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So much bad terminology...

When flying in the UK, it’s OK for a pilot to use colloquial English e.g. “we are thinking about going via Upper Beckenham but might change our mind”.

But I hear UK pilots do this all over France too, and not just on the Le Touquet run.

Do they not seem to realise the ATCO can’t understand them?

It takes about 2 radio calls like that to realise that they could not understand what you said

This kind of thing should be addressed at the 2-yearly flight with an instructor.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This kind of thing has to be addressed during PPL ground school as in other countries

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

“we are thinking about going via Upper Beckenham but might change our mind”.

(sounds as if he was OCAS).

The problem starts elsewhere. People should stop talking to FIS/LARS/whatever if they don’t plan to access controlled airspace! Fly the airplane!

A little provocative, I know, but people have simply become obsessed with “talking to somebody” (and sharing their life story). Instructors seem to teach this as an automatism, i.e. leave the ATZ —> switch and make contact with the “next station”. I believe some pilots don’t even realize any more that they are not obliged to speak to anybody!

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Well, I agree, but UK PPLs are taught to call up a lot of stations enroute.

BUT that isn’t the issue, IMHO, because the PPL population is highly stagnant.

So the 2-yearly flight is the only opportunity to put things right. Even if you overhauled PPL training totally tomorrow, it would take maybe 20 years for it to show up.

One thing I particularly don’t get is that doing the whole “war and peace” thing on the radio takes up much more time than just doing standard calls.

Even leaving out the dreadful “at this time” expression (a position report in aviation is at present time) would cut down the radio

The other issue is that so much French airspace is so badly designed that the VFR chart is very hard to work out. The UK VFR charts are ritually slagged off by UK pilots but actually are completely unambiguous (except the famous Belfast bit). But when you get to S. France you can spend hours working out how to fly it. So the usual approach is to work out the “really prohibited” bits and then speak to ATC about the rest while enroute. So, for much of France, silent OCAS flying is not really an option.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Ten years ago when my friend Frank Strickler, an American Airlines Captain in Texas who had a P-51 shop for many years and lives at his ranch with many airplanes, tried to to teach me fly the T-6 the first thing I did was to swicth on the radio, of course. Frank switched it off againd asked: “Was that Bernoulli or Marconi who invented flying” :-)

The rest of the week we practiced NORDO

One thing I particularly don’t get is that doing the whole “war and peace” thing on the radio takes up much more time than just doing standard calls.

Even leaving out the dreadful “at this time” expression (a position report in aviation is at present time) would cut down the radio

Off the top of my head, I can think of 6 superfluous items in everyday UK radio phraseology:

1. saying the station and frequency changing to (not as a read back, but as an unsolicited action)
2. all the talk about various service levels (“Golf-xx, what service do you require?” “Golf-xx, ah, request a traffic service.” “Golf-XX, traffic service is not possible due to…, basic service you have”. “Golf-xx, roger, basic service”
3. Saying where you took off from when talking to the tower of where you are landing
4. Saying the QNH you are on (not as a readback, but as an unsolicited action)
5. Number of POB (not normally required in civil radio ops)
6. Request radio check and airfield information

All unheard of in the international aviation context. If everybody eliminated these, the number of words over the radio would be cut in half and you would end up with pretty much what is usually being said in say France or Germany.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

In Germany, it would be really nice to see people stop requesting a frequency change from a station they voluntarily chose to call up, i.e. FIS.

Though FIS doesn’t even seem to support that very much – when I just announce I’m leaving the frequency, I’ll usually get a “frequency change approved” thrown at me. A clearance I never asked for but nonetheless now feel obliged to read-back, which is nonsense.

I usually report POB, will experiment with omitting that… I often feel that when I omit stuff (such as type of aircraft when on a flight plan) I get asked for the stuff anyway.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 6 superfluous items in everyday UK radio phraseology:

“Pass your message…”

Last Edited by Patrick at 14 Apr 22:38
Hungriger Wolf (EDHF), Germany

Agreed, Bosco. The UK radio procedures are a wordy rigmarole. When it was busy, it was impossible to get FF because everyone took 10 minutes to pass a message of nonsense.

The problem is that some of this stuff is a requirement e.g. saying where you took off from when talking to the tower of where you are landing. Any airport which keeps flight records (in the UK, that would be any with ATC, and some below) will want to know where you arrived from.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

A (simplified) flight plan is required for all flights within CAS. And a flight plan includes the ADEP and ADES which is why you need to mention those elements to TWR/APP at first contact.

LFPT, LFPN
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