Finding your Voice on the Radio when it Matters Most

By Stephen Pradarelli

I recently took my 28-year-old daughter up for our first flight together since I got my pilot’s license, a scenic meander along the Mississippi River where it straddles the Iowa-Illinois border. 

The early autumn weather was overcast, but visibility was decent. And at 3500 feet, the air was smooth as glass for the half-hour it took the Skyhawk to putter its way from my home airport, Green Castle, in Oxford, Iowa, to Muscatine, where I planned to turn south along the mighty river for a bit. 

"I carry a handheld radio, but it was in my flight bag in a hard-to-reach place on the back seat (a dumb mistake I haven’t made since), so I told my daughter to quickly swap headsets with me, and I reached over to key the mic button on her yoke. That worked, and while it was a little awkward, we got back home without incident."

I was using flight following, and as we admired the scenery, Cedar Rapids Approach passed me off to Quad Cities Approach, which eventually handed me over to Chicago Center. All without a hiccup. 

After snapping a few photos, we decided to head back and grab some lunch. 

“Chicago Center, Skyhawk 84455 turning northeast, direct to India Alpha 24,” I said, using Green Castle’s identifier. No response. Maybe they were busy. 

After a couple of minutes, I keyed the mic button on my yoke and repeated my intentions. Still nothing. Then, Chicago Center called me: “Skyhawk 84455, contact Cedar Rapids Approach at 119.7.”

I read back the instructions and was getting ready to dial in the frequency when Chicago Center repeated its instructions to switch to Cedar Rapids. Again, I acknowledged their call and waited a moment. Chicago Center’s controller, sounding increasingly irritated, told me for the third time to contact Cedar Rapids, and for the third time I pressed the mic to transmit my readback. 

I knew the mic button had been flaky for other pilots lately, so I pressed harder, hoping my transmission would go through this time. No joy. 

I carry a handheld radio, but it was in my flight bag in a hard-to-reach place on the back seat (a dumb mistake I haven’t made since), so I told my daughter to quickly swap headsets with me, and I reached over to key the mic button on her yoke. That worked, and while it was a little awkward, we got back home without incident. 

In my case, an electrical short in the mic button made radio communications unreliable. But sometimes, the “short” occurs between a pilot’s brain and his or her mouth. 

Pilots can become tongue-tied or get distracted. They can fall behind the plane because of overwhelm or suffer “mic fright.” Sometimes they may be fatigued and momentarily forget the phraseology that forms the backbone of aviation communications (one time I couldn’t for the life of me remember the phonetic word for the letter U--I kept wanting to say “umbrella.”). 

Good communications are always important. It’s especially critical when navigating through busy controlled airspace, where crisp, clear, and accurate transmissions and readbacks make ATC’s work more manageable--and everybody safer. 

“It really is important that we use standard terminology, that we do things in the way it's expected,” CFI Jamie Beckett, co-founder of the aviation community Mad Props Aero, said in a 2024 video about pilots and the common fear of radio communications. “Because, not only does the pilot have the workload of flying the airplane, the air traffic control person has the workload of handling multiple airplanes, maybe on multiple frequencies. Making their life harder is not going to make our lives easier.”

Building up reliable radio skills is like exercising any muscle: it takes practice and repetition. And it’s a lot easier to learn on the ground as part of your chair-flying regimen than a few thousand feet in the air and preparing to enter Class C or B airspace. 

Fortunately, the ARSim offers myriad scenarios to practice comms during every possible phase of flight, from taxi to landing, as either a VFR or IFR pilot. You can plan a cross-country flight, practice holds, or bone up on a bank of aviation terms to make sure your pronunciation is just right. (That’s no small task. The FAA’s 150-page Pilot/Controller Glossary contains several thousand phrases, abbreviations, and acronyms that pilots are expected to understand and use correctly.)

No matter how experienced and practiced you are, you will occasionally make mistakes or just feel a little overwhelmed. Maybe you're a student pilot, or a rusty pilot just getting back in the left seat after a long break. 

CFI Pat Brown, the other cofounder of Mad Props Aero, advises in those cases that you’re honest with the controller, who more likely than not will (if he or she is able, given their workload) talk a little slower and give you a little more latitude for not saying things exactly by the book. 

“If you're intimidated by the radio going into a towered field, just let them know up front that it's been a while … so go easy on me,” Pat says. “I've yet to see a tower operator that won't respond to that positively.

The Debrief: The mantra “aviate, navigate, then communicate” is one thing I’m glad I’ve practiced a lot during my (relatively short) flying career. Drilled into me by all my flight instructors, it's the first thing I bring to mind when something surprising happens in the cockpit. Unless a wing's fallen off, in which case the options are pretty limited, you usually have more time than you think to solve a problem or figure out a workaround, as I did with the bad radio mic. As long as you focus on the fundamentals of safety, you'll discover that between your brain and available checklists, you actually have a pretty big toolbox at your disposal. 

Here are three upcoming opportunities. Email Stephen at spradarelli@gmail.com if you’re willing to be contacted. 

The Call I’ll Never Forget: Communication Cautionary Tale: Whether you’re just starting training as a pilot, have flown for years, or work in Air Traffic Control, we’d love to hear your personal story of communications gone wrong, how the problem was fixed (if at all), and what lessons you took away from the experience.

Tower Talk 101: What Controllers Wish Pilots Would Stop Doing: This one is for the people working day and night to keep pilots and passengers safe in the air and on the ground. We want to hear from ATC staff (current or retired) about the bad communication habits that make their jobs more difficult, the skies less safe, or that are simply annoying. 

Why Staying Sharp on the Mic Is Part of Staying Current and Proficient: For some people, currency training focuses on solid takeoffs and landings, emergency procedures, and navigation. But effective—and confident—communication skills are just as important to ensuring safe and successful flights. What modules of the Plane English ARSim have you found are especially helpful to keep on top of your communications game? 

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