" decend two five thousand "
as mensaboy said. if feet or flightlevel etc are used in conjunction with "to" then all ambiguity gone.
as far as australians and r/t go. we trained from the college onwards to follow the requirements laid down in ICAO docs and the relevent rules given to us by the governing body of the FIR in which we work. if you think it is poor r/t practice to follow those rules then perhaps a working group of pilots and atc should get together and partition ICAO and the relevent FIR authorties to get it changed. there are always things that can be improved and if removeing "to" from that part of ICAO docs would improve safety then work out a safety case with all the relevent proof and do something about it. based on what statorblade has said(and i have to agree) removing "to" wouldn't improve the situation. at the same time we should also look at those pilots/atc who don't follow std r/t and do something about them too.
i am curious though. aussies are often called retentive, restrictive etc when it comes to r/t, readbacks, sep and rules.... but pilots are given set speeds, flap settings etc to fly for landing as part of the SOP's issued from the manufacture.... if they dont fly outside these parameters/rules does that also make them retentive, restrictive etc ?????? SOP's for both pilots and ATC are there for a reason lets all try and follow them
