F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash

Very different scenario, but flying my puddle jumper one of the first times after getting my license, once I took off from an airport in Connecticut and was about to cross a large body of water, my exhaust temperatures spiked really, really high, essentially indicating the engine was seconds from melting. But it didn't.

So of course I felt it was a sensor issue (especially since it sounded/felt great), but luckily with the equipment on board I managed a call to the flight school, who put me in touch with the mechanic. I circled above an airport as he pulled up the maintenance logs, we discussed what I was seeing, he noted that there had been a report of a sensor issue that had been squawked, so we concluded I should feel safe to fly straight home.

At the time it felt insanely cool to be able to be doing that WHILE flying the plane. While an unfortunate outcome for this particular pilot, as an elite pilot, part of me thinks when this cropped up part of him was like: "ahh right, this is why I'm top dog"

This kind of stuff happens all the time. Especially if you ignore a controller instruction. They'll have a number for you.

But really there's a ton of small, unmanned airfields (some in peoples backyards!) that have a number you can call to operate things like the runway papi lights. Call to order a burger to go. Or just call to talk to Fred, the owner, to see how his day was.

As long as you can safely operate the aircraft, in the pattern, there's nothing stopping you from using your cell or your radio or starlink to contact ground. Just always make sure you're in communication with any air traffic controllers operating in that space.

As a pilot, your comment sounds like it was from an llm. PAPI is controlled from the radio, not a phone call. Why would you call ground instead of tower if there’s a ground frequency? Order a burger and talk to bob? It sounds like the llm is trying to describe a Unicom frequency and conflating that with contacting an FBO over the radio to arrange transportation, possibly food I suppose too.

I take it you never flew VFR over Nebraska corn…

Yes, papi lights are operated by radio. However, not everyone has fancy radios and only has handhelds, their Nokia phone, or their right arm wave…

It’s not all class C+ out there.

I will point out that PAPI lights as part of a PCL system are operated using mic clicks on CTAF radio. These systems are expensive and sometimes you’re landing in a grass field and just need the runway lights so you don’t run into the trees. You can click your mic as many times as you want, you’ll still be in the dark. The only way is to call Phil…

It’s interesting now that a side effect of LLMs is that people can say anything outside their experience is just a hallucination. I didn’t realize how the fear of hallucination could enable this level of belligerence.