R/T Best Practice

[Tubbs]

Not sure if the standard of RT is rising or falling with time, but I am becoming more aware of certain trends which seems to be adopted/copied/accepted more and more.

Examples which wind me up and more importantly, take longer to transmit are as follows:

• "ident you have/ ident coming down"
• reading back non-mandatory read-back items, such as "report passing 2000 feet"
• Saying "copied" or "that's copied" or "roger that"
• "fully ready" - is that more ready than "ready"?
• Saying upon being instructed to transfer frequency "thanks very much, have a nice day, hope the wife and kids are well blah blah blah"
• "if it's ok with you, we'd like to climb/descent/fart about" rather than "request x/y/z"

The list is obviously not exhaustive and I may not be correct in some of the above, so feedback from ATCOs would be much appreciated, as would comments from my colleagues and any pet hates or examples of best practice they have.

On the last couple of points (and I know it's been discussed here before) I'm in favour of a quick "bye" if the frequency isn't busy, but some people do take it a bit far.

Are we being influenced by foreign R/T standards or American cop shows? 'Roger that, copied'

[2 sheds]

Tubbs - agree entirely with the thrust of your post. I would also add to my list of hates the pointless term "best practice"! There can only be "good practice" or, in this type of subject, demonstrably "correct practice"!

2 s

[glush]

The FRTOL can be attached to a crew licence, and therefore (assuming the licence remains continously valid), the quality of RT may never be validated again for the entire career of the pilot concerned.... I wonder if it's a contributory factor or not?

[Tubbs]

Fair enough...my old life in the world of offices and meetings sometimes throws up the odd example of bullsh#t business lingo. Now, back to the RT issue and no slippage please - let's think outside the box people.

[Chesty Morgan]

"London good morning err.........................checks watch....................................................... ............................................................ ....correction* good afternoon..."

It doesn't matter FFS just get on with it. Next time just say hello if you have to!

"London good morn............aftern...........umm................checks me......hello..."

* At least he got that bit right!

[Talkdownman]

Agree with 2 sheds. Correct practice is the practice which is correct in accordance with the definitive document.
(I think nats LCEs coined the term 'best practice', hence why I think it is nonsense )

Examples given are rife and reflect badly on some airlines.
What ever happened to standard words? One word=one meaning: ROGER/WILCO/CONTACT etc

Roger does not mean Wilco.
Roger does not mean Understood.
Wilco can replace many unnecessary readbacks

"ident you have/ ident coming down"

Even worse is no reply at all, expecting the ident pulse to be a substitute response.

I was an RTF Examiner once (until the school went bust) and without hesitation I'd fail candidates delivering content like the examples given. All exams were recorded. If the debrief included any playback the candidate would clearly cringe when listening to themself. I'd ask where they got Copy/Roger that/Copied/Copy That/Wait One/Received/Tally-Ho from and they'd say films. Not CAP413. Films.