In the whole of my flying career I've never heard 'roger that' being used by a line pilot. Maybe things have changed in the past few years, but not in my experience?! I think the airline training Captains might have a wry smile and then correct the phraseology used.
"Roger that" mmm very American military or too many videos/games.
Personally don't think a civilian pilot would use the phrase but hey Ho who knows these days, but if I was investigating I'd look into it.
Anyone have the original source of that reported phrase, was it one of the press conferences in K.L. or a media release?
We Americans are indeed pretty bad on the radio overseas.
"Delta one six six line up and wait runway zero two center."
"One sixty-six on the hold."
I saw one report that the "roger that" phrase was from a briefing given by the Malaysian ambassador to Chinese families, presumably in English. Is there another source or transcript?
And can we stop all this talk of the 'precise flight path' flown from 'waypoint to waypoint' carefully 'avoiding various areas of radar cover'.
Don't know if this one has really been debunked, it is from a Reuters report yesterday:
...The fact that the aircraft - if it was MH370 - had lost contact with air traffic control and was invisible to civilian radar suggested someone on board had turned off its communication systems, the first two sources said.
They also gave new details on the direction in which the unidentified aircraft was heading - following aviation corridors identified on maps used by pilots as N571 and P628. These routes are taken by commercial planes flying from Southeast Asia to the Middle East or Europe and can be found in public documents issued by regional aviation authorities.
In a far more detailed description of the military radar plotting than has been publicly revealed, the first two sources said the last confirmed position of MH370 was at 35,000 feet about 90 miles off the east coast of Malaysia, heading towards Vietnam, near a navigational waypoint called "Igari". The time was 1:21 a.m..
The military track suggests it then turned sharply westwards, heading towards a waypoint called "Vampi", northeast of Indonesia's Aceh province and a navigational point used for planes following route N571 to the Middle East.
From there, the plot indicates the plane flew towards a waypoint called "Gival", south of the Thai island of Phuket, and was last plotted heading northwest towards another waypoint called "Igrex", on route P628 that would take it over the Andaman Islands and which carriers use to fly towards Europe.
Exclusive: Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane deliberately flown way off course - sources | Reuters
What has not been mentioned by the previous posters suggesting HF is that nowadays huge chunks of HF spectrum can be recorded using SDR and played back at leisure, with particular attention to transmissions sticking out as unusual. Likewise VHF, if anyone is recording it in that way.
This wideband recording has been done for decades, well prior to SDR, by the military and other 'agencies'. Don't ask us how we know.