Any advice for the R/T practical?

[Gazeem]

Dos anyone have any handy hints or advice for the R/T practical examination.

I am due to sit it tomorrow and would appreciate any tips or (helpful) advice.

Cheers,

Gaz

[Capt Wannabee]

Make sure you know your stuff! Make sure you can talk clearly and without stammering your way through.
Think about the RT you would use on a normal land away with an emergency (in my test not to my aircraft) en route.
Not that bad as long as you think before you speak and use the few mins you get to look over the route to think about what you need to be saying.

Good luck.

[wannabe69]

Too right Capt, you need to know your airspaces. Your route will almost definitely take you through about 3 types of airspace, so know what to do in Class A (SVFR etc), Class D and also Air/Ground stations etc. I got stumped a little on the Special VFR bit, but managed to get through. Know your stuff and you cant go wrong.

Oh, and Good Luck!

[Barney]

Hi,

Yep, not really much to add what the others had said.

There are some example routes in the CAA RT Handbook (CAP ???). If you make sure that you revise these well, you should be OK.

Your exam will have all the standard initial contact, radio checks, aerodrome info, request taxi, departure, en-route pan call (mine was a rough running engine - it was OK, so then cancelled pan call), relayed May Day call (pen and paper at the ready to take details - hint hint!), weather deterioration at destination (so advise of possible alternate - turned out to be OK, so div not needed), obtain QDM from homer station (at least I think it was a QDM!?), standard overhead join, circuit, landing, runway vacate, and shutdown.

Make sure you know your 'Q' abbreviations etc. Learn the ORDER of info for position report, pan call, may day call etc. There are loadsa examples in the CAP ???

Finally, if things go pear-shaped, don't panic! The examiner will do exactly what a ATC would do. They will help you if you get a bit stuck, and try and coach you through (within limits - i.e. don't do what one guy I know of did.......used October instead of Oscar throughout the whole exam!)

Need anymore info/advice, get in touch.

Good luck

Barney

[InTheAir]

Know and understand the route as best you can. Apart from that nothing too unorthodox and you should be fine. I passed with no exposure to UK airspace and learnt much of what I should've known already through the practical.

BTW, if you get the one where you're required to divert because of strong winds, please get the message after 16 knots (crosswind) and not 30 knots like me!

Barney: I knew a guy who was about to do the exam thinking 'S' = Sharon. He knows who he is and if he wants to pick a fight he can get in touch with me :) :)


[This message has been edited by InTheAir (edited 18 April 2001).]

[str12]

1. Corball MATZ, G-ABCD
Request MATZ Penetration

"...Pass details"

Call Sign
Type
From
To
Via (next waypoint)
Position
Time
Level (plus QNH/QFE)
Estimate (at destination or next waypoint)

2. Position Report (e.g "Report at XYZ")
Call Sign
Position
Time
Level
Estimate (at destination or next waypoint)

If intending to go through a controlled airspace then call and ask for (possibly SVFR) clearance well in advance. Same if crossing water.

If doing a diversion then tell them you are diverting and changing freq. to diversion airfield.

Ask the destination/diversion for airport actual (weather).

Know how to do an MAYDAY (including intercepting someone elses). Same for PAN.

Reason
Intention
Position
Level
Heading
POB

Last thing, might need to do a DF

"...XYZ Radar, G-ABCD requests TRUE BEARING"

They will ask you to Tx for a fix.

You say:
TRUE BEARING, TRUE BEARING, G-ABCD TRUE BEARING.

They will tell you Bearing and A, B, C or D for 2, 5, 10, or greater than 10 degree accuracy.

Know what to readback, ie. runway in use, clearances, Taxi instructions, levels, QNHs etc.

Do a flight plan on a chart, get the frequencies en route and do a practise R/T exercise.

Hope this helps. Practise makes perfect.

Good Luck.

[Capt Wannabee]

Basically to sum up Know your Sh*t!

[Noggin]

Safety Sense Leaflet 22 "Radiotelephony" has a sample test in the back. If you know that you will pass.

[Gazeem]

Thanks for all the help guys. I passed the test, but some interesting points were raised in my mind about some of the examples in CAP 413.

It does not show very clearly the need to use MAYDAY GABCD as your callsign for every message when in the distress dialogue. I would have thought that this point would have been stressed more in the CAA offical handbook.

Still I know now.

Once again thanks for the top tips.

Gaz

[Noggin]

The need is imaginary, thats why it is not shown. It does however remind others not to use the frequency if there is MAYDAY traffic in progress.