"The R/T manual (CAP413) says that this is acceptable usage: it doesn't matter if you 'buy it' or not.
"If making a practice call though listen first just to be sure there isn't a real emergency going on."
So its legal....
does that make it right? Think about how many flight decks you intrude on when you do your "acceptable usage". Every single flight deck within about 150NM to 200 Nm now has to listen to you....
How do you listen out for an actual call? On 126.9 over Africa calls very often step on each other becaues they are out of range of each other but the poor lad in the middle gets a lovely cacophony.
Remember in Aviation thing are 1. Possible 2. Safe and 3. Legal.
Just because its possible and legal does not mean its safe and or a good system. Most probably dates back to prop days..
