I Don't Know How To Ident!!!!

[Brett Hull]

This is like arguing with my wife.

This:

ME: "You mean to tell me your flying a plane and you don't know how to ident?"

could have easily been replaced with: "Push the Ident button on your transponder".

He would have learned something (yes, that he should have already known). I guess it doesn't make for as good of a story of laying into some big-headed private pilot. Now we know who's boss!

 

[dseagrav]

After about a minute, ZHU called him and said, "Hey Cessna ###, have you found the nine on your transponder yet?"

Do you know why the transponder digits stop at 7? ^_^

 

[erj-145mech]

Do you know why the transponder digits stop at 7? ^_^

Duh, cause there's no number eight?

 

[DaveJ]

Well, because they're octal (base 8) numbers. There are 12 bits in the mode A pulse for the 4 octal digits which take 3 bits each.

 

[ATRedneck]

Well, because they're octal (base 8) numbers. There are 12 bits in the mode A pulse for the 4 octal digits which take 3 bits each.

How 'bout that... I went and learned something today.

The only problem is that every time I learn something new, it pushes out some of the old stuff... like the time I took that home winemaking class and forgot how to drive.

 

[DrProc]

Is there anything someone in your position can actually do about it? Like call the FSDO on him or make a report?

I hope that you don't become a professional pilot with that mentality. Any crewmember that flies with you will always be fearful that you may write him/her up. And, of course your reputation will also reflect that.

 

[dseagrav]

Well, because they're octal (base 8) numbers. There are 12 bits in the mode A pulse for the 4 octal digits which take 3 bits each.

Yep. I learned to program on octal computers, and I can still read octal numbers by looking at the switch register lights. (It's funny learning with tools older than you are.)

 

[VaB]

Another good one. A fresh private pilot who passed his checkride within the last month takes his family flying today. While calling inbound to land I ask him to ident because he's in a cluster of VFR aircraft and I need to know if he is going to beat my Gulfstream on left base 10 miles out or not.

Ya know, it's funny. Many many moons ago, when I was working on my private, I had this same thing happen. Except I was the dumba$$.

It was my very first solo. 3 trips around the pattern and then full stop was the plan. I took off, and did my first touch and go (greased it, of course ) then something came up at the airport, an emergency or some crazy thing. Well, tower ends up "vectoring" me away from the airport to get me out of the way, then makes me switch to departure. I'm thinking "This is pretty sweet". Now I'm getting upwards of 20 miles away from the field and the controller says "squawk IDENT". No friggin clue what he was talking about. I just said "Roger" in my saltiest 20 hour voice and continued on alone and unafraid. I was eventually able to figure out what he was talking about since the button is so conveniently labeled. Made it back to the field a little while later with a successful first solo. Then proceeded to never take another civilian lesson. Well, not for another 13 years anyway for my ATP.

Love the first solo stories. Anyway, back to the fractals and base 8 discussion.

 

[wxman13]

.... another XPDR story:

A couple months back a pop-up VFR guy called ZHU on the frequency we were on. Center told him to squawk "x-x-x-5" which the guy read back as "x-x-x-niner."

After about a minute, ZHU called him and said, "Hey Cessna ###, have you found the nine on your transponder yet?"

Of course, this story goes the other way, too. SoCal Approach last month asked me to squawk x-x-x-9. Just to make sure I wasn't losing it, I flipped my last knob all the way around to make sure 8 and 9 hadn't just been added or something, then replied unable. Do Mode S transponders have capabilities for 10,000 codes? Maybe my equipment suffix got messed up on their strips, but it was baffling to me nonetheless.

 

[Simon Says]

Duh, cause there's no number eight?

HAHAHAHAHA...........I don't laugh much at jokes on here, but I thought this was funny.

 

[Almerick07]

does that make me an idiot since I was told to recycle my transponder on my first solo x-c and didnt have a freaking clue what to do? Yea; you try to find the recycle button with only 25 hours experience...Oh yea and departure vectored me through some clouds after I replied unable due to IMC and the controller cleared me through it, boy that sure was an adventure.

 

[ATRedneck]

I was told to recycle my transponder ... try to find the recycle button

You're supposed to ask maintenance to come out and swap it out with another one. Back in my CFI days we had a student do that.

 

[Vector4fun]

Actually guys, I've had dozens of students/pilots tell me they didn't know what IDENT meant. I've had dozens that didn't know what "Stop altitude squawk, squawk Mode A" meant, or couldn't figure out how.

And weekly, I tell someone their Mode C is 200 or more feet off, they offer to climb/descend to correct their encoder. Then there's the folks that still can't remember they need a working xponder with Mode-C above 10K, the guys on IFR flight plans departing with 1200 still in the xponder, the VFR guys with last week's discrete code still set. Etc. Etc.

Someone always misses something in their training.

Oh, and I took the wife to her first EAA fly-in BBQ the other day. She's got about 6 hrs dual, and couldn't believe the poor radio technique and antics from a few of the attendees. Already she knows better...

 

[doug_or]

Assuming it happened @ KSTS.

What school was the guy from?

 

[dseagrav]

And weekly, I tell someone their Mode C is 200 or more feet off, they offer to climb/descend to correct their encoder. Then there's the folks that still can't remember they need a working xponder with Mode-C above 10K, the guys on IFR flight plans departing with 1200 still in the xponder, the VFR guys with last week's discrete code still set. Etc. Etc.

Hey, question for you. What happens if two people end up with the same transponder code at the same time?