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"

Many years ago at an airfield somewhere in the "Middle East" there was a "Hicks-from-the-Sticks" Freighter who called:

"Four burnin' an' turnin' ready for the push"

To which a BA captain taxying behind replied:

"Actually, Old Bean, you've got five burnin' an' turnin', as you so quaintly put it. Your APU is on fire"

You gotta love them ol' Southern country boys.

It always amazes me that in these stories there is always a BA Captain to hand when a slack jawed American needs to be put in their place.

The country boys do provide some entertainment though.
"N123AB no speed restriction, climb FL100"
"Okay let the horses loose and up to the ton, 123 ayy bee"

"Charlie Charlie"...

Let me guess..

100 % Brits who have posted here so far??

Slasher might take exception to being called a Pom!

Lets not go down the road of El Al missing some passengers after taxiing at JFK and some wise guy on ground frequency telling them to check the ovens!

Crewmeal.

Not funny.

Hope the person concerned got to meet an unemployment queue shortly after.

Ready doesn't always seem to mean ready to some. Ask the pilot "report ready", back comes the reply "ready". Instructed to line up after the landing and the aircraft lines up at the correct time. Good stuff, plan A seems to be working. Landed aircraft vacates so aircraft cleared for take off. "Oh sorry the cabins not ready yet". The next transmission is to tell the inbound at 3 miles to go around. WHY LINE UP IF NOT READY? When questioned pilots reply that we are ready and we thought the cabin would be ready by the time we were cleared for take off.:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Mind you I keep saying to pilots "taxy forward". As if they could or would taxy backwards in normal operations.:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Terrain Safe happens in En Route too

"Big jet 123 ready for descent"

"Big Jet 123, descend FL 200"

"Ah Big Jet 123, roger....do you want us to descend now?"

Or the bunch of knobbers that I hear most days checking in after departure from London Stansted "xxx123 with you HokeyCokey 5A departure passing 3 thousand for x thousand WITH IDENT" .... Please stop it, it's only valid for identification when it's been requested.

It's all a bit of a laugh on the flightdeck to extract the urine out of our non standard peers. However the way some of you go on about it is quite entertaining. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. There's a reason why communicate is last. Hopefully all the non standard guys are better at the first two and laughing at biggles who level busts, incurs runways or has a CFIT every time they land, but thankfully performs the radio to the required ICAO phraseology standards

LOKI

Yep been there and heard that too.

We're surrounded I tell you!

And what the h... is fully establisher om the ILS?
Either established or not established....

What annoys me even more than most of these non-standard phrases is the number of pilots who check in on busy frequencies without so much as a nano-second's worth of waiting and listening before transmitting. Recently, I've had a pile of pretty important comms interrupted by people who just can't wait to have a chat with me. Please; wait five seconds after a freq change before transmitting.

Amazing how more flight hours are flown in N America than the rest of world combined, yet we somehow make it work without resorting to the anal radio pedantry that seems to be a requirement to exercise the privileges of a CAA ATPL license; and do it with the lowest accident rate of any jurisdiction. :rolleyes:

I hate the "fully ready" stuff...
But when a pilot reports ready for push-back and you see bridge still connected, or cargo door opened, and when there's not enough time for sarcasm... I must admit "call me back fully ready" is tempting :(

or
"ABC 123 cleared for t/o"
"Cleared for t/o ABC123"
2 seconds later
"rolling ABC123"

ah damn... that's the way you do it :E

Que?

Always thought that 'Ready upon reaching' was bona fide, a means to let ATC know that on reaching the hold there'd be no delay from our side, hence making it easier for him to plan his landing/departure sequence. Happy to be educated..? :confused:

On an aside: some places in the world anything other than the severely non-standard 'Charlie-charlie' will have the controller mystified :E

And therein lies the rub...the ICAO document isn't controlling, it is guidance and is superseded by a locally published variation.
My personal peeve is the dicks who use 121.5 as their own little chat channel...but normally a German is nearby to sort them out....:E

I think we should add to this...who has heard the best PA on an active frequency? and what lies and useless info did it contain, and did anyone offer congratulations?:E:E:E

Midland 9 in the Bravo cul-de-sac transmits PA on Heathrow Delivery "Our departure is delayed by ATC". Pilot informed "if you cared to request start you will note that there are, in fact, no ATC delays". Uh oh.

The best PA I got was from a BA pilot approaching STU who started a good 2 minute waffle about the weather in Heathrow, how long they could expect to hold, a few interesting facts about Wales and then some more waffle.

It was almost interesting, but it took me a long time to sort out the mess that 2 minutes of blocked frequency caused.

I did respond by telling him it was a lovely PA and that I hoped he could do it just as well for the passengers when he tried again in a minute.