R/T Discipline
I read the thread about clearances being acknowledged at LGW incorrectly. R/T readbacks are vitally important and I am constantly amazed at the poor standard of R/T from some pilots - some, I`m afraid to say, British! I work at LATCC, West Drayton and I reckon that every 4th instruction I give has to be repeated or corrected. I know when you guys are flying a long way, you use speakers and hand-held mics, but please, not when you`re entering the London TMA at 7.30am!!! Did you know that those hand-helds make the most awful squealing noises in our headsets which can actually make you jump with shock on first transmission - they seem especially bad in the MD-80`s and BAe146`s. When we give you a heading instruction, we will say `Heading` in the instruction - can you do the sma eback please. Classic example - "London, AIRLINE123 climbing to FL150, heading 270". Controller replies "AIRLINE123, Roger, on the heading climb to Flight Level 250". Pilot reads back "Roger, 250 on the heading"
We then have to go back and confirm that it is FL250 but still heading 270 degrees. Notice also how on reply, the pilot didn`t even use his callsign. We get a lot of people being `stepped-on` so it is essential that you use your callsign whenever you reply to us. I would be very interested to hear of any pilots` views on any of these issues.
Cheers, BB!