Originally Posted by HEATHROW DIRECTOR
FougaMagister. Firstly, you are breaking the law by listening to a scanner.
Are you sure about that? As all frequencies in the UK are published in many public places, I would have thought listening in and not passing anything on was fine. It's open to interpretation of course
Originally Posted by HEATHROW DIRECTOR
Having spent my life as a controller (two international airports, 1 ATCC and two light aircraft fields) I would agree that there are occasional lapses on both sides. However, the vast majority (99.999%) of professional airline/ helicopter/ air taxi pilots I dealt with were very good and kept to standard phraseology. Let's face it, in a very busy environment you have to! However, the R/T from many private pilots could have done with improvement. Maybe this stems from a) poor training (do any potential PPLs get simulator time before operating live R/T?) and b) poor R/T from their home "ATC" unit. I have heard terrible R/T from some AFISOs and ATCOs at small training airfields, yet these are the people who should be ultra-strict with their procedures so that trainee pilots learn correct R/T from square 1.
Lastly, professional ATCOs (I don't know about AFISOs) have their R/T procedure regularly checked so they are encouraged to "stay-standard".
This is very interesting considering my recent experience. After 30 years listening to ATC on various scanners (TMA Brookmans Park is my regular haunt as I live in Welwyn Garden City - great job guys!), I decided to go and learn to fly.
I have completed 34 hours of the PPL flying out of Elstree and my RT procedure has been commented on many times. One of my instructors is an ex BA first officer who says I sound like a professional over the radio - very fluent and strict to correct RT phraesology
So, instead of being one of those lazy private types, my RT is good, BECAUSE of listening to scanners
Ray Keattch