs. Here, I learned about angles of attack and chord lines and drag: it wasn’t simply magic that kept the plane aloft.

As the temperatures rose, the darkness of the bar tempted us away from the study rooms. The double-doors were layered with black reflective material, I had a bad habit of stopping to fix my hair or worse, check my teeth before remembering that there was a contingent of bored Andalucian men, sipping coffee and grunting at each other about the news, who could see me silhouetted in the doorway.

Opening those doors, we walked into total darkness. After the bright glare of the sun, it was impossible to see anything except the dull flicker of the black-and-white television in the corner. After a few minutes, the long room would come into focus. First the television lit up the ancient wooden cabinet pushed against the wall. Then the men would come into focus, leaning on the long old oak dining table. Beyond them, the bar with a few bottle of spirits, a fridge full of beer and water and a coffee machine.

Behind the bar was the door to the office. A few minutes after we entered, Juan would walk through the door behind the bar that led to the offices. He always walked through as we entered, as if he was aware of our every step on the airfield. Someone would buy a round of ice-cold Lanjarón, the local bottled water. We’d discuss the day’s lesson while Juan stood behind the bar, ready to do anything required of him as long as he didn’t have to talk.

It was a comfortable routine, I felt a part of the aviation world. As the days went on, I forgot my panic and carried on flying with Oliver, learning the controls and memorising the words. I knew for a fact that the one-ton plane was capable of hanging in the air in a way that my car could not. I readily accepted that the wings made one hell of a difference. I felt happy with that, secure that people with better brains than mine understood it – in the same way that pilots with better skills than mine flew the plane.

And that was all fine, until the day Oliver told me he wanted me to take the plane up on my own.

Who was going to fly it?

I have been collecting my essays, articles and blog-posts into a single volume to see if it would read well as a book. This is the introduction: how I ended up studying for my Private Pilot’s Licence out of a grudge rather than actual interest. It didn’t take long before I was hooked!

The next morning, we were each to go up one-by-one in the Cessna 172s to do some general handling: get a feel for the controls and how the plane actually worked. As I was the late-comer, I agreed to go last, which gave me a few hours to flick through the manuals and wake up. By the time everyone had had a go, I was actually excited about my turn in the cockpit. Somehow, I’d forgotten about the problem we’d discovered the day before.

My feet still didn’t reach the pedals.

We pushed the seat up as far as it would go but it was no use. I needed a booster seat. Oliver, an enthusiastic training instructor who looked about half my age, sent me into the building to ask for a pillow. I walked into the dark bar, where ancient Andalucian men sat drinking café solo and watching the news on a spluttery old television. They didn’t waste a glance on me as I stole a cushion from the sofa pushed against the wall and took it out to the plane.

With it placed behind my back, I pressed the pedals to the floor with my heels, which Oliver said was necessary for steering on the ground and applying rudder, whatever that meant, in the air. I still couldn’t comfortably see over the dashboard but Oliver climbed in after me and buckled himself into the right seat; he seemed to think that wasn’t as important. We rolled along the taxi-way, Oliver waving his hands about as he manipulated the steering with his feet. At one point he twisted completely around to point at a helicopter passing through the valley.

“Shouldn’t you keep your eyes up front and hands on the controls?”

He laughed as if I were being deliberately witty and then straightened out on the runway and revved the engine up.

“You aren’t afraid of planes, are you?”

Not a chance. I couldn’t remember a time when flying wasn’t a part of my life. My first time on a plane was at 6 months old, a Boeing 707 taking me and my parents from the little house in Mannheim, halfway around the world to southern California where we remained for the next 16 years. Flying was as much a part of my childhood tapestry as tea parties with my stuffed animals. Every summer, I watched the morass of houses and bright blue pools surrounding Los Angeles International disappear, signalling hours of boredom until we reached the darker buildings and massive forests surrounding Frankfurt.

I understood that there were people who were afraid of flying – the same as there were people who didn’t speak German, or who had brown eyes. It was clearly possible but I couldn’t imagine what it might be like. Flying was transportation, yes, but also a fresh start, shifting into a different language and culture and respite from the day-to-day issues which I’d just left behind. Flying was freedom.

I summarised this for Oliver with a nervous shake of my head.

“Great. Let’s go,” he said. The engine roared and we were flying.

My heart began to race as soon as the Cessna pulled away from the asphalt runway. I watched an old man strolling through rows of olive trees. A toddler in a bright red dress looked up from her games on the porch and waved. I expected the detail to disappear into the distance as we climbed to unimaginable heights but this was it – we’d levelled out at 1,000 feet above sea level. Oliver followed the path of a dusty river bed to the coast. I could see the cars, the houses, the people sitting on the beach. My nose pressed against the cool plastic of the window. I was mesmerised.

“Are you ready to take the controls?”

We were only 1,000 feet above the ground. I could see the waves crashing on the beach. I stared at him, aghast.

He smiled and wiggled his fingers at me. “You have control.”

I grasped the yoke. We didn’t immediately fall into a nose dive. Oliver twiddled at knobs, the roar of the engine increased.

“Pull it towards you,” he said. White-knuckled, I pulled towards my chest. My head fell back against the seat, all I could see was sky. “Perhaps not quite so much,” said Oliver, pushing the control forward again. The plane pitched down into a gentle climb. My fingers clenched around the black rubbery handholds of the flight controls.

“Now level out,” said Oliver. I was afraid to turn to look at him, afraid to take my eyes off the sky in front of us, as if a small child might rush into our path, endangered by my lack of attention.

We spent an hour over the coast of Torre del Mar as Oliver gently took me through the paces – climb, descend, gentle turns, straight and level, using the horizon as a spirit level. Then he took control again and left me to look at the view below while he flew us back to the airfield. But the white buildings clustered on hilltops and tiny farm plots in the valley no longer thrilled me. I’d discovered fear.

I have been collecting my essays, articles and blog-posts into a single volume to see if it would read well as a book. This is the introduction: how I ended up studying for my Private Pilot’s Licence out of a grudge rather than actual interest. It didn’t take long before I was hooked!

“You don’t need a real licence,” Tom said. The stern-faced ex-RAF instructor had already chided me for dressing inappropriately in my skirt and open-toed sandals. Now I realised he wanted to get rid of me.

He continued. “You want a wife’s licence. Forget the technical mumbo-jumbo. I’ll show you the radio and we’ll go up — you can even play with the flight controls.”

A strangled sound escaped me. A wife’s licence?

His condescending smile didn’t falter. “You’ll be done in a day so you can leave your boyfriend to concentrate on his studies. But if he has a heart attack in the air, you’ll know how to contact ATC and take instruction.”

It was Cliff with the crazy idea of buying a plane. I was just along for the ride, no interest in slogging through physics and engine mechanics. I was too old for exams. But wife’s licence? As if I weren’t competent to learn.

I twisted in my seat towards Cliff. The bastard was grinning.

“I’m getting my pilot’s licence.” The grit in my voice surprised even me.

“Fine,” said Tom. He turned his back to me, stacking up the course books at the front of the room. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. In long trousers and sensible shoes.”

“You will.” I walked out without another word and sat in the car until Cliff came out to join me.

My determination lasted until dinner time.

“Honey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to learn from Tom.” As the owner of the flight school, his attitude towards me was going to affect all of us but I didn’t think I could manage to stay polite for the four weeks of the course.

“You don’t need to.” Cliff was reassuring, clearly thrilled that I’d decided to take this on. “He’s going back to England next week.”

English flying lessons local to us in Andalucía had been Cliff’s idea and he’d dealt directly with Tom to make it viable. The Oxford-based school had flown over with two Cessnas and three instructors, specifically to teach a group of four men that Cliff had gathered together to do a four-week, intensive course for the Private Pilot’s Licence, taking advantage of the weather. When the course was finished, the instructors would fly the two aircraft back to England to resume teaching at Oxford. Tom’s instructors had jumped at the chance to spend a few weeks in Spain and Cliff had found enough people to commit to full-time training that it was worth Tom’s time. Adding another person would make everyone happy and Cliff clearly thought I should get my PPL.

“You got along fine with the younger instructors,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t have any problems. It’ll be fun. And it’s only four weeks.”

Which was part of the problem. What if I didn’t keep up? At a normal flight school, I would keep doing lessons until I was good enough to take the exams. This set-up meant that if I lagged behind, the flight school was going to disband around me – or worse, take a loss trying to get me up to speed before they leave. Or really worst – push me to fly a plane before I was competent to do so.

Also, I’d looked at the books again. I started easy and sat down with the meteorology book – it was just weather, how hard could it be? I discovered wind charts and METAR’s and Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts with coded messages that were supposed to tell me if it was safe to fly. The radio-telephony book offered some solace: I already knew my international alphabet and I amused myself for a short time by parroting the phrases in a mock English accent. But the bulk of the stack was simply frightening. There were seven volumes, with detailed text on Flight Training Manoeuvres, Aviation Law, Navigation, Mechanics, Human Factors…

This did not sound like a fun holiday in Spain. This sounded like a lot of cramming, along with early mornings to fly “before the runway got too hot” and no beer at lunch time and at the end of it, I was going to know fine detail about a plane I didn’t even like.

“What’s it called again? The plane you bought.”

“Piper Saratoga.” Cliff waved the brochures at me, I was pretty sure he carried them with him everywhere. He told me, once again, what made it special and why it was the perfect aircraft for us. It looked like a plane.

I cleared the table and made my escape, leaving Cliff trailing a loving finger over a photograph of the propeller. He’d last flown over a decade previously but he’d done all this before, so he was simply renewing his PPL, not learning it all for the first time. It was easy for him.

The stack of books leant precariously on the coffee table. I turned my back on them and sat down at the computer to play solitaire.

They were all Englishmen, white, middle-class businessmen looking for adventure. I was a German-American woman, far from home and out of my depth. I’d lived abroad for over a decade: it was probably time that I got used to it. On the bright side, I had more time than the men – I was working freelance and could pare my projects down to the bone for the four weeks. They had to worry about businesses and family whereas my son was just at an age where he was happier hanging out with his friends and Cliff certainly wasn’t going to be jealous of my attention if I actually did this.

So I had a time advantage.

On the other hand, they’d discussed engines and mechanics with a comfortable ease. The conversation about airflow may as well have been in a foreign language: angles of attack and incidence, centrifugal force, lateral stability. They shouted loudly at each other as they cased the two Cessnas, peering at the wings and trying out the “captain’s seat” in the cockpit. I did too, of course, but at just under 5-foot in height, I couldn’t reach the pedals. I did not feel like a natural talent.

Solitaire, now there was something I could play all night long. A useful skill, solitaire.

The computer bleeped, an email from my best friend asking what was new. At least I would have something interesting to write back. I consoled myself with that thought. I’d be the life of the party, telling people all about the grease and the physics lessons and the macho comments and the spluttering engines and the weirdness of taking exams as a grown-up.

And it would be good for me to read the books. It would build character. So I’d go along for a laugh, take the tests, prove to Tom that girls could fly too. And then, I could forget it all and go back to being the passenger I’d intended to be all along.