My RT is terrible...!

[bletchleytugie]

Monkeyslave - very little to add to all the advice thats been offered - except this. On the day when it all goes wrong and you have to use 121.5 , by all means try and be profficient, but if adds to the stress a simple "London/Scottish I'm lost" will quickly get the attention of our Guardian Angels in the D & D cell. Keep talking to yourself it pay dividends in the end.

[Sensible]

Remain calm. Aviate, Navigate, Communicate in that order. When communicating, listen for 3 or 4 seconds to make sure that you don't step on somebody elses transmission otherwise you own stress level will rise. Think what you are going to say before you press the transmit button. Always wear a knee pad to write down ATC instructions, especially useful to go back to the last frequency change if you noted the new one wrong and then read it back without the controller realising a wrong readback (yup, they are human too believe it or not). Communicate in your own time always, if you are about to enter controlled airspace without communicating, don't panic, just steer a new course to remain clear of controlled airspace. Remember that they are there for you and working for you.

[pmcadams]

I remember when I first did my RT I was absolutely useless, I probably shouldnt really have passed my RT exam!

But if you think about it, when it all does wrong, not that many people probably hear. I used to work at B&Q and because I worked on the checkouts I had to master the tanoy.

If I got it wrong between 100 and 500 people heard! After a bit of practice you soon picked it up, but once I could do it I looked forward to putting out the store closing calls, they were very long and there was alot to remember, but I always added closing and opening times for the following days, especially if it was a bank holiday.

Now I am still not happy with my RT but I am alot more confident, only 85hrs under my belt, espcially once I realised not that many people heard you make mistakes! But I even changed airfields to make things more difficult for myself, now based at Sleap I have a MATZ to deal with every time I fly!

The airband scanner is a useful tool if you have a line of sight to the ground station, I have a very nice and expensive ICOM, but because of where I live I dont get the ground side of the conversation, so I only listen to Airways frequencys, which generally demonstrate how not to do it, but it helps with my IMC.

But which ever way you do it, If I am learning something new I let my instructors deal with the radio, thats what you pay them for to help you learn! Once I have learnt it I then perform all ops with just supervision, it does work tho.

[IFollowRoads]

The vast majority of the good stuff has been written already, but one thing you might like for what to read back:

If it has "clear(ed)" in it, or numbers that aren't the wind, read it back.

So if you're "clear take off", "cleared into the zone" (contain clear(ed)) or "squawk 1234", "runway 27" "QNH 1013", "contact London 124.6" you read it back. You dont bother reading back "the wind 250 at 15 knots" (the numbers are the wind)

Its not 100% the definition, but "close enough for government work"

Good luck with the test

IFR

[GJB]

It's more or less been said before, but I find CARPACER very easy to remember.

C allsign
A ircraft type
R oute
P osition
A ltitude
C onditions
E stimate
R equest

If you get the chance to sit in the back, with a student/instructor on a cross country flight, this would be a good exercise as you can concentrate on listening to what ATC are requesting and how you would respond.

[Warped Factor]

If you don't have a transponder on board, like the aeroplane I usually fly, it can be worth slipping in a "negative squawk" in the initial call.

Might well save a longer unnecessary exchange a few seconds later.

WF.