White none

Can you expand upon your claim? I've heard they are the busiest single runway commercial, but not sure of the point you're making.

Can I expand - Sure. The fact that the example was Gatwick is irrelevant. The claim I am making is that in order to Push a lot of Tin, it is absolutely NOT necessary to use transmissions like
which was straight from acroguy's post.

You would never hear that at Gatwick, hence I used it as an example, but the same could be said for Hong Kong where I personally am now attuned to the local accents, but for everyone's benefit ATC generally strive to hit the agreed, thought out Standards.

As an aside, I'm Ex-Military where at the right place to the right audience a degree of humour, sarcasm, banter etc was, if not encouraged, allowed and it led to a feeling of teamwork and a good way to start and end missions, yadayada...:zzz: So I truly get the good natured, getting the job done, intentions of transmissions such as the above BUT, anyone who says these would never be spoken (too)quickly hasn't been to a busy US port. acroguy mentioned that there are no " odd nouns or verbs" in there - agreed, but that is not the point. My current home port is HKG, we have crew from worldwide and I regularly fly with people for whom English is a second language who find that they CAN deal with UK ATC but find the US much harder. Put a US pilot's spouse in a cockpit and ask them to understand ALL the R/T, ( it's all important, right?), they wouldn't be able to because they have little preconception of what is about to be said. Expectation is a significant part of the auditory understanding process, and one can only 'expect' standard calls, especially under stress.

If it is not already clear I am not defending any particular nation, just the principles of standardisation, to try to give examples for those who seem to think everyone should fit in with whatever a host nation's practise is, and to try to put all Non English as a first language crews in the same bracket of finding it tricky, not just Asians.

Finally, again, those French Huh!!!! :ok:

KDCA is pretty busy with what amounts to a single runway... yeah, I know there are two other runways, but 90% of the 290,000 landings and takeoffs occur on 18-36. LGW has approx 50,000 less plane movements although with an average bigger aircraft. The biggest thing that KDCA sees is a B757. Not to demean what LGW manages to accomplish with a single runway....

Whites none

Seemed your post was built around the Gatwick example, but ok.

USA:

ROTW:

I like being told who I'm waiting for when holding for a runway or taking a position. God help me if they don't tell me and just give me a takeoff clearance when some other flight is still landing on a crossing runway.

Again this is just a personal preference as an airman, but having more information is better than having less.

West Coast.

It was, Gatwick is a perfect example, which I don't apologise for using. An example is just something which is typical of other similar, Err....., Examples? Inevitably people are a bit hairsprung to assume other people are having a go on the basis of nationality, I'm not.
( Except for the French :uhoh: )

Precisely my point!

None whatsoever, except one is harder to say and doesn't tell you what it is. Everyone can figure that a Mb is a thousandth of an atmosphere. Why change something that is self evident for something that is not. All it can do is add confusion, as it has done here. Completely idiotic.

ps. does "taxi onto position runway 1" mean "taxi into position runway (unreadable zero) 1" or Taxi into position runway 1 (unreadable zero)". No one can ever know...

Ha Haa - Nice "PS". Running out of Cans for all the Worms here. :D

Acro
I tried to post similar to the following yesterday, but technical issues prevailed.

Some North Americans seem to have a :mad: about ICAO.
As a gentle reminder:
1.ICAO began at the Chicago Conference in 1944
2. ICAO HQ is in Montreal
3. ICAO is a UN body (for what that is worth!)
4. Countries can file exceptions to ICAO standards if it seems to them that this is a good idea.

Hectopascals have been around for some time. I well remember the original NOTAM which stated that the FDR (West Germany), the GDR (East Germany) and Malawi would adopt the hectopascal at midnight and abandon the milibar. It went on to say that the conversion ratio was 1 hectopascal = 1 milibar.

I think the date was 14 September 1984 and I was flying from McGuire to Frankfurt. Sure enough, the Frankfurt ATIS was giving the pressure setting in hectopascals on our arrival.

So, for the last 30 years or so the rest of the world has been missing out on hectopascals!

This thread is a joke. The system works very well in the US. The system does not work when foreign carriers employ pilots that: A can't fly visual approaches, and B, can't speak or understand English.

You have no idea what you're talking about.....especially with americans flying out of north america,for example europe....they have trouble to understand english without "the american" accent, for example british pilots and australians have absolutely no problem to undestand correctly spoken english,but without american accent....so I wouldn't say that there is problem with pilots poor english knowledge.....as an ATC I know what I'm talking about,because from my position,as a one who is instructing pilots it is just simple....because pilot is responding,I'm familiar with my airspace,I know all waypoints and procedures,which is not case for pilot,who flies through my airspace maybe 10x per year,so he cannot remember it,and thus react promptly on my instructions.....and this happens with americans over my airspace also....especially when I use ICAO phraseology,they have problem to understand....just because they are used to slang and "open language" or some kind of freestyle....over US airspace...I just hope it won't result in accident somewhere over congested area in US...

I think that you have hit the nail on the head. Belief in something does not necessarily mean that it is true. The 'system' does work, but according to some of us who visit and are used to ICAO standards being implemented in a disciplined environment, not well.

Denial. Nature's alternative to fixing a simple problem. Often used when one's culture is offended.

This is aviation safety and effective communications we're talking about, not performance art. The above posted quotes of non-standard language used by some controllers are examples of performance art, not effective communications that an international audience can understand. If you want to put on a show, go sign up for amateur night at the local comedy club. This stuff has no place in aviation.

Might one hope that ATCO's English is more "correctly spoken" than the above is written? (If not, difficulties in understanding could be entirely understandable.)

It is also worth noting the the British and Aussies (as well as all English speakers) have accents, as well. Is an American's difficulty in understanding a British accent any different than the converse?

And lest anyone try to lay claim to the "pure" version of the language, it should be remembered that all language evolves. Perhaps the purest modern variant of the "King's English" might be that which was left with the colonials across the pond, a couple of centuries ago.

American slang is much worse than non-english. I really enjoy lessons in French and Spanish and Arabic you get outside of the US. Excellent for situational awareness. Also, and I've said this before, I have to translate ALL the time for Brits and Aussies flying for a certain ME and Brit carrier in Afrika. So much for your 13 exams and phraseology handbook. I also have said this before on PPRUNE, the airman phraseology handbook is just another nitpicky, whingy, whiny Lymey invention to use to attempt to look down on aviators from elsewhere and assert their position as masters of the aviation world. But seriously, Americans are bad pilots(they must be because they need 1500 hours to fly 121), undisciplined and Vickers and Airbus will soon take over the world. Visual approach and handflying skills bad, airman phraseology and 200 hour FO's who pay to fly good. All you need to be a good pilot is the inability to think outside the box, 100,000 euros for training and your own type rating, excellent airman phraseology, 13 written tests, a MCC course, 200 hours, 50 words per minute typing ability for the fms/fmc, a functional autopilot, an ils, and no x-wind. You will never stall an Airbus, handfly a visual, or have an unskilled controller trying to fly you into a mountain. Enjoy your 200,000 euro a year job!:ugh:

Whilst I am all for standardisation and correct phraseology, I found this highly amusing and probably acceptable for domestic ops between 'locals'.

Boston John, a tower controller at Boston, Massachusetts has a bit of a following on youtube. I thought the "Love of my Life " at 3:05 was classic, but at 3:10, all is back to a professional level.

http://
Not everyone likes it though,


It's only Rock and Roll, but I like it.

I have mixed views on "Boston John", and much of that hinges on the traffic levels at the time. Was this night traffic? Probably best to avoid the habit of non-English messages, though - the 2nd clip sums that up quite neatly.

Although …. OK, an affectation, perhaps, but I sort of like his emphasis on words like "crossss RW27". That's not going to lead to a mistake, and obviates the need for further messages and keeps the traffic flow going.

I listened to the first clip which, although easy to understand, required more effort to listen to than it should have.