Lessons from Southern Italy

I recently spent a month in the south of Italy, examining in English exams for air traffic controllers. Well, only a month it may have been, but it was a lifetime's worth of experience. Which I shall now share with you. 

1) ITALIAN PILOTS ASK WHY

The air traffic controllers whose English I was examining were all, without exception, the most delightful, cheerful, friendly individuals. (It's a southern Italian thing, my research leads me to conlude.) And they were singularly un-precious about their work. At the slightest hint of a question, they were only too happy to give me comprehensive explanations on their job.

As one controller showed me around the radar room, I asked, “When you deal with pilots of different nationalities, do you see national characteristics coming through?”
“Yes,” he replied immediately. “British pilots are precisi, precisi, precisi. They are precisissimi. Also German pilots. Turkish and Chinese pilots, on the other hand, are impossible, because you can’t understand a word they say. They’re incomprehensible. And the worst,” he declared decisively, “are Italian pilots. Because you tell a British pilot, ‘Do this or that,’ and he does it. You tell and Italian pilot, ‘Do this,’ and he says, ‘Why’?

2) BOTHERSOME WALLET

During the listening exam, a minor uproar broke out in the back row.

“He’s put his wallet on the desk!” shouted one of the candidates, pointing accusingly at his colleague, who had indeed placed his wallet conspicuously on the corner of his desk.

“It was bothering me!” insisted the accused, pointing emphatically at his pocket. 

3) BOTHERSOME JACKET

My co-examiner, a gentleman of gentlemen, introduced himself to me on the first day, then set about preparing the exam room for the listening exam. He broke off from his preparations and approached the coat-stand.

“Do you mind if I take off my jacket?” he asked courteously.

It had never occurred to me that anyone might worry that their removing their jacket would offend me.

He had his initials embossed, small but conspicuously, just under his shirt pocket.

“Did you put your initials there?” I asked, fancying that he might have had unpleasant experiences at the launderette in the past, with his shirts getting confused with someone else’s.

“No,” he replied. “I have my shirts made specially for me, because I have a big neck and short arms. And a lot of people, when they have shirts made to order, have their initials embroidered on.”

4) ODD THINGS THAT PEOPLE SAY UNDER EXAM CONDITIONS 

A) Why to travel

We tended to ask the same questions over and over again in the oral exams. Apart from the fact that our imagination only stretched so far, the candidates were expecting certain types of questions, and panicked if we asked anything too different. (One candidate cheerfully informed me after the exam that when I had asked him to tell me something he was proud of, he nearly bolted for the door.)

We asked about holidays and travel rather a lot.

“Why do you like travelling so much?” we asked one candidate.

“Because you can know new places,” he replied. “You can see different people and know their rabbits.”

This took me rather by surprise, but I proceeded as if he had not said anything out of the ordinary. It was a good five minutes or so before I realised that what he had actually been trying to say was “You can know their habits.”

B) Where to travel

“Do you travel a lot?” we asked another person.

“Oh, yes,” he replied. “I always travel. The last time was on Mars.”

Now this was certainly novel.

“Really?” I said, most interested. I was just about to ask what Mars was like as a holiday destination when I realised that he had meant “in March”.

One candidate told us that he had recently been to Cuba.

“And who did you go with?” I asked.

“With my wife and children,” he replied.

At this point, my co-examiner, who was supposed to sit silently on the sidelines, just to make sure that procedure was being followed, cut in.

"Excuse me," he said politely to the candidate. He turned to me.

"Do you know what we say?" he said to me. "We say that going to Cuba with your wife is like going to Oktoberfest with your own beer."

C) Why to join the Air Force

Some of the candidates had come to air traffic control via the Air Force.

“Why did you join the Air Force?” we asked one of them.

He didn’t hesitate for a moment.

“Because I liked the uniform,” he said.

D) Why to leave the Air Force

“Why did you decide to leave the Air Force?” we asked some of them. And every single one of them, without fail, answered, “For the money. You earn twice as much as a civilian air traffic controller.”

5) PERILS OF FLIGHT SCHOOL

We were discussing a certain flight school which sends some of its trainee pilots to go and to a six-month training placement in Texas.

“And they come back,” one of the controllers informed me, “you know Top Gun? What’s the guy’s name?”

“Tom Cruise,” supplied someone.

“Tom Cruise,” he affirmed. “They all come back Tom Cruise, wearing sunglasses, and speaking something which isn't American and isn't Italian, which is impossible to understand...."

6) THE CONTROL TOWER

“What’s the inside of the control tower like?” I asked one of the air traffic controllers

“Well, there’s a bank of computers and radios,” he replied. “There are windows all the way round. There’s a coffee machine and a big comfortable couch. And –“ he paused for dramatic effect – “there’s – the – Playstation!”

“You sit around playing on the Playstation in the tower?” I asked, aghast.

“Yes, yes,” he replied breezily. “After all, there isn’t traffic all the time. And during quiet periods, you need something to do. You know,” he chuckled, “there was one time when I was on duty at night. It was about 2 in the morning –“

“Are there arrivals and departures and 2 in the morning?” I interrupted.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Postal flights, things like that. Anyway, this pilot called ahead to ask for a weather report. ‘Clear skies,’ I told him. ‘Visibility 10 kilometres.’ And I went to sleep on the couch. I woke up half an hour later, when the pilot radioed in to announce his arrival. I opened my eyes and looked around – the airport was shrouded in fog so thick you couldn’t have seen your hand in front of your face. The pilot was not impressed! He shouted over the radio, ‘Hey! Tomorrow morning, you’re going to buy me a coffee!’ So the next morning, I went to the airport bar, and I met the pilot there and bought him a coffee.”

7) SUNDAY PILOTS

In the same conversation as above:

“I was dealing with this VFR,“ the controller. He turned to me. “You know VFR?” he inquired. “Sunday pilots!” he spat. Then he continued. “So this VFR was approaching the airport. But there was this military jet coming in behind it, so I gave the VFR instructions to get out the way.

“Meanwhile, I had an Alitalia plane on the taxiway, waiting to take off, giving me hassle.

‘Stand by, Alitalia!’ I told the pilot.

So I had this VFR puttering along towards the airport, and the pilot just wasn’t getting out of the way fast enough. And picture this – the military jet, going three times as fast as the VFR goes ‘wzhoom!’ right up behind it! And the problem was, they were in each other’s blind spots, so neither even knew the other was there!

“And while this was going on, I had the Alitalia pilot complaining that he wanted to take off. ‘Alitalia, shut up!’ I yelled, then I bellowed at the military jet pilot, ‘You’ve got a VFR in your blind spot! Do an emergency climb!’  So he did an emergency climb, and avoided a collision.

“The next day, I saw the pilot at the airport bar. He thanked me for getting him out of the difficulty, and I apologised for the fact that he had got into it in the first place.”

“But it wasn’t your fault!” I interrupted. “It was the VFR pilot’s fault for not getting out the way when you told him to!”

“Yes, I know,” he sighed. “But just as a gesture of goodwill. Then I bought him a case of beers too, to apologise.”