No wonder I am no good at cryptic crosswords.
The original point is worth raising (yet again) however. Having 5000 as a paper stop level on departure seems a little bit 'loaded' as well. Brisbane uses 6000.
The point about getting pilots to repeat the readback is true from experience - but also because the transmissions are clipped. I know that everyone pushes the PTT before talking (right?) but there is also a slight (very slight) processing lag - as I understand it the VHF reply is digitised at the Antenna site, then packet-switched (like the internet), sent by various means (VHF, Microwave, Fibre-Optic, Sat etc.), re-assembled at the receiver centre, and then comes out through the digital VSCS. This all happens very quickly, but I sense that not quick enough for the trigger-happy PTT user sometimes.
The result -
ATC: AIRLINER 958 DESCEND FOUR THOUSAND
PILOT: -R THOUSAND AIRLINER 958
ATC: AIRLINER 958 CONFIRM DESCEND FOUR THOUSAND
PILOT: -R THOUSAND AIRLINER 958
And on it goes. Many of you will say, why don't we read back the callsign first? I agree. It used to work just fine.
Last edited by Shitsu_Tonka; 30th Aug 2006 at 00:03.