"XXX tower, good morning this is XXXX , a PA 32, VFR with flight plan from XXXX to your field, presently at four thousand errr five hundred feet err sorry 3500 feet passing.... noise of somebody shuffling the maps... E point estimating your field in ....err [voice of the instructor in the background: 5 minutes !] err 5 minutes, three passengers on board, with information X, request full stop landing, ....errr over "
Not a good example since the student is obvously under training and believe me I have heard some nice one's from ATCO's under training.
The problem with VFR flights making long winded initial calls is that they are doing exactly what the UK Manual of RT requires them to do.
Nearly every PPL operator that I hear in the UK askes for a radio check with their initial departure call. For an age I wondered why bother since if the radio is working, the initial call will be replied to and if it is not then no reply will be made or perhaps a reply describing the comms as less than 5. However, I have just found out that the RT manual makes the requesting of a radio check in the initial departure call standard.
Thank god we don't hear "Heathrow Delivery XXX1234 request radio check one two one decimal nice seven zero boeing 747 information xray runway 27 left for departure runway 27 right for landing QNH 1024 QFE 1021 requesting clearance to ABC (we had corflakes for breakfast)".............but that is what many UK pilots elsewhere are doing as per the official manual (with their own splash of cornflakes
)
If in the UK, when one is told to "contact" another ATS unit then your details have been passed and all that is required is the minimum details detailed in the AIP.
Less words makes it esier for us foreigners to understand
Regards,
DFC