"Leaving" or "Left" Altitudes (ATC'ers pls)
 

Vacating maintained FL's/ALT's, AIP says to report - LEFT FLxxx etc.
A large Aussie Airline tells their pilots that the word 'LEFT' is only to be used with heading instruction/confirmations IE "LEFT HDG xxx" BUT
Does "LEAVING" FL's/ALT's satisfy ATC'ers requirements for leaving/left maintained altitudes? or not???

Should we readback "CLEAR for take-off", or
"CLEARED for take-off"?
After all, clear is something I do with my nose when it's running, or refers only to the weather.

Forget them B S D, you've got more important stuff to concern yourself with, than to listen to people whose brains obviously aren't much bigger than a peanut.

IMO, either one is okay :ok:

"Left" is a positive affirmation that says you have departed that level. "Leaving" means that you intend to leave that level when it suits you but have not necessarily departed that level. This means there is uncertainty if you have actually left or not yet left.

It's like someone asking you if you are leaving your wallet behind or have you left your wallet behind. Significant difference in meaning There should be no ambiguity in radio procedures. For decades, the term "left" a level was in AIP, until some bureaucrat decided that ICAO terminology (regardless of its obvious flaws) should be used in Australia.

I believe that there are places that if you say "Left FL350" that means somebody else can then be assigned that level, even if you are only being polite and we can see on the radar that you haven't 'left' anything!

"Leaving" has the advantage of not meaning anything definite at all.

AIP ENR still says "left a level", can only find reference to "leaving" in datalink bits.

While we're bing petty. How about when people say taxying "this time" for XXXX or overhead XXX at "this time" .

You wouldn't give the call 10 mins after the action so every call by bloody definition is at"this time" .

Rant over. I feel better now (or is it at this time?)

Does anyone have a reference for the terminology in AIP?

And one of my petty dislikes on the radio, "IF AVAILABLE, request xxxxxxxx,"

If it's not available you won't get it, if it is, you probably shall.

"WHEN AVAILABLE" makes a lot more sense.

What could be clearer than;

vacated FL370 or
out of FL370.

No ambiguity there.

AIP ENR 1.1 General Rules
Operations in Controlled Airspace
Descent and Entry--
11.1.4 After any frequency change, pilots must advise the last assigned
level and, if not maintaining the assigned level, the level maintaining
or last vacated level; eg, “MELBOURNE CENTRE (CALLSIGN)
CLEARED FLIGHT LEVEL TWO ONE ZERO, LEFT
FLIGHT LEVEL TWO NINER ZERO”.

Serious question to Bona Fide ATC'ers
1. Is 'leaving' not precise enough for you to do your job properly? (bearing in mind it may be procedural control on the odd occasion)
2. 'leaving' or 'left' both acceptable

What I find irritating is when i say the usual 'Identified, verify level', and I get some retard say 'approaching A040'. It makes me want to get all in my car and drive down to Bankstown and get Jackie Chan on them.

Thank you BSD. A pilot that reads his/her AIP.

The phrase is LEFT. The controller is not confused. Other pilots that read their AIP are not confused.

Clever folk tha wanna use their own phrases, go build your own airspace system and play there.

There is no problem. Thus no solutions or bright ideas are required.

AIP. You paid for it. Why not read the bluddy thing?

The use of "left Flight Level.." seemed perfectly clear to me over the past 35 years. And I don't recall any pilot problems either.

There was a certain group of controllers who were concerned about ATC issuing a clearance to "maintain" an intermediate altitude or level. EG "Maintain one thousand five hundred, cleared for take off." The protagonists suggested that a more correct phrase would be "Climb to and maintain.." There was never enough support to change the AIP (and I don't think it was necessary).

You can drive yourself nuts trying to come up with completely unambiguous phrases. Many can be misinterpreted. And this includes the many USA and UK peculiarities.

This reminds me of a funny episode at a GA airport when a pilot did not read back his cleared altitude when departing on an amended clearance. The aircraft became airborne and the controller tried once more in slow clear words; "ABC read back altitude"

The pilot replied "ABC, Back altitude one thousand!"

(Actually you had to be there - it doesn't sound quite so funny now!)

Tobzalp , LOL

Kooka , Is "vacated" the same as "vacating"?

BSD , I believe that leaving is not good enough, especially in a step climb/descent.

Cheers,

R-S.

Another case of Qantas knows best obviously... :rolleyes: Like the landing lights thing.

While we're at it, why the variation between ATCers on

"Descend 5000"
"Descend 5000 feet"
"Descend and maintain 5000"
"Descend to 5000" (descend 2 5 thousand)

The last one's a classic. I thought it went out after the Tiger tried to descend "to 5 zero zero feet" and hit a hill...???

A bit like "reduce speed 2 2 5 0 kts"

And as an aside, what about "over the top" calls. :rolleyes:

'Descend to 5000' is the correct Australian phrase. Feet can be added to make certain it is an altitude being given.

The confusion comes because some people drop the 'to' thinking they are doing the right thing because 'there was that crash where they did/did not say to and the plane crashed and I think it was because of to and it was in (insert one of 10 countries grapevine style). '

Poms do it different as do the seppos.

Whether or not it is the best way to do it, the book (in Oz) says to say 'to' so everybody should. Simple.

Bearing in mind that Australia is in a minority that calls vacating an altitude in a radar environment "Vacating" and "passing" seem to work fairly well in other parts of the world with "Left" being reserved for a lateral dirction change and "out of" sounding a bit retrospective.
It is only Down under where it is almost OK if you crash provided you got the poetry (Quacking) right that we are likely to have these sort of debates that often become heated and drawn out.. A false sense of security perhaps. The Tiger 66 accident in KL malaysia highlights flaws in the "To" and "For" brigade.
Here is another one why do people ask for an "airways clearance" where I am yet to see an airway in Australia? Even the regulators get things wrong and whilst we should follow procedures it is also our responsibility to notify any possible errors in our AIP's (latent failures) to those that write them rather than continue blindly following potentially flawed procedures just because they are in the AIP and react after an incident has occured. We have got brains havn't we? and we are supposed to use them out there and the judicious addition of "FEET" or omision of a "TO" or "FOR" to aid clarity in a situation where comunication has been difficult (perhaps a non English speaking country) would display airmanship. Be aware that procedures and even colloqualisms of one country could be fundamentaly fatal in another (where "to's and Two's don't sound the same) and flexibility is often required to achieve clarity and understanding. Perhaps this is why we study and practise good communication skills on our recurrent CRM courses. Some of the worst examples of radio communication that I have heard come from english speaking country's.

One small gripe :D

When we ask present level...............WE WANT THE LEVEL LEFT i.e. "......... left five thousand three hundred"

"...... approaching Six thousand" is 4/5ths of F$%kall use to us for separation purposes!! :ok:

Much obliged :E

Yes.
It is just so hard to infer that if someone reports "approaching six thousand" he must have "left five thousand", (or seven thousand if going the other way). :E
Or do you really separate aircraft in one hundred foot increments?

Tobzalp,

I'd think very carefully about driving out to Bankstown, getting out of there alive is the real challenge.

:D

"Leaving" is a present tense term and does not mean that you are no longer at the previously maintained altitude. "Left" is a past tense term and implies you are gone...no longer there and is therefor the correct information for ATC and thus the reason it is published as such I would say.

"Yes.
It is just so hard to infer that if someone reports "approaching six thousand" he must have "left five thousand", (or seven thousand if going the other way).
Or do you really separate aircraft in one hundred foot increments?"

It's not hard to infer, just incorrect, and hence dangerous.

Hello gentlemen why don’t you just encourage CASA to join the rest of the world and conform to standard ICAO procedures.

Also there seems to be a slight aversion to be negative to your national carrier QANTAS, all I can say here is its very hard to use different calls in every different countries airspace you fly through, so I would suspect QANTAS just found it easier to comply with ICAO.

Also just because CASA has always done it a certain way, dosnt mean they are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
Your AIP can be changed the world wont end.

No-one else complies with ICAO why should Australia...every country has its differences from ICAO including UK, US...China and Russia are metric..that ICAO?

In Australia read the AIP and comply with that...not hard really. If you fly long haul you soon pick up the little local differences around the world and modify your calls as necesary.

If more people read the AIP radio phraseology section there would be about a 30% reduction in words used in general...particularly on read backs...you don't need to read back EVERYTHING the ATCO says to you!!!

But Chuckles, if ya don't read back everything the controller says, even "copied no IFR traffic" :rolleyes: , how will you know you've read back all the required bits? :ugh: :{ :zzz:

Scurvy,
When I learnt to fly, "level" meant one of the assignable levels listed in the book eg whole thousands or perhaps whole 500s.

So if I'm passing 5300 on descent and you ask "report present level" or for that matter "report last vacated level" I'm going to say "Left 6000".

Bloggs. I would be happy with that. Any ATC with half a brain (ie about 1/3 of them) would if they want a specific level ask for 'report Left XXX'

Clarry...was justing chatting about this very thing last week over multitudinous rums with a good mate...who happens to be No 2 man in C&Ting on the 717s...he been verry busy training all our NJS chums in fact.

The classic is "XYX call departures now 124.7"....Call departures now 124.7 XYZ" arrrrggghhhh:{

One part of clearance delivery/readback practice in Australia that is a little bemusing is the long winded departure clearances which include SID, subsequent tracking, an altitude and transponder code.

In the UK, ME etc there is a altitude restriction on the SID...6000' on the Dover 5F at LHR for instance...so when you call London Clearance delivery the just respond with "Cleared destination via Dover 5 fox, squawk 2576"..."Dover 5 foxtrot, 2576 XYZ". Clearance above 6000, traffic permitting, will only happen after contacting departures in the later stages of the noise abate procedure. They also have this strange thing about calling "Fully ready" which bemused me until I heard last week some dill with a heavy accent asking for pushback...and then the aircraft on the next aerobridge pipes up with "He doesn't have a tug and we do so can we push back?" ".......ah..heavily accented dill do you have a tug...are you fully ready for push?" "....er...london ground heavil accented dill...no...we'd like to hold position until we get a tug":ok: :E

So ATC can we have simpliied departure clearances like that in SY? It works in busy places.:E

No No No !!! The intent is to check your present level and in that context it means the numbers on you altimeter to the nearest 100 ft.

Your response should be "passing 5300" It is often best not to second guess what the controller is asking you that info for.... should be a case of providing a simple reply to a simple question....No?

Remember in a radar environment the checking of such is necessary for any number of reasons including verification of your mode C.

Are you more interested in playing with the words in the book or giving the controller some meaningful information??

As for "approaching 6000"... you have more than likely been doing that since you left FL390....! Useless, unless you are really approaching 6000 and want further - but I believe there are better words to use in such circumstances which may just make your intent clearer!

Much of this discussion comes from one's interpretation on what the other man means or did he say what I said stuff.... again it comes back to training and how some of our documents are written.
:confused: :confused: :confused:

Yup...if you are approaching a clearance limit just say '...request further descent'.

Jeppesen

Air Traffic Control (page AU-705)

DESCENT AND ENTRY

1.9.1.4

eg: "MELBOURNE CENTER (CALL-SIGN) CLEARED FLIGHT LEVEL TWO ONE ZERO, LEAVING FLIGHT LEVEL TWO NINER ZERO"

Looks to me that they want us to say LEAVING not LEFT.

Triadic,
I beg to differ. I while ago, what I said above were the rules. It's just that it's disappeared out of AIP with no guidance at all as to what to say now, hence all the confusion. I never been chipped for giving my last passed ATC-assignable level. "Report Present Level" is used to allow another aircraft to be cleared closer to you, and by reporting your actual level they have to do more mental calculations to work out the assignable level for the other aircraft. Hence they don't want "approaching" as you rightly say, bit IMO, they likelwise don't want "5,300".

If controllers want my actual, precise level (only for a altimeter check), they always say "Report Level/Altitude passing" or "verify present level".

Standing by to be shot down in flames!

Of course, all this nonsense could easily be fixed by some clarifications of R/T procedures which suffered when AIP was butchered by office boffins into ICAO R/T and has not recovered.

For example, what's the correct call to a radar Approach facility on descent? :p "On top"? :yuk:

Capn Bloggs

Look up one post, Jeppesen gives an example

Props,

I wasn't referring to that call.

But now you come to mention it, the change to it was a ballsup. Even after one of my compatriots suggested they change it from the first totally confusing text, they still messed it up. Perhaps after reading this thread they will change it to what it should be: "Left FL290".

maaaaaaaaaaaate!!...who,s turn is it to change the water in the "bong " pipe....whilst your at it grab a tinnie for me as well ....whew!..piri

I'll go with this:
If I need you to within the nearest hundred feet (checking Mode C) I'll ask: "verify level"
If I need to know your level for any other reason (separation/level assignment) it's "Report present level"
and you only report the last level left to the the nearest 500ft
Carry on all!!

OK while we are at it, how about reports of change of levels while in controlled and more importantly in radar identified space.

As per the book:

a. when an aircraft has left a level at which level flight has been conducted in the course of a climb, cruise or descent; and

b. when the aircraft leaves a level for which ATC has requested a report.

a. and b. (above) are from the non controlled airspace pages.
Does the same hold true for changes in level in a radar situation?
If so where is the reg. for it?

How about:

"report level passing".... "passing 2,300 for FL180"
"verify level".... "maintaining FL180"

Seems to work.

"Left" vs "leaving" - there seems to be conflicting advice in WWT (AU) and AIP, "leaving" makes much more sense to me as cannot be confused with a direction of turn (ie left or right). Ambiguity is indeed the enemy!

Readbacks - please everyone learn what needs to be readback - it's in the AIP and quite clear. A lot of people read back way too much.

Contacting approach - you can append "visual" if you reckon you can make a visual approach. If you are "in cloud" or "on top", then you do NOT have tell anyone (and everyone) about it. Again quite clearly set out in the AIP.

My other gripe is with people that say "Taxies this time" or "approaches 5000" or "maintains FL140" - please guys, that is not even proper English, let alone to be found anywhere in the AIP or WWT, you are "taxying", "approaching" or "maintaining".

OK - rant over.

Give me your altitude/flight level to within 100 ft every time, as triadic wrote. No matter what phraseology you use, I want accuracy every time because I base separation, particularly in procedural airspace or in the case of mode C failure, on an accurate altitude. Why? Because we assume that, when you are within 300 ft of a level(200ft in RVSM airspace), you are at a level separated from other levels. In the case of a climbing or descending aircraft, the nearest or best 1000 ft level doesn't cut it for me. There's also the small matter of 500ft separation in some airspace where we need the most accurate level you can give.

When someone is promoted to Big Manager in that certain australian airline, they automatically become the worlds expert on all things aviation.

So they tell all the good little Boys and Girls who fly their aircraft to say "leaving" not "left."

Those with a brain ignore bullsh*t when they hear it. The other good boys and girls do as they are told. It is a diverse group of people. But there is some intelligent life left in the organisation.

They are the ones who just get on with it and look after the important stuff. Rivetting subject this.Lets get a life people.