Land and Hold Short

Novelist Hugh MacLennan referred to the English and French in Canada as Two Solitudes, but that’s not a great working model for aviation. In eastern Canada, we do have to deal with both languages on the radio; I’ve developed an marginal passive understanding of aviation French from a few years of flying out of Ottawa, and I thought it might be worth collecting some of the most common terms I happen to remember — these are important words you may need to understand on the radio, not a complete French-English aviation glossary. Please let me know if I get any wrong — and does anyone know the French word for “FBO“? (It’s “exploitant d’aérodrome privé” according to Nav Canada, but “le FBO” in real life — see comments for more info.)

à destination de

heading for …

l’aérogare (m)

terminal (building)

l’aéroport (m)

airport

l’aire de stationnement (f)

apron (parking)

l’amerrissage (m)

water landing (c.f. “l’aterrissage”)

l’approche (f)

approach

l’approche finale (f)

final (leg); “en approche finale” on final

l’approche interrompue (f)

overshoot/go-around; “en approche interrompue” on the overshoot/going around

l’approche manquée (f)

missed approach

attendre à l’écart

(to) hold short

l’atterrissage (m)

landing (c.f. “l’amerrissage”)

l’atterrissage complet

full stop (landing)

l’avion (m)

aircraft

le calage altimétrique

altimeter setting

le cap

heading

le circuit

(traffic) circuit/pattern

le contrôle sol

ground control

le côté inactif

inactive/upwind side of the runway (in Canada, pilots usually approach an uncontrolled airport from the upwind side “du côté inactif” and cross overhead the field to join the mid downwind)

le décollage

takeoff; “décoller” to take off

l’étape de base (f)

base (leg); “en étape de base” on base

les installations (f)

airport buildings; more generally, the airport/field (e.g. “cinq milles des installations” five miles from the field)

le mille (marin)

(nautical) mile

le pilote

pilot

la piste

runway; “la piste en service” active runway

le posé-décollé touché-décollé

touch-and-go (landing)

remonter (la piste)

backtrack (on the runway)

le seuil (de piste)

(runway) threshold

le tour (de contrôle)

(control) tower

le vent arrière

downwind, tailwind; “en vent arrière” on (the) downwind (leg)

le vent debout

upwind, headwind; “côté vent debout” the upwind side

le vent traversier

crosswind; “en vent traversier” on (the) crosswind (leg)

verticale de

above/over; (e.g. “à vingt-cinq mille pieds verticale de Lachute” over Lachute at 2,500 feet)

le virage

turn (change in direction); e.g. “virage à droit”

la voie de circulation

taxiway

le vol

flight; “en vol” in the air

There’s a much more complete glossary here (also from English to French), but these are the terms you’re most likely to hear on the radio.

Cuba has a nice selection of small-town/rural airports, including many with good, paved runways, judging from the satellite views. When I zoom in, though, they are mostly sadly deserted, with sometimes a single piston twin parked in the middle of an empty apron. Who are they maintaining these airports for? The military doesn’t need so many so close together, and I doubt that many Cubans could afford to fly private aircraft even if they were allowed to.

Now that Fidel is pretty-much confined to writing OpEd pieces in the party propaganda rag and Raúl, who’s running the show, is making speeches about opening up the economy and talking seriously with the U.S., maybe it won’t be long until U.S. pilots are allowed to visit again. Cuba’s an easy flight from Florida, and it looks like it will still be able to offer some decent flying, with lots of nice, rural airports to go along with its friendly people. Cuba’s already a huge tourist destination for Canadians, though I don’t know anyone who’s flown his/her own plane down (it would have to be via Mexico).

Maybe change isn’t too far away …

About three hours ago, a homebuilt Zenith 250 lost power after takeoff from Ottawa/Rockcliffe (my home airport) and made a forced landing in a wooded area a couple of miles east of the airport (CBC News story).

It’s a big flying club, and I don’t know the 68-year-old pilot, but the fact that he walked away uninjured suggests he did a good job getting the plane down. The news story says that the plane landed “nose down” — it might have settled nose down, but I doubt that it initially made ground contact that way when the pilot wasn’t hurt. Still, there was nothing annoying, obviously inaccurate, or sensational in the story, which is a good sign — no discussion of “narrowly missing” houses and schools only half a mile away, etc. Good for the CBC!

For pilots, the word “crash” generally means an high-speed, uncontrolled descent into the ground or similar collision with terrain (such as hitting a mountain in level flight), followed by total destruction of the aircraft and everyone in it. For the media, “crash” seems to mean any flight with a non-standard landing (such as a forced landing in a field, or a gear-up landing).

Now the bar’s just a bit lower: in this story, Reuters uses uses the term “crash” to describe a collapsed landing gear in a Dash-8, presumably during the landing roll after the plane had already touched down safely (the story isn’t big on details). They didn’t even bother calling it a “crash landing”; just a “crash”.