Aviation/Forum Jargon

[donnlass]

Hello

Quoting from the Easy Button thread and from other threads on PPRuNE, please could someone decipher some aviation jargon mainly:

SLF
T/L
A/T
RA

:confused::confused:

Thanx lots, fly safely

[HEATHROW DIRECTOR]

SLF is "Self Loading Freight", i.e. passengers.

[deltayankee]

RA = Radio Altimeter
A/T = Auto Throttle

[Yellow Sun]

Alternatively

RA= Resolution Advisory
A/T= Auto Thrust

YS

[Seat62K]

My pet hate is the use of either IATA or ICAO airport codes in the "Passengers/SLF" forum for airports which are bound to be unfamiliar to most of us. Are you telling me that it's much quicker to press "caps lock" type in three or four letters, then press "caps lock" again than to write the airport's name?

Frankly, the use of these codes sometimes strikes me as pretentious and even though I use them from time to time, I try not to. Even pilots don't always know to which airports some of these codes apply!

[The SSK]

SLF can also mean seat load factor, ie passenger-km divided by seat-km. To distinguish from overall load factor which is tonne-km performed (passengers, freight and mail) divided by available tonne-km.

[shinobi1]

SEAT 62K wrote My pet hate is the use of either IATA or ICAO airport codes

Let me see....

BMW = Bordj Mokhtar
HME = Hassi-Messaoud
IAM = Zarzaitine
QKT = Kortrijk-Vevelgem

Yup, there's a very good reason we use abbreviations.:ok:

With my serious head on, I'd never heard of these places before, but all it took was a quick google and I found these examples. There are some very good websites that will provide these codes as well as airport information.
I appreciate that some codes relate directly to city names (eg, VIE-Vienna) but when you have cities with several airports, the codes save you having to write the city and airport down. And I'm all for an easy life.:cool:

Shinobi

[AircraftOperations]

Tip:

Hold down the "Shift" button when typing in your 3/4 letter airport codes for a much faster way than hitting "Caps Lock" twice.

[BelArgUSA]

To Seat62K -
xxx
I am one of these old pilots (recently retired) confused by today's jargon.
Funny is, with my airlines, aircrews always used 3 letter codes for airports.
These were the only ones we knew. Our flight plans showed 4 letter codes
So we did not have to look in our airport listings to know which one.
I did memorize some 50 "3 letter" and 20 "4 letter" airport codes.
xxx
Got me seriously confused when some nerds called AMS to be SPL.
And I was often based at JFK, or NYC. Runways too short at LGA for 747s.
I knew that LON meant LHR until we operated to LGW as well.
Or PAR for CDG, BUE for EZE, RIO for GIG, ROM for FCO... Who cares...?
xxx
Fact is "4 letter" airport codes are favored by PPL or Ultralight professionals.
EGCP...? Let's see... E/Europe, G/Great Britain, CP/Cow Patch int'l airport.
Sounds so good and so technical, is it, to use 4 letters on Pprune...?
xxx
Then there is aeronautical and aircraft systems abbreviations and jargon.
Is A/C air conditioning, or aircraft...? I also remember that AC is 400 Hz.
What is flight crew...? I thought it meant cockpit crewmembers.
If they say "your flight crew will serve drinks", should I expect the pilots to do it...?
For me, cabin staff (cabin crewmembers) are not flight crew.
xxx
In the 1970s, we changed "abort" (takeoff) for "reject" as a T/O call.
Some Catholic aircrews were, I understand, against abortion.
Before the FMS, old 747s had Delco "PMS" Performance Management System.
A flight attendant once asked me if we talked about premenstrual syndrome.
Talking about FMS, why in hell do they use ABCDE keyboards...?
My laptop is QWERTY. Would have been so easy to design FMS with same.
And make it AZERTY keyboard for Air France.
xxx
Sorry, my language is a degenerated English dialect called American slang.
A minority language spoken by 320+ million people... Plus many Canadians.
No better than Eastender's Cockney drawl, if you compare the two...
Do you get CNN with subtitles for translation on TV in UK...?
Yet multilingual, I am unable to read/understand SMS textese.
Once sent dinner invitation to a lovely flight attendant, she answered FK-U.
Could you translate for me...? She never showed-up... Thanks.
xxx
So at my old age, in my rocking chair, Pprune is quite an education...
:E
Happy contrails

[Seat62K]

Great post!

Thank you!