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PPL training: listening to the radio

I remember my first XC were so painful, I was struggling, always behind the aircraft etc… I really thought I was unfit for it !
At the 4-5th XC, it was very doable.
Now, I would say it’s almost boring
If you begin your cross countries at 22hrs, you are right on track. Carry on, you will get there. We all went through this.

RT requires quite a lot of BPU (brain CPU ;) when not trained regularly, and this skill is one of the most perishable. THere is a reason for that.
To help, I would say listen on youtube to flights with ATC in your country, preferably in you area.
How old are you BTW ? Older people have a harder time getting used to RT.

LFOU, France

IO390 wrote:

I see experienced pilots manage to somehow detect any incoming call even if they’re mid way through a conversation with a passenger.

This is a key point from your post. It’s NOT that experienced pilots can carry on two conversations at once. It’s more that an experienced pilot ignores the passenger as soon at they here ATC talk so that they can see if it’s their callsign and only resume listening once they realise it’s not for them.

Also as a PPL you can brief your passengers to stop talking if they hear ATC saying something. That’s somewhat harder when your “passenger” is your instructor

I think you’ll find it much easier when you are doing your solo cross country with no passenger to distract you.

As others have said, your callsign eventually gets lodged in your brain. Just like someone across the room mentioning your name at a party which catches your attention, ATC saying your callsign will start to catch your attention too…but not if your passenger is talking loudly enough that you can’t hear it.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Thank you everyone for all the input!

It looks like until I get a Learjet, I have to just try and concentrate more on listening. I will also try turning up the radio volume a bit as in the PA28 I fly, the intercom is a fair bit louder than the radio.

I’ll also remember to use “say again” whenever I’m unsure. Before I went solo for circuits and rejoins I found that I was more concerned with messing up on the radio than anything else, but after a few hours I’m now a lot more comfortable. I guess the same will come with the XC, but as it now involves frequency changes and new radio calls it feels like having to learn it all over again.

I have another nav/XC exercise tomorrow so let’s see how that goes.

United Kingdom

IO390 wrote:

I’ll also remember to use “say again” whenever I’m unsure.

Another magic one is “stand by” when ATC asks you a question. You ARE busy flying an aircraft…

EGTR

loco wrote:

Things become easier as one progresses in flying. ATC too.

Do you need RT licence, ELP and “Hertz annual fee” to operate a CPDLC? (I will get my coat )

Last Edited by Ibra at 11 Dec 17:26
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

arj1 wrote:

Another magic one is “stand by” when ATC asks you a question. You ARE busy flying an aircraft…

You reminded me of this at 3:07 minutes



“Not ready to copy, I’m flying”. This particular example is not a great demonstration of airmanship but as previous posters mentioned, you are the one who decides if you’re ready to talk or not. Aviate – Navigate – Communicate.

Last Edited by Dimme at 11 Dec 18:14
ESME, ESMS

@io390
Get a scanner and listen to atc for a few weeks during home office (maybe you have an airport nearby)? It helps! You automatically imagine what you would say if you were in the cockpit, maybe you would answer shorter/differently etc.. it works better than chair flying ;)

I listened to JFK ATC via liveatc.net long before I first flew there. When I did, it felt like I’d been there before.

always learning
LO__, Austria

Makes me remember my first few approach clearances. I was already used to the radio but an approach clearance is pretty dense… “96S 4 miles from OOBOO fly heading 320 to intercept the localiser maintain 2500 until established cleared ILS 37R Nowhere”.

“Say again……..???”

(Repeats)

“Say again…..???” (tears starting to form)

Instructor repeats, very slowly.

It gets to be second nature, as someone said there are only a couple of bits of new information in there (probably not even that), it’s a question of filtering out all the rest.

LFMD, France

US big-airport ATC is – with some exceptions – a million miles away from anything in Europe. I would listen to the local airport on a handheld radio. Then, for Advanced Stage 2, listen to heavily French-accented ATC

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

US big-airport ATC is – with some exceptions – a million miles away from anything in Europe. I would listen to the local airport on a handheld radio

Which is precisely what I recommended. Snoopy wrote:

Get a scanner and listen to atc for a few weeks during home office (maybe you have an airport nearby)?
always learning
LO__, Austria
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