Latest VHF com piss-offs!
 

The past 2 years have shown a rise in the number of home-made air-ground phraseologies that
are slowly becoming the casually accepted norm. This is especially so around my own stamping
ground of SE Asia.

For example...
Standard - "Dullsville Control ABC123 FL350. Request FL370."
Casual - "Dullsville ABC123 checking in at FL350, and looking for 370."

What with this "checking in" ****? And "looking for"? I'm sometimes tempted to quip "If you look
straight up you'll find its 2,000 feet above you pal!"

Another -
Standard ATC - "ABC123 say final level?"
Standard reply - "ABC123 FL 290"

Casual reply - ABC123 is requesting 290 today."

So when did this "today" crap start? Is he hinting to ATC he won't want the same level tomorrow?

We're all guilty of non-standard phrases on both sides of the mike, but its usually one-off and not
a habit. Its when it gradually becomes accepted that confusion slowly sets in - esp on freqs with
high traffic density. It boils my urine something fierce when some non-standard jerkoff screws up
my climb/descent because ATC is still trying to figure out what exactly he said! http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...cons/icon8.gif

Anyone else?

Yes. "ABC123 with you climbing blah heading blah"

With you? You don't say job knockey.

"ABC123 almost nearly fully ready"

Oh and slow the f**k down.

Slasher... Your language is just as bad as theirs.

Also:
- in the box
- coming down
- fully ready
- ready when reaching
- in sequence

Monkey see monkey do :E

"Golf Alpha X-Ray Teakettle Barbecue on frequency".
"Golf Alpha X-Ray Teakettle Barbecue on handover", (especially when no co-ordination had been carried out),
always amused me.
Admittedly, this sort of stuff came from tiddlers/noddy-boxes/clockwork mice*, so didn't really mind. Everyone has to start somewhere.

*Delete as applicable.

Oh yes, gets me every time.

"Taxi holding point B2, runway 08". "Oh, we're looking for runway 26."

Well, when you take off from 08 if you look behind you it'll be there.

Yep that's another one - like saying "fully pregnant". :rolleyes:

"Final Level"

"Bye bye" is a personal bugbear.

"Knobjockey123, contact London Control 123.5 bye bye."
"123.55, Knobjockey123."

A colleague has the habit of saying "No delay today, Heathrow should bring you off." :E

Many of these non standard "I'm cool" phrases have been going for many years. The one that really grates me is the "fully ready" one. Look pal, you're either ready or not ready!

Around the Orlando area I heard an aircraft cleared to a new level and he replied with his callsign only.

Brilliant.

We have it on TCAS.......

The trouble with "fully ready" is that many airports request and publish for crews to report "fully ready"

So maybe in these circumstances the "offender" is only doing what is published!

Thing is PT6A I've never seen the phrase "fully ready" in any ICAO document or
AIP - if it were gazetted as such we'd all be saying it. As HT said earlier you're
either ready or not - just as your girlfriend reports either she's pregnant or not.

I spat the dummy not long ago in BKK when TWR asked am I fully ready. I just
refuse to be sucked into this nonsense. This is after I reported "ready" on initial
contact. My reply was "ABC123 ready". ATC then asked "but are you fully ready?"
Again "ABC123 ready". "Confirm fully ready?" "ABC123 ready." "ABC123 I need
know if you fully ready." "ABC123 ready." (by this stage I was lined up with the
TO light on!)

"So you fully ready?"

"ABC123...READY! *

I believe this fully ready crap probably started when pilots have reported ready
thinking the girls will report in very shortly - only to find by line-up they're still
jabbering away on the PA. Just my theory.

* If anyone happened to hear that on TWR for 19L - yep it was me! ;)

The big deal is not about buddies approaching the holding point, but it usually is more likely to happen during start up when Ready crew do still hold their passengers on the boarding stairs.

Whilst I don't agree with it, I have certainly seen 'fully ready' mentioned in the Jepps. Even saw it yesterday at Venice:

'Contact APT operator on 131.47 when fully ready to move'

From 0530-1300‡ and from 1400-2100‡, call for ATC CLR possible up to 15min before fully ready. ACFT
calling have to use following phraseology:
- "DELIVERY, (Call-sign), (Stand), (Type), (QNH), (received ATIS INFO), REQ CLR only."
Becoming fully ready to start, use following phraseology:
- "(Call-sign), fully ready."

Lifted straight from the charts - don't blame us!

Without wishing to get argumentative (I know - it will look like I am!) part of the issue is we have to cross 36 FIRs from OMDB to KJFK, each ATC sector has their own way of doing things, from an ATC perspective, it could be argued that things are a little more parochial, so you know 'your stuff' (MATS - whatever) and maybe some of the 'stuff' in the adjoining FIRs because you talk to them every day. We get classic comments like "don't you have our AIP in your flight deck" when querying a FL250 descent restriction with 60 miles beyond the restriction to the threshold of the active runway; "Er, no". Sorry if we are aggronoying pilots but sometimes we try not to be idiots but we're not too sure what is the latest form of perceived idiocy.

I was mortified the other day for example: having operated 3 sectors a day into LHR with bmi, I hadn't been to LHR with our lot in the last 6 years. I did my reading and checked the notams but then when asked to call Heathrow Director and falling back into the old ways of "callsign only to director" failed to realise that there are now TWO directors and the first one wanted the Type, level passing, level cleared, ATIS. I missed it so the very patient gent on the other end (thanks - if you are reading this) asked me for the details :ouch:

...ie. when instructed ;)

A reasonable theory, IMHO ;)

"Bigjet 123 request FL350 if available"