Just listen to some of you from both sides of the Atlantic. I find it saddening to see some individuals who post on here are unable to turn an intelligent debate into an 'us' and 'them' slagging match that would be laughed at as pathetic by a bunch of kindergarten kids, never mind supposedly fully grown adults who claim to be 'professionals'.
Having flown on both sides of the Atlantic I can tell that some of the complainers on this thread, whilst criticising the US pilots of bad RT when over on the EU side of the pond have never actually flown on the US side (except maybe when they did their hours building). I am also ashamed to say that I have heard many UK pilots from the EU side communicate with non-English ATC in an appalling manner. Some pilots don't seem to be able to fathom that perhaps a more clear and enunciated method of communication may be better understood, especially when trying to communicate anything that is not part of the 'normal' patter.
The number of times I have cringed when flying with someone who assumes a rapid fire, mumbling into the mike is going to be understood by the controller and ends up just as a time consuming, repeated communication. Non-English speaking controllers can be just as bad when they try to pass heavily accented instructions too fast or with a lot of background noise.
When it comes listening to the standard comms from pilots, there is little or no distinction between US, UK or pilots from anywhere else. When there is a problem it can be from any of those groups and there is no one group who infringe the 'rules' more than any other. Of course, those with a xenophobic tendency will pick on one incident and of course make up some sort of statistic and claim that it happens all the time.
Those of us who have had to cross the Atlantic will remember the first time they had to use the HF to request a clearance or make their first few position reports. I'm sure most of you god-pilots out there did it without any trouble and word perfect the first time. Sadly, us lesser mortals may have had to turn to our colleague and ask "what did he just say?" or asked the controller to "say again" or fumbled the sequence or something terribly dangerous like that!
The same happens one the US side of the Atlantic when many UK and other non-US pilots have to use the RT over there. Most of us manage to adapt to the US way of communicating whilst still keeping as much as possible to our own standards. It is a requirement that we use the rules of the host country and in the US it is standard to append "heavy" if you are not in the cruise and operating that size of equipment. Over here it is not necessary but if a US pilot does use it... so what? Judging by some of the comments on this thread that makes the pilot a lesser human and not worthy of professional consideration. Perhaps those of you who take that attitude should widen your horizons a bit.
As for West Coast getting all upset by this, I have to say that I can't blame him. The number of time that we manage to hear someone 'cocking it up' on the US side is about the same as we hear it over here. Unfortunately it happens to all of us from time to time. Why some of you are getting so upset about it is amusing and sad. You can't change the world overnight but judging by some of the responses to this thread there are a few toys being thrown out of the pram precisely because of that. Hopefully, the silent majority who read threads like this one can learn and appreciate the problems and apply the necessary standards in due course.
So, let's leave out the petty bickering and whingeing from the 'Mr Angry's of Purley' and try and focus more on ways of getting a better standardisation. "Go ahead"
