"Currently approaching Little Piddle-on-the-Gusset, G-CD"
Simple and unambiguous.
Sorry BEags, but I totally disagree, on several counts.
Firstly, what the fcuk does approaching mean? Three, Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty miles to run? And from which direction - N/W/S/E?
Now let's turn this around for a moment, with ATC giving Traffic Info, based on pilot reports, to other aircraft for example. Which would you, as a pilot, find more useful?:-
"G-CD, traffic is a PA28 currently approaching XXX ..........."
OR
"G-CD, traffic is a PA28 five (miles) south of XXX .......... "
Now I'm not too fussed about the five miles being hyper-accurate, but the 2nd example does give ATC, and other Airspace users, a far better picture.
Imagine a busy VFR sunny week-end. During the course of several hours, many dozens of light aircraft will make position reports. If they all include the totally meaningless
"Currently Approaching", that can add up to a heck of a lot of wasted words.
Please guys, R/T time is a very precious commodity -
Say Something Useful!