ETA confusion
 

Hi everyone!

I have a question for you, and I know it's a stupid newbie question, but as it says in the header for this forum: Ask the questions you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask. I should probably know the answer to this one a long time ago, but here goes:

What is the correct procedure to give ATC en ETA? Is it relative or absolute zulu time? In other words: If the time is 13:40 and I state an ETA for a certain waypoint as "ETA 50". Does that mean I have told ATC my ETA is 13:50 or 14:30 (in other words 50 minutes from current time)?

I thought I knew the answer to this one, but I was confused the other day when flying my first international flight (very low density traffic-wise, Northern Europe), at first contact with ATC after crossing the FIR, he asked for my ETA to a certain waypoint. And when given, he asked me if I could confirm I was flying VFR. After a few exchanges back and forth, I ended up saying ETA 14:02 zulu, just to avoid any misunderstanding. But it still had me wondering if I had the right "short format" to begin with or not. Can anyone help me, please?

If the time is 1403 and you say "ETA 30" your ETA is 1430.

In your example you're saying that your ETA is 1350.

ETA 1350.

50 minutes from current time would be EET ( estimated elapsed time).

Only because I hate doing the (limited I know maths) I prefer the time.....ie eta XXXXX at time 17...rather than 27 minutes from now...:(:ok:

ETA times.
 

As far as I know all ETAs are four digits. All ETAs should be given as four digits even if it is 0001. Even if you are one minute away from your ETA you should express it as a four digit number. You should never say "XX minutes past the next hour" as this is obvious just like ALL times are UTC.

Over here we already have an estimate for your arrival over any particular point and unless your estimate is way off you are only required to give two figures and common sense works the rest out.

AFAIK unless ATC ask you otherwise it's normally it's as "unrestricted" as said, just the last two digits of the waypoint crossing time. Exceptions I can think of would be if the ETA is several hours hence and/or on an oceanic position report on HF when full four digits of the time are required.