... my pet hate!
Practicing R/T in my current job (and sometimes listening on a scanner to improve my R/T practice), I am surprised by the amount of non-standard R/T coming from aircrew who should know better. Just try it: read CAP 371 (again) then listen to R/T exchanges between aircraft and radar/approach/director/tower etc. Amazing!
While ATC here at BHX is just about always spot on standards-wise, even adapting their speech rate for foreign (sounding) aircrew, dividing their instructions in several transmissions and even anticipating problems with unfamiliar aircrew, some of the replies from aircraft either on the approach, on departure or on the ground beggar belief.
The most surprising is that most of this non-standard R/T comes from... British aircrew, and sometimes from seasoned pilots (recently-qualified ones tending to stick closely to what they have learned or not having had the time to forget the salient points of CAP 371 over the years). Foreign crew also seem to keep more closely to standard R/T (they are probably trying hard enough in a language that is not their own). When one knows the high regard in which British commercial pilot training is (rightly) held over the world, I find this R/T issue surprising.
Examples? Not ending an R/T exchange with the callsign EVERY TIME (sometimes only the flight number being used, sometimes nothing at all when there is APPARENTLY no risk of confusion); not reading back a full instruction (generally on approach); not calling radar on departure with the FOUR basic bits of info (callsign, passing altitude, cleared level, SID); crew reading back information (such as wind velocity, number in sequence or position in the circuit); crew not reading back conditional clearances fully (i.e. ATC: "
Bloggs Air 167, after the landing BritFly 737, line up and wait runway 33". Bloggs Air: "
After the landing 737, line up and wait, Bloggs Air 167"). I don't call that a positive ID of the landing aircraft - it's as if some crew were reluctant to be heard mentioning a competitor's name on the R/T.
We all know what that means: more R/T congestion as ATC will sometimes ask for clarification; potential for decreased flight safety at a critical time (taxi, approach/finals, departure); decreased situational awareness for other crew listening in; basically plain bad airmanship.
OK, so I might not be flying much (yet), but I always endeavour to use standard R/T and sound professionnal - and flying around in a GA aircraft for proficiency, I sometimes sound more professionnal with ATC than some aircrew on the same frequency! OK, so they might be at the end of a long four-sector day, or might be on an approach with a max x-wind or with very limited RVR, but I'm not quite sure that's an excuse - that's precisely when R/T should be at its most accurate.
Your thoughts?
Cheers
