Lufthansa RT procedures

[Track]

I've been wondering why most of the LH crews start their reply with their callsign:

Example:

ATC: "LH 123 climb FL 310..."
Pilot: "LH 123 climbing FL310 etc..."

I hear most airlines ending their reply with their callsign. I'm not sure what the ICAO standard is but always thought it is more easier this way. Callsign first is ATC, instruction first is the pilot.

Any ideas <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[wonderbusdriver]

ICAO says it´s ok to say the callsign at anytime during the transmission.

A few years ago our flt-safety dept. looked at RT procedures, and came up with the "callsign-first" procedure/recommendation/idea (and, no, they don´t kill you, if you don´t do it this way).

It´s supposed to have several advantages (you decide!):

1. it´s easy: You just read back what ATC said.

2. by saying the callsign first, ATC immediatly knows it´s the correct aircraft answering.

3. during the readback of an altitude clearance, it gives the PF enough time to dial the new alt. The PNF is then supposed to simply read it from the FMA (and thus actually check what the aircraft/autopilot is supposed to do - redundancy), which is mostly at the end of the sentence.

It all sounds much more complicated or maybe even dogmatic than it is, and I actually just changed my RT a few months ago.(the young FOs have been trained to do it this way from the start,I guess)
It took a bit of concentration at first, but I must say, it´s just as easy as doing it any other way and you get the "advantages" on top.

I´ve even started punching in new freqs in the MCDU-scratchpad before readback and then dialing them - makes it much easier for me at least - no rt-button pushing and talking while dialing and looking at the radio.

Hope it explains what some of our people are doing...

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

No problem from an ATC viewpoint - Lufthansa are among the very best crews operating into Heathrow.

[Track]

Thnx,

I already thought it was something they teach in Bremen. The dutch FO's seem to do it the "old" way. Anyway, procedure sounds useful.

[Hew Jampton]

UK CAA (CAP 413 ? etc) recently confirmed what Track said, ie 'Callsign first is ATC, instruction first is the pilot'. The latter is when the pilot is replying to ATC; when the pilot initiates a 'transaction', it's his/her callsign first.

[Denti]

Track, it's something they teach in Bremen (and in Goodyear). As wonderbusdriver already mentioned, it's standard training now from the beginning.

I was trained there (but not flying for LH though) and mix both forms, sometimes call-sign first, sometimes last.

[Sink Rate]

Has this come into use in the UK as SOP?

Certainly in my airline nothing has been mentioned but if an official change to CAP 413 has been made then if would be nice to be able to wave something in print in their face!

[Captain104]

wonderbusdrivers post made it this time. . .30 years ago, when I started my instructor career in Bremen, we did it that way, so it must be right, right?

[romeowiz]

After WONDERBUSDRIVERs remarks we could have this thread closed! He´s perfectly right. . .Hey, Denti!

[320DRIVER]

Yes, it is something they teach in Bremen (I'm not an LH driver though :-P ). R/T training was done very professionally by two ex-ATCOs when I was there in '94. One thing I remember vividly was that if you read back a transponder code with an '8' or a '9' figure, the BZF/AZF examiners would not be amused :-). Happy times!