All very true. Perhaps it’s time to stop teaching it in PPL training 
I agree that QFE is dangerous, but having never used it maybe I’m prejudiced in my ignorance.
Just remembered QDM and QDR were in the PPL theory book, but never been used since.
The original idea of abbreviating a potentially wordy phrase to three letters in Morse must have been an incredible time-saver. With spoken radio communication however, where the base unit is the syllable rather than the letter (or even dot/dash/silence), the saving is maybe one or two syllables, at the cost of having to essentially learn a new language. Considering the amount data transferer to and from the mode S transponder, ADS-B and iPad in flight, Morse code is outdated by a century.
Morse code is outdated by a century.
Slightly less – I was in a radio club 1965-1969 OK1OFA and it was mostly morse on 3.5MHz
Maybe not that long then :)
My grandfather used to build radios as a hobby and he was very proud of his GPO Morse certificate
Peter wrote:
I think Le Touquet does it in their ATIS, because they get so many Brits
Malaga LEMG also has / had it. I guess the Nigels couldn’t figure out how to land at an airport at sea level….
There seems to be a rash of “Rogers” from both ATC and pilots (non native speakers of English) in the Balkans. These expressions can be quite infectious. I keep expecting to hear myself saying “Wilco”.
Haha. I learned to fly in Canada and both of those terms (roger and wilco) are common. I think one difference is the required readback information, e.g. in the UK, pilots seem to read back everything (required or not). To me this appears as a massive amount of uncessary talking.
In Canada, when flying in the controlled environment, a read back of ‘only’ your call sign is enough to accept a clearance or instruction. There are very few things which are required to be readback (e.g. you might get a complicated set of taxi instructions which terminate in ‘hold short of runway xx’). The only thing which needs to be readback is your call sign and ‘hold short of runway xx’. Of course for important clearances, pilots often readback a bit more, e.g. cleared to land, cleared to take off, but this is not strictly necessary. Slipping a Wilco in, although perhaps uncessary, is just a quick way to acknowedge that you did indeed recieve and understand the longer instructions.
Peter wrote:
Also, outside the UK you rarely get QFE.
Many French airports give it in their ATIS. However, AFAIK French (and my, Luxembourgish) PPL training now teaches to ignore it. I learned QDM and QDR as part of my PPL training, and picked up QFU by its ~universal usage in France.
