Readback - how many items?

[DX Wombat]

One problem i have seen with the new farnbourgh LARS is they give you the QNH and squark in the same transmissionThat is a quote from another website and this is my response:Why is that a problem? Shawbury usually give "G-****, squawk 02**, XXXX feet, QFE abcd (sometimes "not above XXXX feet ....") They don't gabble or speak with a pronounced regional accent or dialect, so are quite easy to understand. It helps reduce the number of calls necessary. Can you imagine the number of calls there could be if each item was transmitted singly and each required a readback, especially in an area like Shawbury's where they are dealing with civilian traffic, their own helicopter trainees and fast and slow Mil traffic? Not to mention the fact that they are the training school for Mil ATCOs. You would have great difficulty getting a word in edgewise. What I am interested to know is how many items for readback people have been taught to cope with, or cope with on a regular basis. I have absolutely no problem with Shawbury, but is that because I was taught well and flew through the area quite frequently during my training? Shawbury is an excellent place for getting used to multiple items for readback as they are unfailingly helpful and polite, in fact the only time I heard one ATCO putting her foot down firmly was when an aircraft on a heading towards me from one side spotted me and made its presence known to ATC and was given a route around me. The aircraft wanted to know why he couldn't go where he wanted, ie straight ahead, and why couldn't I be told to move. I had been talking to Shawbury for quite some time before this person appeared. The ATCO's response made me smile, "THAT aircraft is under MY control." As a student it made me smile to think that a stroppy bod was having to give way to a mere student and also made me feel I was being really well looked after. The Shawbury ATCO was unaware that I was a student as I hadn't mentioned it although he or she may have been familiar with me as I was the only person learning in that aircraft at the time.

[BeT]

Ill give 3 maybe 4 instructions at one time to a native English speaker; BAW, QFA, RBA, THM etc.

2 maybe 3 to established European airlines - TRA, KLM, DLH, BER, RYR, EZY

Never more than 2 at a time to AFR or AZA.

One at a time to Far East carriers; JAL, ANA, CES etc, unless the pilot sounds particularly switched on.

And im sorry to say it, never more than 1 at a time to an American pilot :ugh:

[Standard Noise]

I haven't got a problem giving QNH and a squawk in the same transmission and since the QNH is never likely to be 4621 nor a squawk 996, then PPLs should be capable of reading them back.
But then I do this for a living so maybe I see it differently.

[Foxy Loxy]

I was always taught to give a maximum of 3 items/instructions per transmission. It says that somewhere in Maunal of Air Traffic Services Pt 1, too. Occasionally, I might increase that to 4 if I think the pilot can handle that, and will pass only one or two if the pilot seems to be having difficulty, or the instruction is complex.

Foxy

[Defruiter]

Likewise - Always taught no more than 3 but at the unit I work at, best practice is no more than 2.

[niknak]

No more than 3 at any one time and even that depends on whether the pilot is known to be experienced or not and/or has a good command of English.

I would never give a pressure setting and a squawk at the same time and would strongly advise any trainee atco not to either.

A colleague recently gave a very experienced pilot the surface wind, QNH and squawk all in one transmission - the pilot got airborne squaking the surface wind.....

Nuff said...:ugh::eek:

[dublinpilot]

Well, it depends on whether I'm local or not. Local, I think I could handle as much as the ATC has to give me in the transmission....after all, I probably know exactly what he is going to say before they say it.

In a place that I haven't been to before, I would figure that I'd reliably handle well over 4, so long as it wasn't spoken too fast.....so enough that my pencil can keep up! Particularly so with non-standard reporting points. (I'll have sussed out the standard reporting points in advance, but for non-standard ones I'll be trying to spell it out in full rather than shorthand, to aid me finding it on the chart later).

One instructor I had insisted that I always write down my clearances etc, and only attempt the readback once the clearance was written down. And the readback came not from what I remembered, but instead came from what I had written down. That way I know that what I have written down is correct and can be refered to as often as necessary. It was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever got, and doesn't really take much time ;)

dp

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

I was taught, and always taught others, a maximum of two instructions at one time.

[Talkdownman]

But in response to a very first initial call QNH blah blah blah blah Squawk blah blah blah blah is asking for trouble from single crew of any level. Shows complete lack of appreciation by the ATCO in my book especially giving away a squawk when he has no idea whose airspace he is in. Just listen to the responses to such transmissions. They are all ums and aahs because the poor s0d is trying to do three things at once and think what does the daft ATCO want to hear. Even if the single crew pilot gets the squawk right first time he will gibber on the radio. Bring back flying experience for ab-initio ATCOs. False economy, dispensing with that.

[Knight Paladin]

Man up, be better.

[PPRuNe Radar]

From the CAA RT Discipline Safety Leaflet

RT Discipline (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SRG-NATS_RTDISCIP.PDF)

Controllers should endeavour to limit the number of instructions
passed in any one transmission to a maximum of three - ideally only
two if practicable. Where there are large amounts of numbers to be
passed, then speak clearly and slowly.

So that's my best practice :ok:

In the airspace I operate there is generally no need to give QNH, but I regularly give a squawk and an instruction on first transmission where circumstances require it and permit.

[DX Wombat]

So that's my best practiceand, as I saw for myself, even then some of them STILL get it wrong. :\ "Lima Alpha Kilo Echo Yankee" - response (in pronounced foreign accent) "Err, Lima Yankee Alfa Kilo Echo," ring any bells Radar? :) *
Before any of you ask, it was NOT me, they haven't had to cope with me up in Scotland .................... yet :E
Thank you for all the answers so far. I have to admit that I was very surprised that a PPL couldn't cope with more than one item at a time.
* Gwladys would like to know where she should post her photos please.

[PompeyPaul]

One instructor I had insisted that I always write down my clearances etc, and only attempt the readback once the clearance was written down. And the readback came not from what I remembered, but instead came from what I had written down. That way I know that what I have written down is correct and can be refered to as often as necessary. It was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever got, and doesn't really take much timeSome pilots don't do that ? They must be incredibly intelligent and able. I have to write it all down otherwise I forget bits of it, and later during the freda check I refer back to the QNH I wrote down.

On the other hand it may explain why there is 2s pause before I read back, but I'd hate to not have it down in black and white.

[Knight Paladin]

PP - yes, it is possible to remember it, actually quite easy if you're going somewhere familiar, or at least somewhere operated by an organisation with good standard procedures. And some stuff you can remember without writing it down - get the pressure straight onto the alti if appropriate, bug any headings or runways, and if you've got a handy spare VOR type gadget you're not using you can use it to help you remember cleared heights/alts.

[Keygrip]

Standard Noise: Would that squawk not be 996millibars if less than one thousand?

Niknak: If any pilot heard from ATC, no matter what level of experience he/she had, the wind, the squawk and the pressure - and then read back what he/she had to correctly (and by default accepted by ATC), then they have zero excuse for flying off with the wind setting in the transponder.

How many items are given on an IFR clearance before taxi?

[Lima Juliet]

Readback - how many items?


Ask any Human Factors or Behavioural Science expert and they'll say that the maximum that the average human can hold in short term memory is 6 items - it's a good job that we're all above average then!!! :E

[Whirlybird]

ATCOs, please bear in mind that if you're speaking to the pilot of a small helicopter, unless they're on the ground they probably can't write anything down!!!

Been wanting to say that for years.

[englishal]

How many items are given on an IFR clearance before taxi?

Ho ho...one of the Skills of IFR flying. Here is a typical "readback"(as I'm sure you know)....

"Cleard to somewhere airport Maintain runway heading until 800feet left turn 200 radar vectors to seal beach victor XYZ to Paradise as filed, climb and maintain 3000 expect one zero thousand 10 minutes after departure, departure frequency is 127.2 sqwark 4626".....

Very easy to write down though:

RH 800
L 200
RV SLI
V XYZ
PDZ
A Filed
3000
x10000 10
127.2
4626

Thats what I do anyway.....

Bear in mind that you could receive something like this in the air too if you asked for a pop up clearance...

[BackPacker]

"Cleard to somewhere airport Maintain runway heading until 800feet left turn 200 radar vectors to seal beach victor XYZ to Paradise as filed, climb and maintain 3000 expect one zero thousand 10 minutes after departure, departure frequency is 127.2 sqwark 4626".....

Very easy to write down though:

RH 800
L 200
RV SLI
V XYZ
PDZ
A Filed
3000
x10000 10
127.2
4626

And so you end up squawking 3000 and climbing to 4626 feet. And this doesn't involve the QNH then, which is usually also four digits. Do you have any trick of distinguising them?

There was a thread on the ATC forum a while ago about the shorthand used by them. For "climb and maintain" and "descend and maintain" they used the appropriate diagonal line followed by a horizontal bit, in front of the altitude or FL.

QNH gets prefixed with Q when I write it down (ATC obviously doesn't need to write that down on the slip since it's all the same for all aircraft) and the squawk stays a single number.

But for VFR flights I like to receive those numbers, put them in the instruments and then read them back from the instruments.

As an aside, I once took a flight in the Europa demo plane G-KITS (or was it G-EURO) and this one had a "clearance recorder" fitted. One or two buttons to operate, and it would record 20 seconds or so of audio. Press the record button at the appropriate time and the whole clearance is recorded for later reference. It looked like a good gadget to have at that time (when I hadn't even started my PPL yet) but is anyone using it?

[englishal]

And so you end up squawking 3000 and climbing to 4626 feet. And this doesn't involve the QNH then, which is usually also four digits. Do you have any trick of distinguising them?
Ah yes....The squawk comes at the end ;) Actually these clearances are normally in a set format, in my example ROUTE, ALT, FREQ, SQUAWK. But you are right, I'll put CM / DM in front for climb / Decend and maintain and NA for not above (VFR clearance), and Q infront of Alt if there is any ambiguity...

[Foxy Loxy]

ATCOs, please bear in mind that if you're speaking to the pilot of a small helicopter, unless they're on the ground they probably can't write anything down!!!

Hehehehe, some of us already know that!:};)

Foxy

[Whirlygig]

I know Foxy! And I'm sure you wouldn't do this but I've been given several bits of information, all involving numbers, whilst hovering at the hold in sight of the tower! At that point, I ain't changing a dial or a sub-scale for anyone! I'm sure that was just somebody's idea of a tease! :}

And no, by the time I've departed, I'll probably only remember one of those items!

Cheers

Whirls

[IO540]

And im sorry to say it, never more than 1 at a time to an American pilot

Not sure where this blind prejudice comes from. The majority of the world's aviation takes place in the USA and their safety record is as good as the best in gold plated Europe.

More than likely the American pilot cannot understand a "regional UK" accent - I find some accents impenetrable and that's before one gets to the dreadful language they call "English" spoken by many ATCOs in the more southern parts of Europe.

I've read some recommendation somewhere about limiting the # of items to 3 but don't recall whether this was CAA (UK airways ATC) procedures, or ICAO.

One needs to develop a shorthand for writing down stuff, and have a pencil handy before making a transmission.

[clicker]

Reading all this reminds me of a Spantax DC6 that used to run into Heathrow on a nightky basis. One night the pilot was shall we say not a good english speaker and his hearing was just as excellent. On his first call he got a 3 item instruction from approach but he kept screwing up the cleared level. Finally the controller came back with "descend flight level eight zero. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, zero, readback."

[Julian]

And im sorry to say it, never more than 1 at a time to an American pilot

I am not sure where this has come from either as from my experience of flying in the US they throw all the info at you at once at a rapid rate! I ALWAYS write everything down when being given clearances, etc due to this fact. Like EA I have developed a shorthand over the years and find it works very well.

I do feel sorry for the heli pilots amongst us, didnt realise that wasnt an option for them. Hope they have elephant memories instead :)

J.

[Whirlybird]

I do feel sorry for the heli pilots amongst us, didnt realise that wasnt an option for them. Hope they have elephant memories instead

Thank you. I'm glad someone appreciates our memory load. ;)

But seriously, maybe I should explain further. In a helicopter, you have your right hand on the cyclic, and left hand on the collective. In small helicopters such as most PPLs fly, there's no trim on the cyclic when you're flying, and it's very sensitive, so you can't take your hand off it. You can use your left hand for short periods, but that gives you the option of either writing with your left hand, or swopping hands on the cyclic, both possible eventually, but difficult. And in the hover, you need complete control of the helicopter and daren't take your hand off ANY control...oh, how I hate being given detailed instructions requiring a long readback just as I'm approaching the aifield and coming to a hover!!!

However, larger helicopters do have trims, and the types used by the police, air ambulance etc often have SAS (stability augmentation systems) and even full autopilots, so readbacks aren't a problem at all. But your average PPL doesn't fly one of those.

What I do - and I tell my students to do the same - is repeat back what I can, and ask the ATCO to 'say again' everything else, even if I have to do that several times. But it helps if those on the other end of the radio realise the problem and give us info in smaller chunks, please!!!

[Penny Washers]

Another point to remember is that I, along with many others, only fly for one or two hours a month. That means that I am never going to be comfortable with facts and figures on the radio due to lack of practice.
Compare that with controllers who are on the radio all day and every day, and you can see that allowances have to be made.

[niknak]

Keygrip: My illustration of what could, and did happen, occured on a busy day with lots of RT, the pilot read back his clearance verbatim but still made the error, perhaps you are more perfect than others or perhaps in reallity you don't get out and about enough in the aviation sense?

Whirly:

It's standard procedure at our place, and many others, for the ATCO to ensure that helicopter pilots acknowledge reciept of the current ATIS before start up is given and thereafter the squawk is given prior to taxy clearance. This hopefully leaves you with ample opportunity to do what you have to do.