J-3 cub instructor providing training in emergency landings was admonished by the local controller f...

Narrative:

Practicing emergency landings at the airport and had so informed tower. To facilitate; they agreed to work with us to clear landing on any one of the four runways available; traffic permitting. After doing about 4 of these on different runways; and calling tower to ask for clearance to turn back; I quipped that I appreciated them letting us land on all these different runways given all the trouble we were having with our pesky engine that day (referring to all the emergency landings we were simulating). They inquired; are you having engine trouble? And we immediately said no; we were making a quip given the repeated practice emergency landings we had discussed with them. They said ok; but be careful with that; we're all on tape. So the lesson is; even if you think tower knows what is going on (here; practice emergency landings); there is zero room to make a quip about an emergency unless it's the real thing. Stick to business in transmissions; nothing else. Lesson learned.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: J-3 Cub instructor providing training in emergency landings was admonished by the Local Controller for making a remark in jest about having engine problems.

Narrative: Practicing emergency landings at the airport and had so informed Tower. To facilitate; they agreed to work with us to clear landing on any one of the four runways available; traffic permitting. After doing about 4 of these on different runways; and calling Tower to ask for clearance to turn back; I quipped that I appreciated them letting us land on all these different runways given all the trouble we were having with our pesky engine that day (referring to all the emergency landings we were simulating). They inquired; are you having engine trouble? And we immediately said no; we were making a quip given the repeated practice emergency landings we had discussed with them. They said OK; but be careful with that; we're all on tape. So the lesson is; even if you think Tower knows what is going on (here; practice emergency landings); there is zero room to make a quip about an emergency unless it's the real thing. Stick to business in transmissions; nothing else. Lesson learned.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	993513
Time
Date	201202
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	J3 Cub
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Takeoff
Route In Use	None
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Instructor Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Commercial
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30 Flight Crew Total 3000 Flight Crew Type 450
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown

J-3 cub instructor providing training in emergency landings was admonished by the local controller for making a remark in jest about having engine problems.