Good afternoon. Evening? Nope, 13 minutes left. So good afternoon. Well it finally happened yesterday. I strapped into the right seat of a 185,000 pound aircraft and got to use the "heavy" suffix when I called up Altus Ground. That's something I've wanted to do since I learned that was a thing, which was a while ago. In fact, I forgot about it since I was accustomed to the un-realism of the sim where we left it off the callsign for some reason. So I punched ground into com2, "Oiler 15, spot 65, ready to taxi with alpha." They came back with "Oiler 15 heavy taxi hold short runway 17R via charlie bravo kilo-1." And it hit me with a rush of joy and responded proudly, "17R charlie bravo kilo-1 Oiler 15 HEAVY." It seems they don't really use "heavy" that much locally since everyone knows at Altus that you're in a big plane, but goddamnit I earned it! So I'm gonna use it!
I remember sitting in the warrior, getting through my long ground ops checklist of ten items before taxiing. Then I'd call up ground to get cleared out of the non-movement area and onto the fast and busy taxiways of Bowman Field but was stuck with using not only a tail number as my callsign (gross, never again), but also leaving off the "heavy" addendum. But the dream was alive for that one day I'd be using a badass military callsign (e.g. Devil 31) and, if it all fell into place, it would eventually end with "heavy".
Callsigns are an interesting convention, not even including the Air Force tradition of naming. I've always felt a status associated with the callsigns used over the aviation network. Air Force One and maybe to a lesser extent Thunderbird One (through Seven) have the most powerful callsign in the US airspace; you'll probably never hear them as a civilian though since they'd almost certainly be talking on Uniform, but it's still satisfying to hear ATC (who transmits on all of the frequencies they're listening to) give them a clearance or acknowledgement. I overheard Air Force One over Chattanooga while flying with my dad home from Charleston and got excited, I mean it's like spotting a celebrity in a coffee shop—except it's the president, and he's flying in the same airspace as you. Military callsigns are typically significantly cooler than pretty much all others, for instance: "Dark 5 check - two! - three! - four!" versus "Southwest 1454" or the unfortunate "Cessna 7562 Sierra". And that goes without saying since the military typically is cooler than most other traffic.
However disregarding the badassery of the Air Force for a moment, there's also the "heavy" connotation, which in my opinion supersedes a lot in the coolness of callsigns. Whether you're "Emirates 1 Heavy" or "Delta 1 Heavy" or cargo-something-heavy or something-Russian-heavy, you just can't say "heavy" on the radio unless you're in a flying neighborhood—something so big it will literally destroy all of the 62-Sierras behind it, simply by how much air it fucks with in it's path. I don't know why I'm so drawn to big planes, but it's nothing new and probably just how I'm wired. You know what? Pause analysis. I'm gonna read something I wrote on the tarmac of LAX in a 757 waiting to push circa 2010.
Disregard. I thought there was something in there about being jealous of a United 747 (RIP) taxing out while I'm in a measly domestic 75. I was right, there is a sentence alluding to that, but I mean it's literally one sentence at the end of four pages discussing how great I am. Anyway, resume analysis.
Yet still, even as a high schooler playing on flight simulator the flights in a sub-100,000lbs-er just didn't have the satisfaction on being in a large plane that's a pain in the ass to taxi and who everyone has to wait on after taking off or landing. And even hearing the ridiculously-obviously-computer-generated ATC call me "heavy" made me happy. But now it's not the sim and it's not ridiculously-obviously-computer-generated ATC calling me "heavy", and thus I can let the satisfaction of both hearing and saying it carry me through the next handful of years. I can get impulsively accustomed to it and then over Christmas when I fly with my dad, I can finally make my favorite mistake of calling Bowman ground as "Duchess 6627X-ray heavy" and all laughs will be had and life will be good.
So, here's to life as "whoever-the-fuck heavy", and perhaps one day "27X-ray heavy" for a radio call or two. Until then...
No comments:
Post a Comment