Watchdog

Could an OZ ATC'er explain why dunnunder they 'chunk' callsign numbers eg. "Qantas five eighteen" whereas all (I think) other ICAO states use individual numbers eg. "Qantas five one eight"? Is this a state variation? Reasons why? thanks

Bullethead

G'day Watchdog,

It's in our AIP, we use 'group form' for callsigns as you noted, five eighteen instead of 5 1 8 and pretty much individual digits for everything else except for full 'hundreds' or full 'thousands', except QNH which is always digits.

There are three or four pages on "transmission of numbers" and of course most of it doesn't apply outside the Oz FIR.

A dog with a watch eh?

Regards,
BH.

(Not ATC but a long time Oz pilot.)

Watchdog

Thanks Bullet ....any idea why OZ dares to be different?

Blockla

I believe that the change, about 7 years ago, when we forced the use of FLT No callsigns vs rego's; was to reduce flight number callsign confusion; i.e. 518, five eighteen, would sound different to 581, five eighty one.

But of course 518 sounds very close to 580, right?

I don't use group format when dealing with internationals unless they call on freq using the group format. But then most international (ozzie and yanks particularly) pilots tend to mix up between group and non grouped formats.

NDB Alpha

So why not "fifty-one eight"??
Bldy Aussies!!

Spitoon

Makes a change from pople complaining about the Brits going their own way!! Unless anyone thinks that Ozzie procedures are influenced by a couple of hundred years of history!

divingduck

Worlds best practice....that's why?

It must be the worlds best....because they keep saying it is!

HEATHROW DIRECTOR

Yanks do it too. One particular frequency we used to handover to at Heathrow seemed to cause them problems - 135.12. American pilots often read it back as "thirty-five twelve" so I started to do that and it worked every time. A friend went to Chicago and heard a controller hand over to "One a quarter, a quarter". When he asked what that was he was told "125.25". All desperately naughty, of course.

Bullethead

G'day Watchdog,

I wish I knew, before this iteration of the rules we were saying things like Flight Level two hundred instead of FL two zero zero and heading three hundred instead of three zero zero. Personally I prefer individual digits.

When I do an AKL return from SYD I do the group callsign thing and when I get to AKL it back to digits, then back to SYD etc etc. It's crazy.

Regards,
BH.

CDN_ATC

We're permitted to group callsigns as well provided there is no room for confusion.

Married a Canadian

Even better, over here, when there are 3 or 4 same digits is saying "triple" or "quad"

ACA Triple 8 (888) or Jazz quad 7 (7777).

Helps when you have a mouth full of ulcers in cutting down RT. So long as there is no room for confusion seems to work OK.

jungmeister

I reckon the "group format" was introduced here in Oz sometime in 2003 around about the same time as Flight Number callsigns for domestics. I seem to recall that the initiative came from QANTAS at a forum of some sort and was quickly adopted as mentioned earlier under the guise of "World's best practice" IE because the Yanks did it it must be good.
The funny part is that the RAAF did not adopt it despite use of a common Manual of ATS. Things may have changed in the 2+ years since I retired!
J

KrazyKangaroo

In Sweden we say 'Flight Level three hundred, two hundred etc, not sure about the rest of Europe but definately different to what I was used to (permitted) in Melbourne.

Another thing I find interesting is that when speaking swedish we can say 'Bana tju-et' (pronounced shoo-et); the equivalent of saying Runway twentyone in english, but can't say Runway twentyone when speaking english, it's back to the usual 'Runway two-one'.

Ready Immediate

Military seem to be the worst at alternating between group and single digits. If group format is not used at military aerodromes then that might be why?

WRT other traffic I'd certainly rather "Eastern twenty one eighty" than "Eastern two one eight zero".

Just my two cents worth.

RI