It's always amazed me how US pilots talk on the radio, even airliners in foreign non-English speaking countries. Top in my book are an AA 737 pilot who told an ATCO in a South American country they were "low on gas". Jesus...

And there was this guy who read back the altimeter setting 30.00 as "all balls on the altimeter".

Seriously, where do they get this stuff from?

Never once heard that in the US.

But, "We'd like to put a request in for FL340, if available," drives me nuts. This isn't Mother, May I?

I like to call that "2 foot 6"!

Apart from the usual garbage RT here in the US, this annoys me:

Center, ABC123...

ABC123, Center, go ahead

ABC123 would like to put FL380 on request

:ugh::ugh::ugh:

Who teaches this nonsense? Is it that some people get paid for superfluous transmissions?

Some people like to customise their language and just like customising cars it seldom works aesthetically except in the eye of the perpetrator and makes everyone else laugh or cringe.

Adding superfluous words to big up simple phrases is rife in all walks of life, vide "onward journey", an utter nonsense phrase if ever there was one as you can't perform a journey backwards. Cabin crew often use the appallingly inappropriate "final destination" - which is the grave of course, where you are going is simply your destination. Some train lines use the excruciating expression "station stop" instead of "station" and "terminate" their trains at the end of the line which is surely a shocking waste of a perfectly good train. Most modern (over)use of "absolutely" is completely unnecessary, as is the appalling "like".

Just human nature I guess.

Shame some pilots aren't like a bit more, like, Professional about it though...

Absolutely.

My personal pet hate is anyone going "direct the Park" in the London TMA.

That and people identing without request...

Reading back squawk ident is mandatory isn't it? How do ATC know if the correct person is squawking otherwise.

Jwscud, you bugger, you edited!

Not only in the cockpit:

On descent a few decades ago, F/A says - "The captain has eliminated the no smoking light"

and

"Welcome to Boston Logan airport, or wherever your final destination may take you" (think about it...)

Often heard "We would ask you to fasten your seat belts.: "Would"? :rolleyes:

JFK. "XYZ call ILS established."
XYZ. "we're on the glide and starting to slide."

That's a gem RAT 5

Stuff from the cabin that gets up my nose:

"At this time...." tray tables away etc.

and

"put THAT tray table away" and "THAT seatbelt sign" etc.

And in the terminal:

"Last and final boarding call". WTF????

Mind you we're not doing so great in my Spanish speaking country. For some reason ATC needs to constantly tell every pilot they are "correct" when they readback every single instruction.

- ATC: ABC123 turn left this heading
- ABC123: Turn left this heading
- ATC: Correct

Jeez..

And then there's the ground controllers instructing aircraft to taxi via "diagonal" X and "parallel" Y... For some reason we like to make things a bit more difficult than they are...

Can't beat the 'practice pan' in the UK for sheer inanity.


Transmitting over guard and using this frequency for a pretend emergency, compromising it for those that really have one is allowed is beyond me.

Can't beat the 'practice pan' in the UK for sheer inanity.

Before this takes off again into an extended rant this topic has been done to death on '121.5 morons' topic.


JFK ATC, "XYZ cleared for takeoff RW XX."

XYZ. "OK, here we go, see ya."

I kid you not; as was the slidy GP comment.

RAT 5 sorry - had a brain fart and didn't think about what I was writing!

Maybe "coming down" is left over from the days before radio and transponders? When they wrote their designation on a piece of paper (for the younger once: paper is an ancient analog version of an ipad with no touch screen), put it in a small gunnysack and bucked off over a reporting station? ;-)

talk about cringing...i get flashes when in the cabin the rather stupid announcement is made,inevitable from nigel : on behalf of myself and the crew... duhhhhhhh

Yes, sadly, the vast majority of extraneous, verbose RT does seem to be heard in the USA, or from US crews elsewhere in the world. Some of the jargon used seems to have a military origin, often unsuited to the civil RT environment.

In those parts of the world where English is not in common use, both the verbosity and jargon sometimes result in cringeworthy RT exchanges that could easily be avoided if brevity and standard ICAO phrasing were adhered to. Ho hum.