Pilots Phoning Home From 30000ft
 

Am I right in thinking that long haul pilots can phone home from the cockpit? Is this something that regularly happens? Or would it just be for a daughter's birthday or something like that?

Coversely, is it possible for someone on the ground to call a plane's cockpit?

I don't know about phones but a friend of mine and I are both radio amateurs and I've often spoken with him whilst he has been flying. There are a lot of pilots who are hams.

Sat phone, use of on board wifi connectivity and if all else fails an HF phone patch. Not sure what toys exclusive billionaires exec jets are fitted with.

On IOE we have to demonstrate use of the satcomm once. May as well call home!

Thanks HD. And over what distance would this be possible?

What I specifically am trying to find out is whether it's possible for someone at home to be able to communicate with a cargo pilot on the other side of the world?

Not where I work.

You can't free dial out, the (satellite) phone has a restricted list of pre-programmed numbers you can call (e.g. Operations, Medics, that sort of thing).

Once upon a time we used to be able to nip back into the cabin and use the pay by credit card system the passengers had access to but that has now gone...apparently it was so expensive nobody used it.....

As Dave mentioned at a push you could patch a call via HF....

I've phoned home from a Seven Four Four-Hundred over the Andaman Sea using HF via Portishead.

Showing your age, its been shut for 16 years! (ish) :{

I fly rotary and fixed wing and all our aircraft have Sat Phones, normally used for calling ops and the boss's PA and driver. One of the best moments of my flying life was telling one of Heathrow Director and Talk Down Man's ex colleagues "standby, I'm on the landline." 125.625 waiting for a Brent clearance to EGLW.

I called Mumbai for a clearance when I couldn't get through on HF and the controller refused to issue it as "it has to be given via HF, not over the phone."

Mid 1990's calling the office from 500 miles west of Bristol (trying for an HF patch) I couldn't get Portishead, but got a relay from a Speedbird over Alice Springs!

SND

Portishead closed!!!!!,16years!!!!.
Had many a phone patch with them airborne.
I am officially a dinosaur.:{

Presumably to get it recorded on to the tape.......seems reasonable.

Capot;

Seems reasonable until you remember that all ATC phone lines are taped by the same system that tapes the RTF (it was the actual controller we were talking to so the conversation was on tape) and the fact that with less than 100nnm to go at M.84 we still couldn't get a clearance, and that isn't many minutes flying time:\

SND

Stockholm Radio do what Portishead once did:

Aviolinx - Stockholmradio

There used to be a lovely cartoon with 2 airline pilots shouting "Bombay Bombay, Speedbird 139 on 6656" (HF Radio) getting no response and just behind them in the cabin a stewardess speaking on the phone "Oh hi mum it's Sharon".


Satphones can dial individual phone numbers but airlines have them limited to preset company and ATC numbers.

If you think HF radio is old fashioned...

Not long before Portishead radio shut up shop (and before 11/9) I had their boss on the jump seat on a flight into Funchal. He said that on their maritime service they were still using morse code to talk to over 200 hundred ships worldwide! The reason being that the shipping companies had realised that an ex Russian Navy morse operator was much cheaper to employ than a Marconi trained voice operator.

Like E.T., I 'phoned home' (U.K.) from above the northern Arabian Sea whilst on board an Emirates 777 in April 2000, en route Karachi - Dubai.

Used to regularly do HF phone patches through the military STCICS system. During a long detachment to Australia had hours of fun shoving dubious pictures in the face of the poor guy calling his wife....don't make a phone call from a Nimrod with 12 other guys ready to listen & join in...