United Kingdom Military RT Phraseology
 

I flew into a large UK military airfield yesterday. Until now my only experience of Military RT has been VFR transits of MATZ and LARS services.

Having flown IFR only in the civil environment, I was rather bemused by the volume of RT provided to me as I flew the ILS, much of it duplication of my own cockpit checklist items. Most of the calls seemed to require only acknowledgement or confirmation (eg "check gear", "check DH", "approaching/passing DH", "you're over the threshold"). I particularly liked the phrase "you are expected to land off this approach" which I thought put remarkable faith in my ability not to stuff it up and have to go missed.

I was handled by the approach controller all the way. In fact it took a transmission from me along the lines of "G-XXXX..I've landed..." to get a handover to the Tower.

I post this not to complain, but just to get some clarification on what the controller might have expected to hear in response to his calls. Googling around (and searching on here) got me to the Manual of Military Air Traffic Management, but that didn't really go into detail on the RT (indeed it referred me back to the CAP 413 in which none of this is mentioned).

So- does anyone know if there's a civvy's guide to RT phraseology at Military ADs. If you are a military pilot, you're probably used to non-miltary pilots' RT. It would be nice to know what replies were expected; when in Rome etc.

Thanks

The military are aligned to CAP413 although some "oddities" are mentioned in a seperate section (Ch 10 if I recall correctly).

LJ

Sounds like the Trafficker thought he was doing a PAR :}

The phraseology should have been exactly in line with CAP413 although bear in mind there is a small military specific bit at the back. I can't access it easily at the moment but you should only receive a 'check gear', approaching and passing Decision Height/Altitude calls. Having said that, if you received the latter you were probably being monitored on the PAR. Don't think that you should get an 'over touchdown' call on an ILS though. The controller was almost certainly waiting for you to report ready to switch to tower so that they didn't interupt/distract you on the landing run. In terms of replies, when you're asked 'check gear acknowledge' a simple 'gear down' with your callsign. You don't need to acknowledge the DH calls, they're just advisory. Once you're on the ground and under control, just advise that you're switching to tower and APP will send you on your way.

Figure,

I think that you think that we have an answer.

We don't.

Frankly the drivel that comes out of military ATC amazes me, especially all the rubbish arse covering regarding reduced radar performance for the zzzz time and that I am responsible for that big hill they are pointing me at.

In my ideal universe we would have the RT brevity and discipline of the average civilian controller matched with the brevity and discipline of the average military aircrew chap. Imagine the extra capacity on any given frequency!

Don't get me started about the radar service I do not want, failure to provide the one I need referenced to an altimeter setting that I do not care for.

Slight side track ...

A long time ago I was asked on a PAR in a Chipmunk to "confirm gear down" ... answered "down and welded" :cool:

FOM,

Do recall one can teach a Monkey to fly. :E

Military ATC is just a backup in that system.

Just This Once, I totally agree with you. Once upon a time I was streamed ATC so spent a bit of time in towers as an asst. Notwithstanding the skills required to do the actual job, I was put off by all the superfluous mouth music that was seemingly part and parcel of it; much of it irrelevant to the crews and said for apparently little more than arse covering reasons. :rolleyes:

Then there were the JSP318A phraseology comedians who kept themselves in a job by changing otherwise perfectly good official phrases once in a while - my favourite was the diktat to use 'cleared to land' vs 'cleared land', which reverted back about a year later. :ugh:

I'll give you a little insight into mil ATC. It is manned by very inexperienced ATCOs who are managed by very inexperienced managers/supervisors. Unfortunately, this results in a massive lack of flexibility and ability to be able to apply any common sense to a given situation all because they are adhering to the rules; only black and white. This results in a poor service. On top of this, the geniuses in MOD thought it would be a good idea to apply CAP413 to mil ops. Bad idea. This is in no way a dig at the individuals, just the system. All this is a result of cuts in manning. By the way, I am an ATCO and have my current job has allowed me to experience this 'service' from the other end.

Do not acknowledge further calls unless requested.

I agree that brevity is a great thing but the odd 'dirty talkdown' certainly restored the faith:ok:. "You are manoeuvring into my dark area" might not be in the manual but made me smile at the time!

Figure Of Merit

CAP413 Chapter 10 (with a quick reference to areas of difference at Appendix 2). What you describe sounds pretty standard.

As to all the other chat associated with mil radar services, mil ATC still labours under the weight of the Ben Macdui tragedy, even though it was largely attributable to the pilots' misunderstanding of the extant rules.

My favourite bit was back in 2004 when I flew a civil 737 into Akrotiri. Now, back in the dark ages I had flown on the RAF C130 fleet. The nice WRAF controller asked me if I was familiar with Akrotiri. My reply of "not since 1975" must have thrown her a bit, since the next control voice was male. Chances are my last visit to Akrotiri was before she was born! ;)

"Do not acknowledge further instructions unless requested"

Therefore, "check gear, acknowledge" is the only one they want a reply for.

Once safely on the deck "G-XXXX to tower."

Why do military controllers talk so fast even when they are not busy?

In the 70s at a secret base in Germany we used to practice nil RT launch and recovery on exercises!

Sheer bliss!!!:ok::ok::ok::ok:

I fly from a mil airfield (civvy, civvy a/c) and the ILS approaches tend to be fairly verbal free at my place. Ask for vectors to ILS, get them, then a call for cockpit checks complete, established on localiser. That's about it really. PAR of course is what it is, talkdown, so one would expect some verbiage to be going on.

Edit: I haven't done an instrument approach at another mil airfield apart from an NDB/DME approach into Cranwell once but TBH I haven't noticed any difference between an approach into my airfield or say Donny or Humberside other than it seems to be less of a drama at a civ airfield. You ought to try talking to Lakenheath/Mildenhall for rapid fire delivery....:)

I've taken some of our ATC guys and gals up on PAR/ILS's to show them what it's like from the other end, hand flying a Warrior while getting bounced around like a ball in a spin drier. They seem to appreciate the problems a little more when they ask for 'correct two degrees left'. Oh yeah?

A lot of it is developed for the single seater fighter and "check gear" is a required procedure which repaced a second crew member. Now, I fly airliners around Asia and operate into several combined military/civil airfields in Taiwan, Korea and Japan. They all ask for a gear check, regardless of type. It's common.

A fairly recent jaunt into the secret Somersetshire base in my pal's EC120 involved four, yes four ATC frequencies. There was one other aircraft (also RW) in the circuit.

One guy with a handheld in a L@ndRover would have been under-worked.

Dallas ... Good old JSP318 has been replaced by this lot ...

MOD MAA

Happy wading ... :ok:

Extra read back !
 

The only thing that I find irritating is the double conformation of some things that military ATC require .........

As I change from ground to tower having already been told to hold shout of the runway. I check in with tower saying "xxxx taxing to hold short of runway xx".

This is to immediately assure the tower controler and the guy who is half mile final that I am not intending to enter the runway. However the tower now instruct me "xxxx hold at xx hold" and expect a read back.

I think the level of required read backs is a bit high but this reflects the low traffic workload, I would suggest an hour or so sitting in the tower at Gatwick should be part of RAF ATCO training, it would show how much can be achieved safely with the minimum of radio traffic.

Yeah, probably all true, but is an extra, confirmatory read-back such a burden? Just a controller keeping us all safe. I've always held the RAF controllers in the highest regard and thoroughly appreciated an excellent service.

Courtney, seconded! Having heard some of the innate drivel from our GA counterparts (both airborne and on control freq) I must say the Mil controllers are amazingly good.

Tenerife is a classic example of why a few extra words to clarify uncertainty are worth the burden...

Here, here. Apart from the time ScATCCMil mis-idented me and descended me IMC into the Cairngorms after a LL Pull-up. But hey, I emerged into a valley and I'm still here. Very grateful for Kinloss having a 24 hr aircrew bar that day.

+1


I have operated all over the globe and been in receipt of some truly shocking ATC services.

I have a photograph of the ATC radar controller's desk at an airfield in Europe. The pretty assistant (been doing the job for 6 weeks, no training) is sitting at the desk, guarding the beer (his second) of the controller who hasn't been seen for 20 minutes. It is 11am. Two airliners have called for departure instructions in the time he has been absent.

Probably not the best ATC service in the World....
(Guess the brand of beer)

PAR
 

I always used to titter when one of the 'old boys' at Boscombe ( in the good old days when we controllers were CAA ) used to round off his talkdown with 'Look ahead and land'.

Once, with a film camera pointing at me, I had to 'do' a PAR talkdown with a pretend aircraft. It was amazingly difficult, one minute chuntering away as if I was talking to a Jag on one engine, the next slowly as if to a Scout:O

In 30 years of flying in the RAF, I have never heard that particular call. :confused:

+ another one. :D

Courtney / MOCS / JAJ
 

The " hold short " clearance is used a lot in the USA and in Europe ( excluding the UK ) and the reason is that it leaves the controller and any other interested party that you intend to hold short of a point with the minimum of radio time.

Conformation might be nessesary if there is any doubt but usually there is no doubt. At places like Gatwick you are just cleared by ground to a hold and told to listen out on the tower frequency no conformation is required when switching to tower.

As I have said I think that the number of times things are confirmed on military airfields reflects the amount of traffic and the time avalable, with the level of radio traffic at some of the more congested airports I have visited the multipule readbackd would result in the operation grinding to a halt.

Please don't see this as a critsisum of individual RAF controllers who I have the greatest of respect for, it is just a view of the system from a standpoint outside of the military.

Unfortunately the double take on the hold instruction has been needed many times as a lot of civ pilots seem to think the taxi to runway and hold instruction means enter and hold !
Also ignoring basic orders and requests, last week a Cessna taxied without calling to taxi and without calling to start. OK not a great transgression but when we had to stop heli's moving all of a sudden it doesn't really help.

'Hold Short' is a completely pointless clearance, being as it is, tautology.

You are not going hold on the runway (at least not without prior clearance to enter the runway), ergo you must be holding short of the runway when you are holding.

This sort of excess verbiage so beloved of non professional civies (and student aircrew) is exactly the sort of rubbish that blocks up busy frequencies.

It's not only mil ATC. When I started operating out of my current civilian airfield, on calling for rejoin, Approach would tell me "Join for right base 22, QNH 1000". Being a helpful chap, much like A & C, on changing to tower, I call, "Joining for right base 22, QNH 1000". Tower reply, "Join for right base 22, QNH 1000", again expecting a read back. I don't bother anymore. :ugh:

And don't even ask about wake turbulence separation. :ugh:

Exascoteer your opinion seems to be in complete disagreement with scarecrow450.

The important issue is that an aircraft does not enter the runway without clearance, the and tne point in question here is how to do this with the minimum of radio traffic, if the radio transmission can also assure a pilot who is about to land that the aircraft taxing to the hold is not about to enter the runway so much the better.

So Exascoteer let's take the example of an aircraft checking in on the tower frequency as it is taxing to the hold.

Aircraft. "Xxxx tower xxxxx taxing to hold short runway xx"

Tower. "Roger"


The other way

Aircraft. "Xxxx tower xxxxxx taxing to hold runway xx"

Tower. "xxxxxx hold at xxx

Aircraft. "xxxxxx holding at xxxx"

Both ways achieve the objective but which passes the most information in the least radio air time ?

And both are erroneous because the aircraft Captain does not give him/herelf clearance to taxy, he/she requests it.

Furthermore, on a Military airfield (or major Civil airport) nor does the aircraft taxy using Tower frequency, but Ground frequency, so the idea:

Is also completely erroneous.




The way the RAF and every major airfield I've ever operated through is as follows:

The aircraft requests taxy on 'Ground' and is given clearance, holding point (if reqd) and QFE/QNH.

The aircraft does not tell Ground where it is going and why because it does not have that right.


Probably because, in my experience, one does not allow 'Puddle Jumpers' to operate into busy Military or Civil airfields/airports for that very reason!

Having done The Job for over 25 yrs (albeit not recently) I’ll try to answer some of the points raised on this thread in an effort to provide the OP with some reasoned explanations as to some of the ways of military controlling:

Background. Individuals perform like they are trained and how they practice. UK Mil ATC – specifically RAF in this case – is based on providing ATC services to predominantly high-workload, single-seat, short-endurance, fast jets* that may have been engaged on operations and may have suffered battle damage. Airframes are unlikely to be in their prime and the complexity – together with the relative lack of redundancy in systems - of many military aircraft means that failures are far more commonplace than in the civvie world; crews’ stress levels are likely to be high even as a routine. Therefore, the role of the RAF ATCO is to be the pilot’s mentor and guardian and to assist him/her to the maximum extent practical. In my time one sold one’s self dear to ensure that Bloggs got airborne and on the ground as SAFELY and as quickly as possible. If that meant a plethora of coordination with other controllers to get a direct track and an optimum descent profile, (we were doing that years before “CDA” became a civvie buzz-word) then “don’t think about it – get on and DO IT”!

*pattern speed 250 kts or thereabouts.

To answer specifics. The single-seat – without much room in it for Approach plates or pilots’ notes etc – fast-jet scenario is the basis for most of the “Drivel” and “superfluous mouth music” that military ATCOs have to contend with too; rest assured that we don’t want to be spouting this either when there’s other, usually higher priority tasks (eg coordination) to be undertaken. It’s as a result of aircraft still landing or attempting to land with their gear up, that there’s the (before Glidepath intercept) “Check gear down and locked” and at about 2½NM “Final Cockpit checks, acknowledge” phraseology still in use.

Quote: “All the rubbish arse covering regarding reduced radar performance for the zzzz time and that I am responsible for that big hill they are pointing me at” is also as a direct result of people in the past getting - shall we say ‘ever so slightly intrigued’ - by the sudden appearance of another aeroplane in their piece of sky having loomed out of the rain clutter/overhead/area of shadow. Yes, it is arse covering, I wholly agree. You tell me why it’s considered necessary? Because, after the Captain (if he’s still alive), the ATCO is usually the second ‘Guilty Bastard’ marched to the kangaroo court. I’ll give you the Ben Macdui tragedy (again) and also when a Buccaneer ran off the end of the runway at Gib** as examples. (And let’s not forget who are the top neddy’s that hand down these requirements……..last time I looked, the RAF wasn’t run by Air Traffickers!)

** The ATCO was held partly responsible because he did not say; “you have a tailwind component” (not that there was a requirement to) when he transmitted the surface wind on talkdown, a transmission that the aircraft commander denied was made, yet was clear on the tape transcript – twice!

Remember that the vast majority of Military ATC is not conducted in a nice known traffic environment of Controlled Airspace. It’s mainly conducted in Glass G airspace where tracks are random, 7000 squawks are everywhere and, if you are providing a radar service, HAVE to be avoided by 5NM or 3,000 ft and you HAVE to coordinate – or take 5NM - if your track is going to pass within 3,000 ft of someone else’s radar track. Coordination is the touchstone of military ATC; 80% of a Mil ATCO’s workload is landline coordination with other ATCOs; the frequency may be quiet but the ATCO is probably talking constantly to his team-mates or other units to arrange your safe passage.
Military units usually only have 122.1 available between them as a dual-purpose VHF Approach and Tower frequency; this is probably why the OP thought he was handled by Approach the whole way. This is also why there is much use of full callsigns to ensure that the right message is addressed from a specific unit to a specific aircraft. They also usually only have 123.3 as a dual-purpose VHF Director and Talkdown frequency, but if an adjacent unit is doing a talkdown on it, well, it is virtually unusable for anything else.

It sounds as though the OP was doing an ILS monitored on PAR. In the past (not so dim and distant) it would appear that MoD was incapable of introducing an aircraft with a reliable ILS fit into RAF Service. All it needed was for Boscombe Down to note a slight reluctance for the GP not to capture during trials and ALL that type were then deemed – for ever and a day - to suffer from ‘Sticking ILS Glidepath needles’. The JP 3A/5A, F4 and Lightning (that was supposed to have been capable of autoland at one point in its career) were all tarnished with this accolade for their entire Service lives; and I’m not sure about the Jaguar either; memory might be failing on types here! Consequently, it was decreed from their Airships that these types were not able to conduct an ILS approach without PAR monitoring. As the approach was therefore under the jurisdiction of the talkdown controller, he/she was responsible for discharging their responsibilities as laid down in sundry regulations eg checking, gear, transmitting surface wind, getting landing clearances (with cable and barrier state no doubt) which accounts for the higher-than-civvie-level of RT for a military ILS procedure.

Human Factors. As ever, there’s another side to the story too. On arrival for my 2nd tour at Leuchars I noticed that the powerful area coverage Craigowl Hill TACAN (located in the mountains to the north of Leuchars) radiated on channel 24X, was not to be confused with the aerodrome’s TACAN – that supported non-precision approaches - that radiated on – yes - Channel 42X. Hmmmm I thought, accident waiting to happen. And so it proved. However, what I wasn’t prepared for was the insistence that I had to resort to over the RT to get an F4 that was descending to 1,500’ on a TACAN approach towards 1800+ ’ mountains, to turn off his track, reselect the numbers on his TACAN receiver THE OTHER WAY AROUND, and intercept a FAT that wasn’t going to end up in Cumulo-granite.

Sorry about the long post but I did want to try to get some explanations across to the OP.

PS for Newt: Yes, we used to enjoy the nil RT launch/Internal Aids recoveries too! Especially those back into Honington that lined up and flew an approach to the old USAAF base at Shipdham. Oh how we laughed and slapped our thighs! :}

You simply have not heard so many words per minute until you have flown a PAR approach at an American military airfield.

Oh I don't know, Decci would give the Spams a run for their money!

I remember the accident at Lajes when 2xF4 thought the runway was clear and they had permission to enter as their tanker had been cleared take-off some time earlier.

As they entered the active their KC135 came thundering over the hill behind them with predictable consequences.

I must admit I can't find reference to this in the wiki list.

ExAscoteer,

You are missing the point spectacularly. The 'puddle-jumpers' A and C (and I) operate out of not into a military airfield. And A and C spends his days flying, IIRC, a B737 in and out of much busier airfields than that.

And I'm with MightyGem: I've given up trying to be helpful and save a radio call by saying XXX Tower, G-ABCD, join, runway 19, QFE 1001 as they just go through it all again and want it read back. They seem incapable of common sense.

Still as they seem to change every five minutes perhaps they have only just learned the job before they move on.

Tim

ExAscoteer
 

I am not sure if you are deliberately misinterpreting my posts but I try to make things a little more clear.

At no time did I say that an aircraft would taxi without clearance from ATC, my example was for an aircraft approaching the hold at the active end of the runway who has been told to change from ground to tower.

The whole point of the "Taxing to hold short of xx" call is to assure the tower controler ( and any traffic on final approach ) that the aircraft in question has no intention of passing the hold that it has previously been cleared to by the ground controller with the minimum verbiage.

Perhaps you might explain what a puddle jumper is ? I normaly fly at airfields that have fixed wing and rotory traffic and have yet to encounter this type of machine.