R/T phraseology .... AGAIN!
 

Departing Alice yesterday for Darwin and the poor old ATCO was working his ring off. Numerous aeroplanes, lots of co-ord (as it's all procedural).

Mr ATCO's job was seriously hampered, and all the co-ord slowed down significantly because so many of the pilots couldn't string a standard phrase together to save their life.

Instead, they cluttered the airwaves with useless and un necesary ramblings, as they tried to readback everything said to them in a vain and failed attempt to readback the required items!

e.g. "Alpha Bravo Charle, report established with DME and altitude passing", only requires a response of "Alpha Bravo Charle", which lets the next person onto the radio, NOT "Ah, Alpha Bravo Charlie, report established with DME and level passing" :ugh: :ugh: :{

The list went on and on and on.

Learning what is required to be read back is a whole lot easier, in the long run, than trying to readback every damned word that's uttered.

Rant over

One interesting advantage from the delay caused in part by the excess verbage was watching a 210 take off.

Bloggs did the cool, gear up as it left the ground. Now, I've not watched this before from such a vantage point. At first I thought the damned thing had suffered an engine failure, as it stopped climbing and was flying level while the gear dangled and the drag increased, before climbing away once the gear retracted.

Lucky it was a benign and coolish day. A hot thermally type day could have seen another outcome altogether. :eek:

Alice had had a massive changeover of pilots in the past 6 months, I'd guesstimate up to 75% of charter pilots have been hired in the past 6 months. A quick 10 min chat up in the Tower to the very friendly guys up there will have them sorted out!

Btw, I have heard some pretty shoddy calls from some certain 71's into Alice as well Capt!! Some new crew with NJS in the last few months before Christmas perhaps? :oh:

In saying all that however- I understand how frustrating it is when you are waiting to get a call in but all you are hearing are non-required readbacks.

The way to avoid this problem is to leave it on the ground a tad longer. Better airspeed means less Lift-Dependent Drag and better acceleration and the proper position on the Curve. The higher IAS also helps cool the over-worked MG bearings.

The rot set in about 10 years ago when some squeezer from Quantas wrote a letter in the flight safety digest about hom much better it was to have your callsign at the end and read back everything, "Just like they do overseas."

Now you get, "Maintaining 5000, Alfa Romeo Delta"

or

"Okay, understand traffic is bah blah at 12 o'clock, juliet mike blah"

Dear Captain Claret,

Obviously you are not a graduate of the newer Check and Trainers/Instructors approach to these matters, summarized as: "Read everything back, then they can't pingya".

This is closely allied to a similar recommendation at non-towered airports:"Make all the recommended calls, then they can't pingya".

This is the "compliance rules all" approach to "radio procedures", that have sod all to do with communications, and everything to do with making sure "they can't pingya".

A subsidiary problem is the all to common teaching, which can be summarized in practical terms as:"The more you have to say, the more professional you are doubtless being", a development of the Marconi theory of flight aerodynamics, acoustic lift, as soon as you lips stop flapping, the aeroplane quits flying.

Tootle pip!!

I enters, I backtacks, I lines up, I rolls, I departs at this time, I joins, I turns, I izzz finalzzz full stop, I izzzzz clear :}

Yes, our Ab Initio cadets here are taught the same, takes em about two minutes of clogging up the airwaves for a 15 second call. Then there's Cathy who have an annoying habit of saying "confirm FL340?" instead of just acknowledging the call, either turn up the fricking radio or wear a headset!

Rant over.

ABC lines up and rolls...
 

...or even worse, ABC enters and lines up.

Thank you MACH 082 for your delightful description of the problem!

I have a junior pilot with that particular affliction but I have refrained from correcting him because he doesn't like it when I make him feel like a student pilot :{

... you know who you are :E

Couple of questions whilst we're on the topic.

If ATC says: "position 6 miles east of ML, resume own navigation track direct to DOSEL, climb FL180."

Are we required to read back the 'resume own navigation'?

And another,
"ABC, landed Timbuktu, cancel Sarwatch."
ATC comes back with "ABC, Timbuktu Sarwatch terminated."

Are we requried to acknowledge?

Capt,

I agree with your post entirely, but there is a catch in this brave new (shrinking) world of international cadet programmes.

This callsign only approach does not allow anybody to know that the student pilot has actually understood the request. Now, there is the argument that if they do not understand then they have no right to be there, (and before you all start throwing stones at me) I fully agree.

The fact is though, they are there, they dont always understand, and they will take up more airways time.

As frustrating as I find it, I personaly would prefer to know that they understood the call now, as oppose to latter, when it could be more critical (separation requirement). And lets face it, there would not be one single person here who as never spent longer on a call then required at some point.

I have been reliably informed that the answer is no.

However most still do.:confused:

Soulman,

There's no requirement to add "LANDED".

"ABC, Timbuktu, cancel SARWATCH" is the correct phrase. And there is no requirement to acknowledge ATS' cancellation.

R/T 101 is that you never need to, or should, acknowledge an acknowledgement.

The way to look at the original question is that pilot's initial transmission is a request, to which the ground station (AsA) response is an acknowledgement of, so the cardinal rule of never acknowledge an acknowledgement applies - and makes sense.

Or my favourite:

ATC: "ABC, standby".

ABC: "standing by, ABC".

My favourite is "ABC no IFR traffic." The response being, "ABC, roger, no IFR traffic." Now why the fark would you repeat that back?? ....Morons. :yuk:

"ABC Departed....., Tracking....., Climbing...., PENDING CLEARENCE!!!!! AARRR!!!!!

Please!!! Where the hell did that one come from?

My favourite, read everything back except the assigned altitude.

When altitude issued again, all that is read back is the callsign. :(

......sounds as good as when Nigel reports "Sydney Tower, Birdseed XX, fully ready 16R at Alpha 1 holding point" or "Sydney Tower, Birdseed XX fully established on the localizer 16R". And what about "Sydney Tower, XXX on finals" - how many finals are there? Amazing what can be heard sitting waiting to takeoff....

If you think it is bad here - you should get out around Asia a bit......:ugh:

Readbacks!
 

Soulman

NO ! "Direct Dosel F180 ABC"

NO ! (see above re acknowledgements)

Oh, my pet hate is the term 'this time'....." ABC overhead Bindook this time........." grrrrrr!

If you're overhead at that particular point in time, the term 'this time' is moot!

:rolleyes:

I still hear a lot of "ABC, downwind runway 29, fullstop" from arriving aircraft that are obviously not training.

Always tempted to pipe up with "What? No circuits today?":E